Look back to the future

The California Grower (now Wines & Vines) has "stuffed" its April, 1930 issue with new and important details of the Federal Farm Board Program. I had, and have, no knowledge of this board but from what I read, it seems to be a sensible rescue program for a very serious and frightening situation. Essentially, as I understand it, the program will "pick-up" any grapes that cannot be sold through normal market channels and convert them into non-competing by-products. Seems sensible and should provide immediate relief for all members of the industry. But did it pass? I don't know.

"Bottled Grape Juice of Fresh Grape Flavor", by W.V. Cruess and H.B. Farley of the Fruit Products Laboratory, University of California. But of course, that (vinifera flavor) is exactly what the Eastern consumer (the only one of importance in those days) didn't want. To them and their kids--the all important consumer--grape juice meant CONCORD and Welch had a headlock on this product.

"The Mediterranean Fruit Fly Question. On April 10, 1929, first positive evidence was found that this fly was established within the territorial limits of the United States." This was a very alarming piece of knowledge as the entire fruit crops of Florida and California were in danger. Here, apparently, was the beginning of the establishment of California fruit inspection stations at its borders.

By this time our Fresno winery--Las Palmas, now Gallo's--was in full swing, producing concentrated grape juice. So I suppose that we were much less dependent upon the fresh fruit market. Nonetheless business was off and my folks were mighty worried.

The April, 1950 edition of Wines & Vines was the statistical issue but the "hot" news was the resurgence of the bulk dessert wine market. For many of us this was a salvation but as I remember it didn't last long.

Also, this issue is full of nostalgic ads. A full-page ad for Di Giorgio Wine Company's newly revamped 9,500,000 gallons winery. A full-page for Petri Wines, Dodge Corks, Glass Containers, Windeler Redwood Tanks, Knox Glass, Latchford-Marble Glass Co., California Growers Wineries, Northern Glass Co., Hazel-Atlas Glass Co., Consolidated Lithographing Corporation, North American Car Corporation, C.D.L.X. Tank Cars, Armstrong Metal Caps, Oscar Krenz Incorporated, Alcoa Closures, Celons, Mundet Cork Closures, Fruit Industries, Healdsburg Machine Shop, California Products Company, Bis-Kay California Wines (read Margo Wine Co. of Philly), Crown Screw Caps, Mailler Searles, Inc., Valley Foundry & Machine Works, Inc., Du Pont Cel-O-Seal, Duraglas, plus a couple of small ads, especially nostalgic to me, of and by Max Bartholomew and another one by E.K. Metzner Co. And even more--with which I won't bore you.

This was an era (the '50s) when much new knowledge was beginning to be applied to the industry. The price of wine was beginning to give us a few extra dollars to spend on equipment and expert manpower. Thus exciting new ideas that developed experimentally since the war could begin to be applied practically. Cold fermentation, stainless steel wine contact surfaces, "sterile bottling", stainless steel storage tanks and many more, were all beginning to be used. And heck, things were beginning to look up--a bit.

In the April 1970 W & V, editor Irving Marcus has pulled a "dirty" trick. In December 1944, he interviewed several of the wine big-wigs as to their predictions of the industry at the close of 1964. Of course, everyone touted their own products; e.g. Tony Korbel, looked for "steady gains" in champagne and Bernard Davitto (the 'D' in 'G&D') foresaw a "continuing uptrend" in vermouth. And for this they must be forgiven; right? But that guy Edmund Rossi, president of Italian Swiss Colony, said, "We will consume more table wine than sweet wine" and "table wines will become the backbone of the industry." As Marcus pointed out, this at a time when you could have gotten 20 to one odds from wine men that "it couldn't happen here." This has got to be one of the great forecasts of the industry. Sorry we can't interview him now.

"First Place in Oregon Sales" Bro. Gregory of Mont La Salle Vineyards rewards Nels Hinton of Portland for achieving first place in dessert wine sales for The Christian Bothers. A typo?

"Coronet Brandy Sales Up."

"Almaden Pushes Rose Sales Up."

"San Martin Enters Cold Duck Derby."

"Taylor 'Uncomplicated' Ad Wins" as being among the 400 best read ads of 1968". Whatever that means.

"Widmer Sales up 20%."

"Canandaigua Labels Win" as outstanding examples of printing in 1970.

We see that old business associates are in the news; "Hubert Mettler succeeds (Art) Handel as Guild's chairman," with R.M. Ivie as president.

"Guild Poster Wins Public raves in New York City". I had recently left Guild and was working in NYC. I was delighted with art work and stunned by the response to this poster. It was for Famiglia Cribari, the brand that I had worked so very hard to promote. As a Cribari, people kept coming up to me to shower me with praise. Too bad, but I had nothing to do with it.

As often said before, the '70s were the days of the emergence of wine people into the world of admiration, respect and interest. To support my contention, the Wise & Otherwise column reports that "at least three magazines with national circulation have come out with wine pieces". Such publicity was unprecedented. This, plus the arrival of the Montana-Walsh-Young 49er football team gave me lots to cheer for!

The April, 1990, issue opens on a bit of sadness. "Leon Adams Moves" says the first page. I visited him on "small" business as he started to pack and a depressing sight it was. He was 85 and the move was shaking him up quite a bit. After all, he had been in his then-current apartment for 30 years or so. Tough.

"Jack Cakebread is the new president of Napa Vintners", succeeding Richard Maher.

"Lee Beadles was elected president of Kansas Grape Growers". Seems only yesterday that Kansas was as dry as a bone (for a teetotaler--but almost anything could be arranged).

I think we "gotta" lay it on Leon Adams for much of this liberation of the wine industry, especially in the broad Midwest. His promotion of small in-state farm-wineries helped show people that winemakers and winery owners did not sprout horns. Let us hope that there is or will be someone out there to take up Leon's cudgel and carrot.

"Winemakers prepared. Virginia wines thrive through hurricanes, rain and spring freeze." So said Joachim Hollerith of Prince Michel Vineyards. Being raised in Germany's Palatinare and educated at Geisenheim, he has a good background to help with East Coast weather. According to W&V, Lord Delaware was the first to introduce vinifera to North America in 1619. Although many others tried, including Thomas Jefferson, all failed because of the low temperatures, humid weather and phylloxera. Supposedly such are all under control these days with our new knowledge. But how about the short growing season?

"No-alcohol wines are booming--a reduced alcohol wine is next." Well, I don't see it and didn't see it, much as I wanted to see it. In our limited and non-scientific testing of our non-alcoholic wines at Guild, I found that there was much interest in these wines (legally are they wines?). Especially for ladies' lunches at top restaurants. But they never seemed to catch on as well as I think they should. Apparently one glass or so and most patrons give up on the product. The main reason, I believe is that de-alcoholized wines lose too much of their flavor and aroma. They tend to taste to much like weak, sour lemonade. As compared to "near" beer, which can taste quite good especially if one pays a premium price. Interestingly, I saw a TV ad for O'Doul's (de-alcoholized beer from Budweiser). It's the first I've seen for this product. While I think that we can develop new techniques for removing most if not all the ethanol from wine without losing so much of the other flavorful ingredients, I don't have much conf idence in the future of 0.5% wine but perhaps a 5.0%, very slightly sweet (around 1.5% R.S.) would do the trick. The opportunity is, that as we get older we seem to be able to handle less and less ethanol and yet we do enjoy the taste. And the market for old people is growing steadily.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: I see where the solid and much honored Parducci Winery has come out with a new line of varietals under the "Sketch Book" label. Great and innovative designs with some very fine (and I think, a bit expensive) wines. But it does continue the trend of substituting (if that's the word) Anglo-Saxon brand names for the old Mediterranean (if that's the word) brands, e.g. Italian Swiss, Franzia, Cribari, etc. Move over, John.

"Wholesaler is the weak link in wine distribution", says Louis Gomberg. "Lucky Lou" also sez, "it's the wholesaler who often makes the difference between success and failure...in a brand". Well, of course, he is right but it is a rather complex problem confounded by the fact that most wholesalers in those days were primarily whiskey wholesalers and much beholden to the spirits producer. And we could go on and on.

And in the "Back Page" by Larry Walker, we read about the suggestion of Representative Kika de la Garza of Texas, chairman of the House Agricultural Committee. He called for the wine industry to be taken under the wing of the Department of Agriculture. "American wine producers would benefit from emphasizing wine as food," declared the Congressman. As Larry said, "sounds better than wine and machine guns". Why not, say I, but then we don't know what that would entail. "The enemy we know is easier to deal with than the enemy we don't know". And "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". Nonetheless, methinks it would be fascinating to have a committee study a "proforma" industry under the USDA vs. current 'bomb and machine gun' agency.

Meanwhile, back on the vineyard, all seemed to be serene as the industry rolled merrily along.

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