Looking backward into the future - grape industry during the 1920s

The April, 1927 edition of the California Grape Grower (Wines & Vines after Repeal), features a front page article, "Advertising California's Juice Grape Varieties." The thrust of the article was, obviously, to advertise grapes, particularly raisins and raisin grapes. It was a great idea because the awesome surplus of raisin grapes was tearing down the whole grape market. If we could have stimulated the demand for raisins, we could have removed some or all such surplus, giving the packer and grower a bit more money, a part of which could have been used to "pull" X acreage of grapes, advertise increasingly the health facets of raisins and all in all made for us a healthy industry. But we had no money. The idea of a California marketing order to assess growers for money to pay for advertising seemed to generate little interest, probably because of grower distrust of advertising men and their ilk.

"One of the big agricultural events will be the eighteenth annual picnic day at the University Farm at Davis." As far as I know, this event still continues at the same place now known as U.C., Davis.

"Grape Clearing House Plan." This was a state-sponsored plan to make an orderly and systematic distribution of grapes and deciduous fruit in car lots to other states.

1920s humor - "Did you try any of that there persimmon wine you made?" "Yep and the darn stuff puckered up the bottles so I couldn't pour it out." Now I see why we have laff tracks (records).

"Sour Grapes", is about how the Assn. Against the Prohibition Amendment accused California grape growers with playing politics with the Anti-Saloon League (to retain Prohibition) to keep receiving the high prices for juice grapes. The Assn. quotes: "The grower is selling his wine grapes at $50 to $60 a ton under prohibition, whereas 10 dollars a ton was a fair price before prohibition." Why this charge was made, I guess we'll never know, but one interesting fact is that many of the Central Valley Thompson growers were very Dry. They were forced to ship fresh instead of drying, because of market conditions. Many of these growers may have contributed to the Anti-Saloon League and so have caused a certain amount of confusion in the minds of the above Wet association.

"Encouraging Pure Fruit Beverages" is a title for a short article on the states' effort to promote pure fruit beverages to capture some of the huge and growing soda pop market. Sadly, because of cost and the lack of a big "health food" atmosphere, these products didn't take off until the current era. Now with the shortage of grapes we may lose that market and have to start all over again.

"State's (1926) Wine Output Decreasing". But there is an interesting statistic hidden in this announcement: "There are on hand today (about) 12 million gallons of dry wine and 6.7 millions of sweet wine." So you see, during prohibition, most winemen thought that we would enter Repeal with the same appetite for table wines that existed before prohibition. Boy, were we surprised.

And so the industry rolled along oblivious to the coming market conditions. More and more Thompsons and other white table grapes were being shipped fresh due to the surplus of raisins. Soon such shipments would tend to "break the market" as more and more home wine-makers found that they could stretch their crush of Alicantes with ever-cheaper Thompsons.

The April, 1947 edition is the first "statistical issue." This, in my opinion, is a reflection of the huge glut of unwanted wines in the hands of retailers and wholesalers, which brought to the minds of most winemen the need for more statistics. If we had known how much wine was being sold via tie-in sales and / or how much wine was in the hands of the trade, we may have been able to avoid the terrible depression of the '40s and '50s.

The worrisome articles in the "Comments on the News" page reflect vaguely the depression of the industry. Yet, it's a fat issue - 122 pages.

Wonderful ole' Harry Baccigaluppi gave a speech before the WSWA (Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America) saying that "there will be no runaway price war." In a way I guess he was right. The depressed price levels continued for a few more years!

The pictures, however, from the above event are worth the price of the mag, even though most are of wholesalers! It is good though, to see such as Harry Baccigaluppi, John Bardenheier and Harry Caddow, so sleek-cheeked and dark-haired.

Frank Schoonmaker writes a fine article on the French Burgundy district. Surprise to me - the Gamay is allowed to be used in some French burgundies. Although Schoonmaker was no hero to me, in his days as a touter of foreign wine and denigrator of the American product, he gives a "recipe" for building a successful premium wine industry in the U.S. Following these directions, we have what we have today - world-wide recognition of our vintages.

Another fine article is titled "The First California Wines" by Irving McKee. It's well worth reading.

"W.A. Taylor Men Visit Renault", says the headline and behind the men is the giant Renault champagne bottle that graced our roadsides for a few years.

"W.M. Crawford (of Gallo) Heads Committee", (the Technical Advisory Committee) with Dale Mills (of B. Cribari & Sons).

And, lo and behold, on the inside back cover is a full-page ad for Cella Vineyards which was about to come out with Bravo Wines - "The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened to a Grape". What a slogan!

However, there wasn't much room for new brands in those days. The industry was shrinking, not growing, and so Bravo "lasted quick" and the rest of the industry slogged along as best it could.

In the April, 1967 issue, Irv Marcus editorializes on the health aspects of wine. This well before the feds could admit to any benefits for our beverage. He says, "as modern doctors delve deeper into the use of wine, they are finding a constantly widening area of illnesses in which this beverage is an increasingly valuable medical tool." Quite a prophet. I only wish he were alive today to see what the Mendavis and DeLucas of this wine world have done to carry the ball. And that goes doubly for my dad, who was a great advocate of wine for health.

There are many "personals" (of people and companies) from around the industry in this issue but of particular interest are the ones announcing the deaths of two notables - Ed Wootton of Wine Institute's Washington bureau and Abe Silk, well-known wine broker who represented the Eastern wine bottlers for many years and with whom I worked very closely.

Despite the strong prices for wine, there still was much apprehension about the rather large surplus of wine. Thus, the various programs to limit sales and/or production were still being discussed. I believe that much of the concern was due to habit. But also the steady decline of dessert wine sales (from a peak of 95 million gallons in 1956 to about 77 millions in 1966) was of great concern, especially to those who specialized in its production. But, as I recall, the industry was doing quite well.

The rest of the issue is a statistical review of which I presume little is of current appeal. One item, however, drew my attention and that is the report on vermouth. Mysteriously to me, as I have said before, this item was apparently of considerable interest to many in the industry. 1946 saw the consumption of about 3 million gallons of American vermouth in the U.S., up from about 700,000 gallons in 1940 and about where it is today.

"Movie Star Visits Beringer Caves". And there is cousin Fred Abruzzini, winery manager, with "Eugene Palette, noted movie actor." I don't know how Fred did it but he sure dragged in the film people, and started the whole Napa Valley wine country hoopla.

"North Coast Growers Assn. Holds Meeting" says headline. Note that we were still using the term "North Coast" for the counties north of San Francisco. The typical complaint in those days was the cost/price squeeze. We all had it, due mostly to the Johnson inflation wherein he told us we could have "guns and butter". Also, a major reason for this tremendous inflation was the number of women that entered the job market to try to bridge the gap between income and outgo. As I remember, it was a tough time for all of us.

Again, a very good account of the California wine industry of the 1880s was given by a Mr. Hardy.

The industry was about to "boom" but because we could not yet catch up with inflation, most of us were not quite aware of the potential for good times, but we did get there in a few years.

The April, 1987 issue is devoted to wine coolers. Seems not too long ago that many of us looked forward to this product as a permanent and significant part of our industry.

"Bully Hill Booming?" I hope so. Walter Taylor and I have one agreement in common and that is his belief and statement, "Hybrid grapes have a tremendous future." Of course, that was before we had the chemicals and know-how to grow vinifera in the more cozy climate of Long Island and the Hudson River Valley. Nonetheless, I should think that the Finger Lakes and the Ohio River Valley should be able, eventually, to do big things with some of the hybrids, and if they are careful, with a few vinifera.

"Blue Nun Gold made its American debut." Boy, do I miss those wonderful funny Blue Nun commercials.

"Weibel Stamps Out Snobs". A good and amusing PR campaign.

"New Texas Winery" called Preston Trail Winery at Gunter, Texas. Wonder how they're doing?

Quoth Hiaring Jr. in Wise & Otherwise, "Happy Birthday to Beaulieu Vineyard, which marked the 50th anniversary of producing its Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon." Justifiably, a well-honored wine, but I remember it was marketed then (1936) as a "Claret" in large type with a line underneath saying something like "made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon grapes." Nothing wrong with that but it does bring back memories of the era when varietal wines were almost completely unknown.

"NABCA is 50" says headline; I thought the National Alcoholic Beverage Control Association would have collapsed by now but it's still strong, I'm told.

"The potstill revolution" is all about the new generation of potstill equipment and techniques coming to California. Ole' buddy, Eli Skofis, did much work on this. Hope he can see the day when it bears fruit generously, but with brown goods down, it could be a struggle.

No Surprise, Gallo is #1 on list of brandymakers.

"Sherry: all is far from well". "Since 1978-79, the sherry market has remained static." And if true, lucky they are, as I remember saying at the time. However, the table wines of Spain have been making quite a bit of progress quality-wise and I'm sure this must be helping the overall problem.

"It's coming up Pastel at Mirassou". That is Dan Mirassou's baby wine/juice blend christened "Pastel". However, as with most of these innovative blends, it just wasn't generating enough volume to continue. Dan's office said that it was discontinued in '89.

"Robert Mondavi Is International With Cabernet Futures Program". The winery's plan is to sell a portion of their reserve wines to wholesalers at about 28% less than the asking price when the wines are released two years later. Wonder how it succeeded? Well, Michael M. says that the program has been going very well and they plan to continue it indefinitely."

There was much discussion of the proposed grower/vintner marketing order, but it was a rather futile try.

Meanwhile, the industry was starting to really struggle with some severe price cutting due to a general recession and the lessening of wine consumption due mainly to health concerns. Fortunately, the latter was promptly addressed by Wine Institute. Gradually, people began to realize that winemakers did not grow horns and the product was quite acceptable in moderation. Indeed, we began to see data that it was positively healthful.

This latter, plus the quality of our product, seems to assure a fine future for our vintners and growers. Let's not mess it up with some silly moves like "stretching quality" during these days of shortage. We did this during the war, you know.

TRAVEL NOTES: Wandering down the California coast, to check the new (to me) wine counties, we came across Mosby's winery and their Pinot grigio. Magnificent. If ever a wine could beat out Chardonnay, it would be this one. Crisp, flavorful and aromatic, it's a natural. Except it may be too hard for Americans to pronounce!

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