Looking backward into the future - Column

The March, 1924 cover story was a big "to-do" by E. M. Sheehan as to the evils of consignment "sales and shipments". No doubt that such evils existed, as I learned from my uncles' bitter stories. From what I could gather, somewhere about 10 to 20% of grapes shipped to Eastern markets were either not paid for or prices received were so low as to not cover the freight costs, or payment was made so late as to seriously handicap the shipper. Thus, Sheehan and my family as well as others, of course, turned more and more to F.O.B. sales.

Naturally, in many cases, the grower had to share some, if not all the blame, in that many shippers tried to sell junk and even went so far as to cover junk grapes with good stuff.

The big news seems to be the threat of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly. It had already become established in all of the Hawaiian Islands and the scare was now in California and Florida. "So what else is new?"

Almost as an aside is the story by that great old viticulturalist cum vintner, Prof. Cruess. He says, "When we speak of the Almeria, we refer to the--crisp, firm fleshed, thick skinned, sweet, oval grape (which we know now as the Almeria). It is incorrectly spoken of as the 'Malaga'; the real Malaga is the Muscatel, (our old friend, the Muscat). To the Almeria grower--this grape is known as the 'Legitima'". And if all this was not confusing enough, sometimes, apparently, the Almeria was referred to as the 'Castizas'!

Which reminds me, we had about 20 acres of Almeria in our Delano vineyard. On arbors. We crushed them all. It was a shame to me but my uncles would not hear of shipping them. Scars from the above experiences, no doubt.

More breast-beating over prohibition. This time it was how President Wilson not only vetoed the Volstead amendment but tried to put a Wet plank in the 1922 (?) Democratic Convention. But the Drys in the Demo Party, (mostly Southerners) would not hear of it.

None-the-less the Demos always had more Wets in their party than the Republicans.

"LATE LODI GRAPES" itemizes the editorial. Seems as though two firms, Ashley & Brown plus a J. Ruscom, are shipping a car a day (remember--this is March) of Almerias and Emperors out of cold storage. The grapes were packed with redwood sawdust in 28 lb. drums and recent "inspection showed them to be keeping nicely".

A new idea and one that seemed to work. Never heard about this before. It was an experiment and I wonder how it turned out?

The Wets were really beginning to fight back with "monster meetings". This time it was 12,000 at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. Their target was to liberalize the Volstead Act. Surprisingly, according to The California Grape Grower (forerunner of Wines & Vines.), the meeting received little notice from the press. The wet issue was still too hot for much of the press to handle. The Drys, being tightly organized, would scream and holler while the silent majority stood looking around; the latter still had their hoarded beverages.

Even the physicians caved in; all reference to wine, whiskey and beer was removed from the pharmacopoeia.

Probably, one of the big problems that the Wets had in those days, was the lack of a truly positive program to counter the propaganda of the Drys. For the latter, the issue was simple; drunkenness caused many ills and so the cure was to eliminate alcohol. Remember, among most Drys, there was no such thing as social drinking nor any concept of wine with food. About the best that Wets could counter with was something like: the 18th Amendment violates our individual rights; or, you passed the law while most of our young male voters were away. Another one was the loss of tax money. Not the greatest stuff on which to build a counter-offensive, seemingly. That is, until the depression hit--some six years off in the distance.

Of scientific evidence and/or data, neither side had any.

In its one-third page ad, Colonial Grape Products Company of California, again advises that they are Growers and Shippers of Green Grapes. Maybe that is why many table grape shippers continued to send green, i.e. unripe, to market?

1924 was looking to be a dry (i.e. low rainfall year.)

As for B. Cribari & Sons, Uncle Fiore was hot on the trail of a way and a plant to concentrate grape juice. Apparently he was anticipating the sale of our dairy.

Me? I was just beginning to remember outstanding events. This year it was the interminable trips to Hazlet, N.J., from Manhattan every weekend. For me it wasn't too bad as this constituted our Sunday outing, but for my mom, I guess, it was a bit of torture. Hazlet was the location of our new winery and juice plant. It was to here that our Uncle Tony would be sent whenever he sold the Millbrae dairy (and he thought he was getting a promotion?)

The March, 1944 edition was fairly boring but it did have some terrific pictures of old timers such as B.C. 'Larry' Solari, A. Setrakian, L. K. Marshall, Ed Rossi, Lee Jones, Herman Wente, Jeff Peyser, H. A. Caddow, B. B. "Burt" Turner, C. H. "Duke" Craig and last, but not least, that quintessential salesman and my good buddy, Elmer Murray of O-I Glass. All attending the W.I. meeting.

The "Commenting on the News" section discusses the labor shortage, particularly farm labor and most especially the conditions in the west and south-west, where the problem was solved by the use of Mexican nationals. The beginning of the influx!

Also, we see that the W.P.B. (War Production Board) is considering permitting the limited manufacturing of wine bottling equipment. The reason is "that hitherto critical materials are now more readily at hand" for civilian use. Wonder who they hired to write such gobblegook?

However the W.F.A. (War Food Administration) sent a letter to all wineries stating and explaining the urgent need for tartrates. They emphasized that the recovery of this chemical from the wine industry was only about 1/5 of the theoretical amount and won't you please try harder! Besides being used for a leavening agent, tartrates were used in munitions (gun-powder) manufacturing.

The WPB began to determine the feasibility of using wheat to produce alcohol, employing the west coast wineries for this purpose. One can see how the American farmer responded to the call for more food. In two years they were producing enough wheat to feed the world and use the rest to produce (I presume) artificial rubber.

K. Arakalian, president of the Madera Winery (Mission Bell brand), set up a $100,000 charitable trust. Mission Bell was one of the Big 4 wine brands before the war along with Roma, I.S.C. and Petri. But my real interest in the article is that in 1919, he purchased the vineyards and winery of I.S.C. at Madera. In about 1960 or so, Heublein, DBA I.S.C., purchased the same property, apparently, and operate it currently. Interesting, no?

The Alien Property Custodian (of the Federal Government) had seized 52% of the stock of the American Wine Co. It had been determined that these shares were owned by enemy aliens, i.e. Nazi Germans. Specifically, Von Ribbentrop, the foreign minister. Or so I have always understood. These shares were sold at auction. The principal product was Cook's American Champagne. Mssrs. Lentz and Waldenberg were the purchasers. Eventually Rosensteil, DBA Schenley Distillers, acquired the company. Poetic justice; all were Jewish.

The Selective Service announced that draft boards must make needs more rigid (I presume they meant more thorough) investigations of agricultural deferments. To qualify for such deferments, a worker must be "responsible for 16 war units"! I won't bore you with a description of the details of a war unit.

George R. Reilly (California Board of Equalization) announced that he would suspend the permit of any retailer selling licensed beverages to minors. Boy, that was a tough act. Having returned to live in California in '41, I was surprised to find how easily it was for a minor to purchase alcoholic beverages both on sale and off. With so many minors in uniform, and especially so many shipping out of the major California ports, there was much sympathy for the military. But Reilly must have done good because when I returned from overseas, one could not take the elevator to the Top Of The Mark (hotel) unless one had proof of age. The "Top" was and is a famous and elegant cocktail lounge. Indeed, they turned away gray-haired, well-dressed ladies, much to the consternation of all. George was a long-term and very popular politician of the old school and at this time he was virtual leader of the Board of Equalization--a sales tax collecting bureau. So what was he doing policing bars? I don't know and neither did much of the population; the duty was turned over to the ABC some years later. I guess this police work made as much sense as the BATF having control over guns and civilian insurrectionists.

And a surprise to me; business neighbors Felix Butte and Andy Perenchio purchased the Cordelia Winery from Joe "Lothario" Brocia.

It was about this time that Uncle Tony--now nicely ensconced in our dad's old office in NYC (no cows to milk and no cars to unload) had secured a contract to bottle sparkling burgundy under a well-known French label. The only problem was that we didn't have the extra capacity. This was solved by buying four surplus torpedo tubes from the government. Cousin Ted (my old champagne-making buddy) converted them into stainless steel charmat tanks. And to think that just a year or so earlier our old coated tanks had become so worn that they had to be patched after each batch. As to stainless steel--might as well wish for the moon, until the war was over.

But it was a screwy business year. My mom wrote and said that our uncles were considering crushing only our own grapes and it was getting to be too much hassle to try to buy grapes. Perhaps it would be better to buy what wine we would need. A bit startling but I had even more serious matters on my mind.

Besides, our molasses distilling contract with the government was yielding pleasant profits, something I was only vaguely aware of.

The war seemed to be going well and we kept getting little glimpses of the not-so-distant victory by stories such as the above. But not many of us felt that V-E Day and then V-J Day were only 17 months away.

Some interesting old names from 1965: Joe Gazzara of Crest View, Paul Huber of Gallo, Gordon Bordson, of CVA, John Paul and Evins Naman, all became officers of the San Joaquin Wine Growers Assn. with Keith Nylander retiring. And Frank Caffarelli of Diamond National, (supplier of our old "olive oil" Famiglia Cribari label) with Joe Pito of Ball Bros. Glass becoming chairman of the W.I. Champagne Reception. Plus Fritz Kyer moves from the Californian Hotel in Fresno to the Del Webb Center. The Californian was THE center of the California Dessert Wine Industry for many years; now it's a retirement home, I'm told. Ed Rossi, Jr. is elected president of the Sonoma Wine Growers, succeeding John Pedroncelli.

Lots of Marketing Order news: an Order for rain-damaged raisins was in the works--slowly; the Federal Raisin Marketing Order was up for amendments; and the Grape Crush Order was to be terminated within four months (they were down to selling the office furniture).

It's hard to believe that we spent so much time and energy on Marketing Orders as a way to control surpluses. Times have changed so much that I'm sure most people in the industry today, have no real idea of what I am talking about. And to think all this time I was trying to sell concentrate as a substitute for cane and corn sugar without any results. Now I suppose, the demand for concentrate is what is propping-up the market for Central Valley grapes.

For awhile, in '93, I thought that we would see some activity in favor of marketing order for "North Coast" grapes, but the surplus never did develop.

In my opinion, it would be valuable to review the efforts to control surpluses via marketing orders, as a guide to the future.

For example, let's consider the situation when and if the market in "grapes for sugar" collapses (by reason of very low prices for foreign concentrates and juices). What can we do with the several hundred thousand tons of non-premium Valley varieties? Brrrrr!

In the March, '74 issue we learn that Paul Masson is building a new winery from the ground up in Madera, and Ted Yamada is the manager.

On the other hand, Almaden is buying the old Kingsburg winery. Let's see, this winery was probably built by Foley & Co. in the teens, purchased by L. M. Martini in the twenties, then sold to Central California Cellars, who passed it on to Roma, then to Guild and now to Almaden.

Wineries do change hands but they seem to stay wineries.

In New York State, Canandaigua Wine Company reports earnings of $1.78 per share for a total net of $1.56 million in '73 and "should do better in '74". In '92 the E.P.S. were about $1.20 and their net about $3.6 million. For '93, the net was about $5.6 million. Or so I am told.

In California Brookside Vineyard Co. promoted the Bianes and planned to open six new tasting rooms in California and one each in Arizona and Illinois. "Sic semper gloria."

Ole buddy Elie Skofis is reelected president of the San Joaquin Valley Wine Grocers Ass. with Mike Nury as veep, Jake Rheingans as treas. and Evins Naman as Sec.

The winner of this 1974 Merit Award of the-then American Society of Enology is Prof. Harold W. "Hod" Berg--one of the great U.C., Davis profs that were of tremendous help to our industry.

I often reminisce about the industry and its progress. I try to imagine how it would have been without U.C. Davis and more lately Fresno State University. It is impossible for me to make that scene; i.e., what the industry today would be if there had been no Viticultural Society back in the last century, and Berkeley-Davis faculty to get us started after Repeal and since. From being a defunct industry in 1933, we have become a world leader in production, marketing and advertising.

Unfortunately, Davis and Fresno both are short of the old "do-re-me". So whenever possible cast your financial eye toward Petrucci of Fresno and Linda Bisson, who now chairs (I hate that word, chairwoman is 'much more' better, say I) the Davis Dept. of Viticulture and Enology. They can always use your help.

This will help continue the recent advances in winemaking and grape growing so that we become a world wine power and leader in both everyday wines and Sunday super-premium vintages.

The March, 1984 issue opens with a smashingly great portrait of ole 'Lucky' Lou Gomberg--a fitting tribute to this lately-deceased, wonderful maven of our industry. Lou's pose is in a no-nonsense business suit together with a bottle and glass of champagne on the piano. Great shot. Together with a reprint of his fine talk at his WITS award dinner, it is a fine tribute, suitable for reprinting, I would think.

I suppose that if I had to pick out one salient point of Lou's speech, it was his conclusion that, "the industry has spent much of its time, money and effort over the past 50 years responding to expediency and catering to what proved to be largely temporary trade and consumer demands". Amen to that. However, when we consider the financial and educational level plus the cultural dislocation of most of the industry people (rather recent immigrants), I wonder if we had to do it all over again, if we could have done it much differently? Sure, if we had lots of investor dough, as did the whiskey and beer people and lots of American-born and educated people, things would have been different. But we didn't. My father and the Gallos all learned from free library books as to how to make wine and then, gradually, from reliable experts.

Rodney Strong gets his name on his B.W.

More by Ed Everett on selling to restaurants. A more difficult and frustrating job in the industry, they ain't. But those that have the key and stick-to-it-iveness have a pretty rewarding career; and it is a career. But then all selling is career, no?

Larry Walker joins W&V. Again lets give a big hand to the wine writers of the world for doing so much of our promoting and defending. Great gang.

Leroy Mettler and Ron Kent transferred the image of East-Side Winery to a fancy Oak Ridge Cellars. I suppose ORC is the last remaining co-op marketing bottled wine

What They Say:

Mark Twain (commented) on a new cultural phenomenon that was sweeping the United States in 1873. Tightly organized bands of women were gathering on the sidewalks outside of saloons and praying conspicuously, around the clock, until the saloon was forced out of business. Mark Twain noted that this activity was illegal and a nuisance. He also opined that the women were a bit credulous in attributing their success in closing bars to divine intervention. If God was shutting down the bars, he ventured, the ladies could just as well have done their praying at home or at church. From an article about Mark Twain and temperance by Bruce K. Alexander in the Moderation Reader, Jan/Feb 1994.

CURRENT RAMBLINGS: We see now in 1994 an industry in midst of change. The next few years will surely see a continuance of consolidation of companies both at the winery as well as the distributor level. My generation is at or past retirement. The new political winds blowing at and from the national capital, are having their counterpart in our industry. We must be prepared to face these new winds. The best way is to present a united front to the legislatures, invest in research so that not only our production methods, but also our political weapons are kept sharp, up-to-date and sophisticated. In the forefront are organizations such as Wine Institute, AWARE and the American Vintners Assn. As long as they don't squabble among themselves over petty and personal matters, they each have a place and a platform to promote our industry. As a matter of fact, it is mostly due to these people, I think, that we have these nice reports about health; such as-- "adults--who consumed ethanol were more resistant to--cold viruses than non-drinkers", or this other report (from W&V) written by an M.D.:--"there is a growing body of evidence indicating that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with health and longevity".

"Amongst the good things by God, on Man bestowed, By no means least, I count, the gift of wine."

Fortiguerra (unknown to me)

As punishment for various vile and unspeakable deeds, I was dispatched by an editor (not the mild-mannered Mr. Hiaring) to Wine America 94, held at the New York Hilton February 13-15. It was billed as the Third U.S. International Trade-Only Wine & Spirits Exposition.

The best part of the show was that I missed the first day (Sunday) because Kennedy Airport in New York was closed because of a blizzard and couldn't get there from here. After that it was all downhill. First of all, forget the U.S. part. There were no actual U.S. producers in sight, although there were a handful of U.S.-based importers with stands, as well as some U.S. publications. In fact, the show could have been billed as the Third Italian International Exposition, since more than half of the exhibitors were Italian. I was told that the Italians get a nice subsidy from the government to attend wine shows. Considering the weather in New York, I hope they got a bonus.

(I love to visit the Italian stands at international expos. You walk up and down the aisle, staring at the open bottles, glass in hand, while the Italian exhibitors chat with each other, far too involved in matey conversation to pay attention to a potential customer.)

After being ignored by the Italians for a bit, I went down to the Hilton bar, for a sandwich and a glass of wine. I found that the cheapest wine by the glass cost $2 more than the best bottle of beer in the house. I had a beer with my sandwich. Why people don't drink more wine. Example Number 1021.

When the show closed that afternoon, I found some suckers who offered to buy me a drink at the bar in the Warwick hotel, just across the way on 54th street. Been there before and like the Warwick (the Beatles stayed there in 1964 which means something to me, even if it doesn't to you) so it was with eager anticipation that we settled ourselves into a booth.

The waiter, a gruff old guy, stared at us for a moment as if we were health inspectors. Probably his feet hurt and his car had been stuck in a snowdrift for three days. He didn't need any geeks ordering wine by the glass.

"We got Chablis and Chardonnay," he said.

"Good," my companion answered. "But we rather wanted some red wine."

There was another long stare. Then, he turned and shouted across the room to the bartender: "We got any red wine? By the glass?"

Sure they did. The bartender believed it was from France. "Probably a burgundy," the waiter said, as if letting us in on some inside information.

"How about sparkling wine by the glass?" I asked.

"What's sparkling wine?"

(I am not making this up.)

"You know, champagne."

"Oh, that. Yeah, we got Domaine Chandon champagne and Mumm from France."

We promptly ordered a bottle of Chandon. It was a brut and quite good. It also cost $35. Nice markup. Why people don't drink more wine. Example Number 1022.

The next day, I managed to corner a cognac producer and asked how the show was going for him. He looked glumly down a near-empty aisle and shrugged.

"Americans only want to talk about price, not quality. They want to buy fine cognac for the price of a cheap brandy. It's all quick profits and nobody paying attention to the market down the road. Then they tell me they have to drive a bargain to keep their margins. They are hung up on those huge margins," he shook his head. "All they think about are margins, not the product or how they will sell the product." Example Number 1023.

Despite the seemingly sparse attendance, there were some bright spots. The South African stand seemed to be crowded. Apparently a lot of the trade is interested in the South African wines, which are beginning to come back into the U.S. after long absence.

There was also good traffic around the Black Sea Wine Company booth, which was offering premium wines from Bulgaria, selling in the $5 to $7 range. I tasted a Merlot that would knock the socks off many Californian Merlots, and $3-$6 cheaper. You could check out Black Sea yourself at 617-320-9494 in Dedham, Mass.

Another crowded stand was Nestor Imports, pouring a line of Greek wines from D. Kourtakis that were cheap and yummy. I was told that Nestor is planning a major west coast push. If you want a preview you could call them at 908-272-2060 in New Jersey. Check out the rose.

In general, importers who pay attention to the news, seem to believe that things will be looking up for them in the U.S. what with the new GATT agreement and an improving economy and many of them are looking beyond the east coast.

I managed to get a few Italians to talk and they believe the surge in Italian restaurants will help them out west. Fausto Tripodi, the sales manager for Vintripodi, a producer in Reggio Calabria with a nice line of inexpensive wines, believes that California could be his biggest market in the U.S.

"I find the Americans very ready for good quality wines at a good price. I am going to keep my margins low and hope my American distributors will pass the savings along."

You could fax Fausto at 0965 48438 if you are that kind of distributor. Tell him Billy Wayne sent you. You'll get a deal, for sure.

Other bites from the Big Apple: (Man, is that writing or what?)

New Yorkers are mad about Long Island Chardonnay. Can't get enough of it. But they are also beginning to notice wines from the Finger Lakes and the Hudson River Valley, beginning to realize that they have a wine heritage.

New Yorkers are also hungry for California Zinfandel and Syrah. I talked to one major distributor who said Californians are missing the boat by not showing more Zinfandel on the east coast.

"You've got something there that no one else in the world has. You should be running with it like crazy. If anybody shows me another bleeping Chardonnay, I'm going to throw them out the door. Bring me Zinfandel."

You listening?

Finally, I would like to thank the fine folks at Barefoot Cellars for the really nifty t-shirt. How did you know my size? It seems I said a good word about Barefoot Cellars in the February issue, and Randy Arnold, a fine upstanding person, sent me t-shirt and a pitch for the winery's clean water campaign.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Hiaring Company
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