is also known as the Great Experiment, the Volstead Act, the 18th amendment to the American Constitution. All of this and
much, much more was focused recently in a 3 hour television special on the Arts and Entertainment channel that examined the
American period of the late 1800's through the Great Depression and on to Franklin Roosevelt's election in the late 1930's from
the perspective of the forces devoted to and against changing America's drinking habits.
The special footage and unique perspective on familiar subjects such as women's suffrage, the rise of gangster power, the
growth of the liquor industry, as well as film clips of famous characters like Carrie Nation, Billy Sunday, Elliot Ness and others
makes the video or the next rerun of the program well worth looking for. Struck as I was by the obvious need for some sort of
social reform connected with families and alcohol in the late 1800's and the monster of criminal activity that the choice of
national prohibition of alcohol produced, I was even more amazed to observe once again the near absence of reporting on the
effects of Prohibition on the American wine industry.
The most common view of Prohibition is the one which focuses on the liquor or spirits industry and the brewing industry. As
Prohibition took hold these were the large, multinational businesses that were most dramatically effected and which, in the end,
most dramatically rebounded to huge profits and success.
I think that, without a doubt, America's thirst for the cocktail and the beer mug were the strongest. Wine producers and grape
growers were never as organized, never as well financed and in that period never as popular beyond the dinner table. It was the
booze and the beer that kept saloons and night clubs swinging, although they remained separate. Interestingly, when the beer
producers began to see that Prohibition might really take hold, they were resistant to join the spirits business and collectively
fight the anti-alcohol forces. Beer drinkers and beer producers were largely immigrants from beer and wine drinking cultures
that saw their libations as a "food" which was integral to their social and family life, not as a cocktail. This same concept of wine
as a food is promoted today, although more forcefully, by the American wine industry in an effort to separate it from liquor and
to thwart the modern day anti-alcohol interests.
So what did happen to America's wine culture during this period? According to Leon Adams, an author and the founder of
America's Wine Institute and Wine Advisory Board, before 1900 winegrowing was a "full-grown, proud American industry.
The brands of leading California, New York, Ohio, Missouri, and New Jersey wineries were competing with European vintages
on many of the best restaurant wine lists ....... and were being exported regularly to England, Germany, Canada, Mexico,
Central America, Australia, and the Orient, in direct competition with the wines of Europe." In addition wine growing enterprises
could be found in Georgia, Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Virginia, Massachusetts, Mississippi,
New Mexico and Tennessee..
Early prohibitionist's drew a distinction between whiskey and wine and few wine growers believed that prohibition would affect
them as they also opposed the drinking of whiskey. But, preceding national prohibition, entire states across the American Bible
Belt went "dry" such as Kansas, Iowa, Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and
Virginia. The wineries in those states lost their local markets, even though they were still allowed to sell outside the "dry" state,
and were quickly strangled out of existence with most of their vineyards allowed to decline and eventually die.
Vintners in the "dry" states continued and couldn't see the impending disaster of Prohibition, as wine shortages, due to vineyard
disease problems (phylloxera), made their business look good. Meanwhile, the "drys" were demanding that the mention of wine
be removed from school and college texts, and from the United States Pharmacopoeia and attempted to prove that the wine
praised in the Bible was really unfermented grape juice. In 1919, the "drys" established Wartime Prohibition (WW I) and
implemented the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead National Prohibition Act in 1920.
What happened next was unexpected, with some growers pulling out vineyards only to replant them, as they discovered an
obscure provision in the Volstead Act- Section 29 that permitted a household to make "nonintoxicating cider and fruit juices
exclusively for use in the home" up to 200 gallons. In 1920 the peddling of "juice grapes" began in New York and Boston and
spread to other big cities where families would turn their "juice grapes" into wine in their own cellars. The growers experienced a
"bonanza" as grape prices jumped by as much as ten times. A shortage of "juice" grapes developed which set off a rush of new
plantings across the country. Typical of the wine industry known for its boom and bust cycles, this ultimately produced a market
flooded with grapes and the market collapsed in 1925, driving prices down well below their original value.
More than a hundred wineries in California, New Jersey, Ohio and Missouri survived the "dry" laws. Throughout Prohibition
they legally made sacramental wines and champagnes for the clergy, medicinal wines for sale by druggists on prescription of a
doctor, medicated wine tonics which required no prescription, salted wines for cooking (salted to make them undrinkable), and
grape juice both fresh and condensed as a concentrate, which could be made to ferment with an accompanying yeast tablet. Of
the sacramental wines , the greatest volume was sold through rabbis, because the Jewish faith requires the religious use of wine
in the home. Anybody could call himself a rabbi and get a permit to buy wine legally, merely by presenting a list of his
congregation which apparently came from telephone books and other likely sources.
Some wineries profited from making medicinal tonics and sacramental wines but when Prohibition was repealed after 13 years,
most of the remnants of the wine industry was in a shambles. Some, rushing to profit from the repeal, pushed wine made in poor
equipment and bad cooperage into the marketplace, tarnishing their reputation and further destroying their consumer base.
Many of the wine grape varieties had been replanted to grapes that yielded juice and had thick skins for shipping across the
country, which resulted in mediocre wines. A whole generation raised on bathtub gin and moonshine simply didn't understand
wine. In addition, although the Eighteenth Amendment had been repealed, large areas of the United States remained legally
"dry" as each state had the right to determine whether to continue or not. Mississippi, the last state to renounce Prohibition, did
so in 1966, Oklahoma in 1959 and Kansas in 1948. Many towns and school districts continued to bar the sale of wine after the
states rescinded their control.
For Americans, the real loss was that of a culture of wine and a way of life for those that chose or inherited it from their
forefathers. The continuity and development of quality that would have come from a national wine industry was nearly wiped
out. The improvement in wine styles that would have come naturally from competing in the International wine market was lost.
Most importantly the cultivation and maintenance of a people who understood wine as a healthy and pleasant adjunct to living,
who helped weave it into the nation's way of life, were instead stigmatized as "winos" or "sophisticates", either class generally
out of touch with the average wine drinker.
The vitality of today's wine business continues to put distance between the unfortunate consequences of Prohibition and the
burgeoning, modern wine culture, yet there remains a legacy. If you should ever decide to enter the wine business and own a
winery or a wine shop, you'll quickly find how closely the Federal and state government regulates and taxes, but that's a story
for another time. Enjoy your glass of wine tonight, life for the American wine drinker has never been so good.
