#32 The History of Wine Part 5 of ? (The “Not Cliff’s But Squire’s Notes” Version)

November 2023

As you are reading this November 1, we should be just about wrapping up our 36th harvest here at GlenLyon (harvest was very late this year).  Since I must submit each article two weeks prior to printing (and since I don’t have a crystal ball) I can’t really talk about how harvest 2023 went…so you’ll have to wait until the December issue for that news…. 

Back to history!

In 1857, Agoston Haraszthy had created Sonoma’s magnificent Buena Vista Winery and by 1880 was producing 500,000 gallons of wine per year.  His estate, at the time, was the largest wine estate in the world dedicated to growing wine grapes and producing wine.  He was truly a visionary and his contributions to early California wine were enormous.  Haraszthy quickly became known (to this day) as “The Father of California Viticulture”.  Quite frankly, it is an injustice to devote so little space to his contributions in the development of California viticulture and enology, but I encourage you to read about his fascinating life.   Google him!  And if you have not visited Buena Vista in the last few years, it has been lovingly restored and is, once again, a “do-not-miss” destination for wine enthusiasts!

Many immigrants with Haraszthy’s passion for wine followed him to California.  One friend was Jacob Gundlach who immigrated from Germany and found his way to Sonoma Valley in 1858, eventually partnering with his friend Charles Bundschu ten years later.  Two of their children married, Gundlach-Bundschu Winery was born and still thrives to this day!  Visit!  Charles Krug (today’s Krug Winery) from Prussia (now part of Germany) followed in 1861 and was one of the first wine pioneers to kick off the Napa wine industry.  Many others followed including Carl Wente, a German immigrant who began Wente Winery in Livermore Valley with both grape growing and wine making.  Some may have had dreams of a commercial operation, but there were multitudes of immigrants who made the journey to California, most of them simply establishing small, family grown vineyards to make wine for their own needs.

Buena Vista would have been a major player in today’s wine world had not one devastating event derailed Haraszthy’s efforts and put the brakes on grape growing and wine development, not only in California, but in much of the world.  That epic, late-19th Century disaster was due to a tiny insect and the world-wide impact was monstrous! 

Phylloxera!

In the mid 1800’s, even before Haraszthy imported European grape varieties, cuttings were traveling both ways between America and Europe for study and for possible commerce.  Unknown to anyone, a tiny insect which became known as Phylloxera vastatrix had attached itself to the roots of vines being shipped from America to France for study. America’s native varieties seemed to be mostly immune to these insects, but once these voracious vectors came in contact with the more delicate roots of the Vitis vinifera grape varieties of Europe, they began feasting in earnest, multiplying exponentially.  One decade later, this tiny imported, hitch-hiking bug from America that mostly lived in the soil, was destroying almost every vineyard it came in contact with.  The insect spread like wildfire and vineyards all over France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece and California, stretching as far as South Africa were dying.  Sonoma, of course, was not immune and shortly, Buena Vista was devastated and Haraszthy was bankrupt. Buena Vista fell into disrepair and by 1878 the huge estate that Agoston Haraszthy had lovingly created was divided and sold off to creditors.    

Phylloxera derailed Harasthy’s vision and his vast empire was gone, along with many of the renowned wine estates in the rest of the wine world.  Experiments to eliminate the bug were tried for years, including fire and flood, the use of various chemicals and poisons, but to no avail.  Vitis vinifera grapevines worldwide were either dying or dead, all due to this tiny insect.  The wine world was doomed!

The solution!

Just ten years after Buena Vista had been sold, a solution to the problem was found.  Scientists (and one particular horticulturalist from Denison, Texas, named Thomas Volney Munson) discovered they could graft the delicate European Vitis vinifera varieties onto the seemingly impervious native American rootstock with no flavor consequences.  Voila!  It worked!  The infected world, including California, replanted vineyards with these newly grafted grapevines.  The problem was solved and folks in Europe and California began, once again, to plant grapevines in abundance.  One benefit was that growers began to experiment and more carefully matched specific varieties to correct climate.  New ideas for trellising, pruning and spacing of vines flourished.  Folks worldwide were growing healthier and more balanced grapevines (thus making better wines) than ever before.  After the devastating plague of Phylloxera, the world of making fine wines was charging ahead full steam. 

And then, in America….

Prohibition!

Less than two decades after the recovery from Phylloxera, a terribly mis-guided social experiment called Prohibition was enacted by our United States Congress.  This 18th Amendment to our Constitution outlawed the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol (including wine) in America.  The Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919 and enforcement was rampant within a year. Wineries were shut down, barrels of wine were destroyed, vineyards were torn out and replanted (or not) to other crops.  With the stroke of a pen, vocations and families all over America, particularly in California, were wiped out.  To give you some idea of the scope of that devastation to the wine industry in America: just prior to prohibition there were 256 wineries in our tiny Sonoma.  Fifty years later in 1970 (long after Prohibition had been repealed) there were fewer than 200 wineries in the entire United States! Winemaking in America ground to a halt during those fourteen years of Prohibition and, as a result, wine consumption in America simply vanished.  Repeal finally happened in 1933, but not before the Amendment destroyed the wine industry in America.  More about “how we bounced back” in a future article!

Now go and pull the cork on that bottle of wine (you legally purchased) and raise a glass to the men and women in our Valley who worked very hard to fill your bottle with that wondrous elixer!  2023 marks Sonoma Valley’s 199th harvest of wine grapes!  Celebrate with us!

“Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”.   Benjamin Franklin