Look back to the future

Wines & Vines, April, 2003 by Al Cribari

We start this column with 1934, as we have lost the bound issues of 1933. Sorry. The April, 1934 edition of the California Grape Grower (now Wines & Vines) has on its cover a large picture of Tinta Cao, one of the leading grape varieties used for the production of premium California port and, of course, Portuguese porto. I was surprised to see this variety so prominently displayed: I, myself, never heard of this grape until the '60s.

Anyway, it is a fine way to introduce the April number, as it is the "Port Edition." Mr. E.M. Sheehan, whom you may remember as the organizer and president of the juice grape selling organization in the early '20s, is the author of an article titled, "California Port Wine." From this, we draw two interesting statistics. One is that in pre-Prohibition California, port production amounted to about half of the total dessert wine produced, and the other is to remind us that an excise tax was due and payable on each gallon of brandy at the time it was used to fortify wines. This was a terrible financial burden on our industry, since dessert wine sales turned out to be 80% of the industry's sales.

Oh, yes, the price of a single copy of the California Grape Grower was 15 cents.

"Wine Types and Brand Names," by H. E Stoll, Jr., opens up the still familiar discussion of what names to use to designate wines produced in California. The hue and cry of foreigners was that the use of names such as port, sherry, Burgundy, etc. for California wines was a deliberate fraud. As a young, idealistic kid, I was all for this mindset until it came to devising marketable American names. Then, I was stymied. And so were most people, I gather.

Four new cooperative wineries were being formed in the Lodi area. This reflected the feelings of the growers thereabouts. They were, for the most part, growers from the northern Midwest, and probably devised their theories from the socialist movements of Central Europe, aided and abetted by the New Deal of the Roosevelt Administration. All fine people, thinking great thoughts, but it is my belief that the co-op movement retarded the development of world-class California wines and resulted in the production of unmarketable surplus grapes for about 20 years. Am I wrong?

As I recall, however, 1934 was a rather good year. For once the wine business' financial problems ran counter to that of the world at large. How nice! No?

The April, 1953 issue of W&V is the Statistical Issue. The editorial page has two short articles about the state of the 1953 wine depression. One is the "formation of the New York Wine Association," a group of wine bottlers resolved to "go into action to save their business." Strangely, I've never heard of this organization. I presume they were trying to get laws passed to protect bottlers and distributors in the same manner that they were (and are now) protected, I presume, in Ohio. I don't think anything came of this. The raison d'etre for the Eastern wine bottler was disappearing. Shipping costs for bulk wine were rising relative to that for casegoods. Labor, label and bottle costs were becoming equal to that of the West Coast and finally, in the not-too-far-distant future, dessert wines, the backbone of the Eastern bottlers' business, were about to decline in an alarming manner.

On the same page was an article stating that there was "a surplus of dessert wine." While this situation made the bottling of wine east of the Sierras practical and profitable, the situation was so bad that wine prices kept dropping, so that wine the bottler bought today could usually be bought cheaper next month. While this pertained mostly to bulk dessert wine, the same problem existed for table wine, the difference being that under 14% wine constituted only about 5% to 10% of the bulk wine shipped east in tank cars.

"Gallo-Italian Swiss Deal Off." This was the equivalent of the present day AOL-Time Warner merger talk. Except it never did consummate. As a consequence, there was much chatter about how "Uncle Ernie slickered them National Distillers dudes" by looking intimately at Italian Swiss Colony's books and business methods, then backing off when he had learned all he needed. Guess who took the bait.

"Petri Buys Italian Swiss in Decade's Biggest Deal." This was concluded April 15, when "Petri family purchased all the winery properties of Italian Swiss Colony" and its subsidiaries. Fools rush in....No?

"California Brands on Club Car Lists. California wines and brandies will now be identified as 'Californian' on the menus and beverage list of the Pullman lounge (for you youngsters, read 'bar') cars of Southern Pacific trains." We remember the great times we had on the "flying saloons" of SP's San Joaquin Daylight from Fresno and Bakersfield to the San Francisco meetings of WI.

"San Martin Moves Bottling Line--from its San Jose premises to the winery."

"Press Club to Hear Harry Baccigaluppi." Members of the San Francisco club were to hear Harry speak on "Wine is a Main Feature. Harry was one of the world's best humorous speakers and one of my dad's good business friends.