Looking backward into the future

Wines & Vines, May, 1992 by Al Cribari

"Bootlegging of Dry Wines" was seen to be a problem, in a prominent article. Why, I don't know. The problem was endemic and had been with us since prohibition. Business was much, much better than it had been in the last several years. So why the complaint now I don't know.

Signs of the Times: Mount Tivy Winery was advertising but only sweet wines and grape brandy. As I remember, Mt. Tivy became part of Christian Brothers about '45.

Big article on how to conserve winery hose. Rubber -- either natural or synthetic -- had become almost unobtainable without a ration card from the local ration board. My car -- a half present from my folks (they paid half and gave me the payment book for the other half) for my 21st birthday, had blown three of its tires in the seven months that I had the car. No doubt General Tire had cleaned out its warehouse with "seconds" as they wound-up civilian production. "Relief" was prompt; General washed their hands of all responsibility and I was given ration cards for "class C" tires as I recall. These were lousy tires recapped with lousy treads by a lousy recapper. If we went over 35 mph, they blew; if we went over 150 miles continuously they threw off the caps. If they stayed over a week without using they began to go flat. But there was a war on and since my sacrifices had been few and far between, I did little except badger General Tire and never buy a General again. Ever.

There was a notice of the proposed founding of an "American Enological Society." Actually nothing transpired until -- when, 1950?

Morrie Turbovsky, our (Cribari) first "wine chemist" with a degree, moved from Bear Creek, Lodi, to Alto Winery in Dinuba.

The May, 1962 issue has only a couple of pertinent subjects. One is the first full report that I had read concerning sorbic acid. By then, being in sales, I received my news of current technical developments rather late. The news of sorbic acid was most welcome as I remember the difficulty we had in marketing "semi-sweet" wines after the war. Some how or other, what my uncle had been able to do with very little technical training, knowledge or experience, I could not do with a college degree! That was to produce and bottle a semisweet wine of 1.5 degrees balling (our Sauternes) and 2.5 deg. bal. (our Haut Sauternes) without any heat or microfiltering. Of course, he was working with wine on the third floor of a highly-industrialized area of New York City. Another thing, he always raised the total SO2 to 300ppm just before bottling (yes, believe it or not, this became part of the taste profile as determined by my dad as compared to similar wines from France). In lieu of membrane filtering, he heated, bentonited, racked and then fined with gelatin and tannin; chilled for 10 days, fined again with tannin and gelatin and then "powder" filtered into the bottling tank. The next day the wine was pad filtered (in line) to the filling machine. All lines and wine-contact services had been carefully cleaned with hot water (also steam perhaps) and trisodium phosphate and then rinsed with citric acid solution! The first few gallons (I think it was two cases) were dumped into the lees tank. Seldom did we have any trouble. But when I tried to do the same thing in Fresno, it did not seem to work. After much agonizing, we had to resort to "hot bottling." This really killed my uncle Tony. He could never understand my inability. Neither could I! I believe that the answer was partly in the location (New York City probably had few microorganisms, particularly yeasts; Fresno, many) partly in the meticulous attention he and the winery workers (they were all relatives and mature, serious men) paid to each and every step and possibly that the wine was shipped only a relatively short distance from downtown Manhattan to as far as Boston and Pittsburgh, rather than from Morgan Hill, Calif.