So why don't New Mexicans buy New Mexican wine?

New Mexico Business Journal, Sept, 1996 by Wally Gordon

Lush vines stretch row after orderly row, bearing jade grapes swelling in the summer sun. Cool caverns shelter barrel upon barrel of maturing wine. Thousands of tasters clog festivals to sample new vintages. Bar patrons shun Tequila and Tecate for Cabernet and Chardonnay. In many restaurants a bottle or carafe of vin de pais is as much a part of the table setting as salt and pepper. A restaurant (The Old House in Santa Fe) promotes itself with a simple half-page photograph of a glass of wine. Such scenes are now part of everyday life in, of all places, New Mexico.

Wine consumption and production experienced an extraordinary boom here in the 1980s and early '90s. The number of wineries, the acres of grapes, the gallons of production and the fifths of consumption doubled and doubled and doubled again. From nearly zero in the 1970s, New Mexico became consistently one of the nation's six leading wine states. In part because it began with so little, its rate of growth exceeded that of any other state.

But in the wake of the boom, a time of reflection and stock taking has set in. The state's wine-making industry is at a crossroads. Where once only opportunities seemed to blossom in the vineyards and only promise seemed to pour from the casks, now problems, perils, puzzlement and predicaments confront the growers of grapes and the makers and sellers of the state's wines.

Three years of carly frosts reduced production of grapes and created shortages. Federal law requires that 75 percent of the grapes in "New Mexico wine" be grown in New Mexico. A more tolerant state regulation requires 50 percent. Without the "New Mexico" label, local wines would lose their cachet and much of their market to less expensive California rivals.

This year, after a warm, frost-free spring, industry experts predicted a banner harvest. "I think this year will be a bumper crop of grapes and we'll be back on track," said Len Rosingana, proprietor of Santa Fe Vineyards and president of the New Mexico Winegrowers Association. "This year is going to be wonderful, one of the best ever," cheered Ellen Veseth the state Department of Economic Development's expert on the wine business. "The grapes are looking wonderful," agreed Bill Gomez, state Agriculture Department specialist at New Mexico State University.

But then, torrential rains and hail raised new questions about the condition of the vineyards. For example, Truth or Consequences, the state's largest grape-growing region, received more rain in three hours than it had had in the previous year.

Nationally, wine consumption, contrary to general belief, is not increasing. Total wine production now is almost exactly what it was five years ago, and per capita wine consumption has dropped 18 percent in the last 12 years, from 1.7 to 1.4 gallons annually per person.

Meanwhile in New Mexico, total consumption decreased from 688,920 cases in 1987 to 647,497 cases in 1994 - despite booming population growth. Most of the New Mexico wine industry's efforts have been targeted at the tourist market, and in the most favorable wine-drinking tourist centers - Santa Fe and elsewhere in Northern New Mexico - tourism has been sharply off.

Finally, the promotional efforts of the wine industry have depended exclusively (except for revenues from three wine festivals) on a $150,000 appropriation from the State Economic Development Department. Under a reorganization of the department by Governor Gary Johnson, that figure has been reduced to zero.

Promotion of the wine industry was shifted last fall from Economic Development to the State Agriculture Department in Las Cruces, which in turn handed it over April 1 to a private consultant, Charlene Selbee of Rio Rancho, who became the first full-time executive director of the Winemakers Association.

A new 46-page marketing plan has recently been prepared by Barclay & Co., of Deer Park, Calif., for Selbee and the two wine-promotion organizations, the New Mexico Vine and Wine Society and the Winegrowers Association. According to Selbee, future marketing efforts will include a fourth public forum in addition to the Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day festivals and, for the first time, an effort to build support among New Mexicans. "Until now, all the promotional efforts have been targeted at tourists," she says. "That'll change."

When wine making arrived in the New World, a curious symbiosis developed between American and European vineyards. In the 19th century, Americans crossed European grapes with native wild species. When these hybrid vines were re-exported back to Europe, they carried diseases that wiped out European vineyards. To restore their own vineyards, Europe again called on America and brought in new, disease-resistant hybrids that today form the basis for all European stocks. These stocks have now been brought back to New Mexico, closing the circle.

New Mexico is the oldest wine-making area in the United States. According to Rocky Mountain Wineries, Friar Augustin Rodriguez introduced vinifera grapes to New Mexico in 1580, "and by the early 1600s, numerous Franciscan monks were growing grapes here and fermenting sacramental wine."