The Beginning of Wine in America

The South and “Scuppernong”

America’s First Entry to Wine Production - The 1650s

Back in 1989, just short of 20 years ago,Jan Aaron, in his book “Wine Routes of America,” describes the region as having about 44 wineries: Alabama (1), Arkansas (3), Florida (2), Georgia (4), Louisiana (1), Mississippi (3), North Carolina (3), Sourth Carolina (1), Tennessee (4), Virginia (21), and West Virginia (3).

Thus far we identified __ winery operations and ___+_ support/advocacy groups within the southern states. The distribution of wineries is: Alabama (__), Arkansas (__), Florida (__), Georgia (__), Louisiana (__), Mississippi (__), North Carolina (__), Sourth Carolina (__), Tennessee (__), Virginia (__), and West Virginia (__). Today grape varietals (both European and American) are used by __% of the wineries, __% produce wine from grapes, other fruit sources honey, while __% produce their wine from non-grape and honey sources. _____ of these wineries make fruit & grape blended wines, ____ wineries also include a distillery, and ____ makes a beer.

Early History
The French explorer, Giovanni de Verazano, is credited with being the first non-native of the continent to site and record his finding of grapes in the “New World” which would soon become the United States of America. The year was 1524 and the place was the Cape Fear River Valley, North Carolina. The grapes they sighted were the native grape later labeled “Muscadine,” of the vitis rotund folia species.

According to Thomas Pinney in his book, A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition." Berkeley: University of California Press, c1989. (also available at this web site: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft967nb63q/ ), The earliest winemaking in the continental United States is credited to the Spaniards of Santa Elena, South Carolina, around 1568. “

Beginning around 1562, The “French Huguenot’s” fermented the cherry size grape that grows in clusters unlike all other grape species which grow in bunches. On the web site of the Hugenot Society of South Africa, http://www.geocities.com/hugenoteblad/hist-hug.htm?20088 they say ...Huguenots were French Protestants who were members of the Reformed Church which was established in 1550 by John Calvin.

The origin of the name Huguenot is uncertain, but dates from approximately 1550 when it was used in court cases against "heretics" (dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church). There is a theory that it is derived from the personal name of Besançon Hugues, the leader of the "Confederate Party" in Geneva, in combination with a Frankish corruption of the German word for conspirator or confederate: eidgenosse. Thus, Hugues plus eidgenot becomes Huguenot, with the intention of associating the Protestant cause with some very unpopular politics.

O.I.A. Roche, in his book The Days of the Upright, a History of the Huguenots, writes that "Huguenot" is "a combination of a Flemish and a German word. In the Flemish corner of France, Bible students who gathered in each other's houses to study secretly were called Huisgenooten, or "house fellows," while on the Swiss and German borders they were termed Eidgenossen, or "oath fellows," that is, persons bound to each other by an oath. Gallicized into "Huguenot," often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and a half centuries of terror and triumph, a badge of enduring honor and courage."

(If you would like more information, go to the web site shown immediately above)

In 1584, Sir Walter Raleighs' exploration party found what he called the “mother” Muscadine vine, measuring about a half an acre in size, on Roanoke Island.

The early inhabitants of these southern states carried this robust grape as they moved about and cultivated it where ever they went.

About the turn of the century leading into the 1700s, the grape become widely known along the mid-Atlantic coastal and southern states as “Scuppernong.” One version is that the name was derived from the Algonquin Indians (large population along Canadian and north Atlantic state coasts); specifically the name comes from the Indian word “Ascopa" meaning “Sweetbay tree.” In the well noted author Leon Adams' book, "The Wines of America" (1973, Houghton Mifflin Co.), he wrote : ‘Ascuponung‘ meaning place of the Ascopo, appeared on old maps of North Carolina as the name of the river in Washington County, near Albernale Sound. Later maps spelled it ‘Cuscoponung‘, then ‘Cusponung,‘” next Scuponung,’ and ’Scupuning, until 1800 the spelling of the river had become Scuppernog.”

Garrett & Co - Captain Paul Garrett of Virginia (circa 1900), New York (1913) and California. (1940). In 1865 his father and uncle purchased the 1st commercial winery in North Carolina named “Medoc Vineyard,” which had originated in 1835 under the ownership of one Sidney Weller. In 1884, Garrett became salesman for his family’s wine traveling thoughout the south trying to place the wine. By 1900, when he was only 27 years old he managed to sell their entire production output, but the winery had by that time been sold to another organization and they refused to honor his commission earnings and sold around him. Thus he began his own winery, Garrett & Company.

By 1919, Garrett had 17 plants processing grape juice and wine among North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, New York and California. He created “Virginia Dare,” the most popular wine for about 20 years before, and for a few years after, Prohibition (1920-1933). He was the number one planter, marketer and producer of wines made primarily from the Scuppernong grape but blended with Concord and California juice.

In 1934, he tried to convince California winegrowers that the future of American wines would be founded in the mixing of the native American species, Labrusca, with the European species, viniferous, but Californians would not give the concept any merit. Over three decades later, bulk winemakers imported Labrusca based juice to mix with California grown grape juices to produce a “Cold Duck” type sparkling wine.

At the height of his wine production, his facilities were producing over ____________ cases of wine sold across America.

New England Winegrowing - The Early 1600s
Jan Aaron, in his book “Wine Routes of America,” describes the region as having around 19 wineries, distributed among Connecticut (7), Maine (2), Massachusetts (4), New Hampshire (1), Rhode Island (4) and Vermont (1)

Today, we have identified at least 78 winery operations and eight support/advocacy groups within New England. The distribution of wineries is: Connecticut (20), Maine (10), Massachusetts (26), New Hampshire (7), Rhode Island (7) and Vermont (8). An excellent site to read about wineries of the Atlantic Coast can be found at http://www.eastcoastwineries.blogspot.com/ . For the past history, we recommend you access this web site: http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/8298/1/Gladwin+Hist+Grape+E+US.pdf, to read“ A History of Grape Growing in Eastern United States,” by E. F. Gladwin, 1931 and Thomas Pinney in his book, "A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition." Berkeley: University of California Press, c1989. (also available at this web site: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft967nb63q/ )

Early History
First winemaker/winemaking in the New Colony World---------robably the first “foreigner” in the New World to make wine is credited by Thomas Pinney in his book, listed above (also at this web site: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft967nb63q/ ) to a “Dr. Laurence Bohune (or Boone),” in Virgina and made from domestic grapes and this was done around 1610.

Winegrowing in this sub-region starts with >the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Massachusetts, who were making wine in 1623. It was served at the first celebration of our great national holiday “Thanksgiving” in the same year.

Significant contributors to the attempts to use European species were made by such noted gentlemen as Lord Delaware (History ___), Lord Baltimore (History ___), William Penn History ___), Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop authorized wine grapes on Governor’s Island, Boston Harbor, (now the location of Logan Airport) in 1632,
and Governor John Printz (History ___).

The Concord Grape
An interesting bit of history about this sub region is the http://www.concordgrape.org/ ) stipulates the following: “Experimenting with seeds from some of the native species, Boston-born Ephraim Wales Bull developed the Concord grape in 1849. On his farm outside Concord, down the road from the Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Alcott homesteads, he planted some 22,000 seedlings in all, before he had produced the ideal grape. Early ripening, to escape the killing northern frosts, but with a rich, full-bodied flavor, the hardy Concord grape thrives where European cuttings had failed to survive. In 1853, Mr. Bull felt ready to put the first bunches of his Concord grapes before the public -- and won first prize at the Boston horticultural Society exhibition. From these early arbors, fame of Mr. Bull’s ('the father of the Concord grape') Concord grape spread world-wide, bringing him up to $1,000 a cutting, but he died a relatively poor man. The inscription on his tombstone states, ‘He sowed--others reaped.’ “ The web site location, www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/collect/history/grapespg.htm , shows a picture of the first Concord grape vine grown by Mr. Bull.

Perhaps the most interest bit of missing information from the Concord Grape Association web site is that it obviously avoids any mention of the use of the juice from the Concord grape to produce wine! However, not all organizations are devoid of the fact that the Concord grape played a large role in wine production, especially during the era of Prohibition and the years that lead up to its enactment. The web site, (http://www.concordgrapebelt.org/ )The Grape Belt Heritage Association site says: “Our Mission Statement - To encourage and support the dynamic economic development of the grape and wine industries, tourism, and associated industries throughout the Lake Erie Region that is built upon our Concord grape heritage and results in an enhanced quality of life for all the region's citizens.”

In the well noted author Leon Adams' book, "The Wines of America" (1973, Houghton Mifflin Co.), he says the following: "I found only one record of commercial winegrowing in New England during the nineteenth century. It is a letter published in the American Wine Press and Mineral Water News for August 1900. The writer, one Albert Bernard of Meriden, Connecticut, described Meriden as a wine-producing locality at the time. In particular, he mentioned a ‘Coe Farm’ southwest of Meriden as having cultivated Concord and Worden grapes for wine between 1894 and 1897, and as having produced ‘a superior claret’ that was sold in Hartford and in New York City.”

What Slowed the Progress of Commercial Wine Production? 1625-1825
When studying the growth of the American Wine Industry during its infancy in the period of the 1600s to early 1800s, it becomes immensely clear that the budding industry was bent with the desire of the initial foreigners to this nation wanting to cultivate the grape varietals with which they were most familiar from their original countries in Europe. So much sure were they that the abundance of native grape vine in American surely would mean that the European varietals would also thrive. How wrong they were! The native varietals had ions to adjust to pests and the weather conditions and redeveloped themselves into species that could survive the environment. On the other hand, the European varietals had not previously been exposed to the pests and parasites of the American environment. Nor had they been faced with the often harsh cold and/or humid environment of the Americas and thus, they had no defenses and succumbed. These conditions and the results were mostly not understood by the early immigrants desiring of producing wine from the vines with which they were most familiar.

Then, there was the English throne ordering the production of other economically important crops of tobacco and silk which would compete for the land space that could otherwise be dedicated to grape cultivation.

The next big impact on wine production was the expansion of production of grain mash and molasses into distilled spirits with much more alcoholic kick than was offered by a wine product. So, while the wine industry tried in vein to force the adaptation of the European varietals in the New World environment and failing in attempt after attempt for almost a cenury, distilled beverage grew rapidly as the alcoholic beverage of choice. Along with this growth came the consequence of intoxication and the subsequent attempts to introduce social reform towards temperance as a way to reduce the negative effects of over indulgence in alcoholic beverages. The primary block to wine production was governmental taxation which on the basis of alcohol percentages drove the consumer to distilled spirits which in effect were taxed at a lower rate than wine based on proof of the bottle.

Add to the above three destructive factors to eastern wine production, the introduction in the early to mid 1800s of cheap generic wines being made in California and shipped in bulk to the east coast for bottling and distribution. This new influence practically destroyed the growth of wine production in the eastern states.

It is thus no wonder that the great population centers of the eastern and well established states of America turned to imported wine from the European countries; wines to which their palate was already well familiar.

THE PACIFIC SIDE OF NORTH AMERICA
While the Spanish, French and English were busy on the eastern side of the continent, the Spanish were also making great progress on the Pacific side.

Spanish missionaries appear to have been producing wines in what is today known as the New Mexico area (then included what would become the states of New Mexico Texas and __________) as early as about mid 1620’s

A young man named Jose Serra was studying at the school of the Order of St. Francis. The teachers were called “Franiscan Friars“ (the latter word meaning “brothers”). Later, when he became a Brother, he would trade his first name in for the name “Junipero.” In the early days of his Brotherhood starting about the age of 17, Junipero taught in lower California. About 20 years into his work he was instructed to go, along with other Brothers, and start the work of opening Missions in “Alta California.” His first was Mission San Diego in mid July 1769. Although most sources apply this period as the beginning of the winegrowing industry in the Missions of California, the historian Thomas Pinney in his book cited earlier, indicates his research establishes the actual date of wine growing as somewhere around 1782 at San Juan Capistrano Mission.