Customer Reviews

American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is definitely one of the most interesting books I have read recently, on or off the topic of wine. It is a fascinating story of changes in morality, of perceptions of wine and the world around us, and how an entire nation moved back and forth on its thoughts about food, culture, wine, and much more.

The story begins back with Jefferson, who in the late 1700s was a huge proponent of wine. He tried unsuccessfully to grow his own vines, and promoted European winedrinking at the white house and in his circles of friends. In 1803 winemaking really begins with Nicholas Longworth in Ohio, with sweet whites.

In the 1850s a huge temperance movement began, and in the 1860s rot came in and destroyed practically all of the vines. At the same time, phylloxera hit heavily in Europe, destroying vines there. It wasn't until the 1870s that solutions began to be implemented for both of these situations ... but by the 1890s there was once again a boom in planting. At the 1900 Paris Expo, 40 American wineries won awards. Wine was on its way up.

Or so people thought. Shortly, the guillotine descended. The death knell for most wineries came with Prohibition in 1917.

Ironically, prohibition resulted in more people drinking to get a buzz, and fewer drinking it reasonably with meals. Home winemaking was legal, so the vineyards that remained open did so by selling "pretty" grapes to this market. These were usually bad for actual winemaking, and the home winemakers worked on making sweet, fortified wines for maximum results and to overwhelm the taste. By the time prohibition ended in 1933, the US winery count had dropped from over 1000 down to 150. Some states stayed dry long after this - Mississippi was the last state to allow alcohol, in 1966.

It was in the late 60s that wine consumption began to rise again - food quality was increasing, people were appreciating more and more foods, and the food they made was able to pair well with wines. At the same time, wine quality was ever increasing. In a famous blind tasting in Paris in 1976, a Stag's Leap 1973 Cabernet and a Chateau Montelena 1973 Chardonnay were rated the top two wines - over two top French wines. Not only that, but the wine tasters consistantly made comments that this one was 'obviously French' or that one was a 'pedestrian American' and were wrong almost every time.

A mere quarter century later, we have fantastic wines being created in just about every state in America, winery tours are booming business, Americans are drinking more and more wine, and the book charts the entire route. The people, events, and situations are richly described, and catch you up in the story.

The book is simply fascinating in many, many ways. Be sure to pick up a copy for yourself!

Against the backdrop of 200 years of American life, wine columnist and English Professor, Paul Lukacs, takes us on great ride through the history of wine.

Starting with Thomas Jefferson and the earliest views of wine's role in American society, Lukacs' well-researched volume takes us through the country's movement west, prohibition, wine as big business and then wine as art. Along the way, we meet agrarian idealists, businessmen, teetotalers, bootleggers, immigrants and a host of factions all weighing in on the role of wine in American life.

Wine enthusiasts will love hearing the inside scoop on how some of the big names in wine got to where they are, and how American wine became a brash world leader. Lukacs covers much more than this, however. We learn about the science behind grape growing and wine making, the affects of government policies on wine availability, a bit about American cuisine, and no small amount of general social history.

Lukacs pulls it off. He moves us artfully through these varied sub-topics, and always with a lively, readable style.

After seeing a review of this book in the WSJ I quickly ordered it from my independent bookshop. Am I glad I did. As a new owner of a wine shop I have felt overwhelmed by the body of knowledge required to properly sell my products. This book armed me with a solid background on American wine history. It has already helped me sell my local VA wines! It gave me an increased level of comfort with the background of wine in the U.S. and subsequently increased my comfort level when I talk with cusotmers - both the novice and the wine snob.

Anyone who loves wine and enjoys a little historical perspective will adore this book!

In this work, Lukacs traces the origins of American grape growing and wine production from the early 19th century to present. Much of the work is focused on the last 30 or 40 years when grape growing and wine production began to be serious pursuits in the U.S.

This book is entertaining, interesting, and educational but I give it only 3 stars due to its highly repetitive nature. It is as if the book was written so that each chapter can be read independently and not lose the totality of the work. Obviously, this leads to undue repetition. I would have much appreciated Lukacs slimming the book down and avoiding his urge to tell once more what he has already told us.

American Vintage is a wonderful combination of history book and fascinating narrative. Lukacs manages to keep the reader captivated by the history of the wine grape in America.

I agree with all the above praise. The book was meticulously researched and well written. Great personal recollections from the people who were there.

There were two minor annoyances

1. The author repeats himself fairly often.

2. You get bounced back and forth in time a bit. From pre-prohibition to post and then to the 90's then back to WWII.

Minor issues that probably won't bother you unless you're reading the book on and off over the course of a couple of weeks.

For my money, this well researched, extremely entertainingly written book is the best historical book about California wine in our generation. Leon Adams' seminal work was becoming badly dated. Here is the update and the replacement. Every word moves the story along, and every fact is fascinating. Geeks will love it, but so will beginners. Concise, yet covers the important stuff, provides new insights, and scintillating prose.

I am the author of a couple of wine books, a wine grape farmer, and vineyard investor. This book is good but it pays scant attention to the role of the viticulturist (grape farmer). A wine maker cannot take bad grapes and make good wine. Mr. Lukacs's goal is to chronicle the rise of American wineries. That American wineries are now as good as the French and others cannot simply be attributed to the use of steel tanks, cultivated yeast, and oak barrels. The visionaries and scientists who made advances in the vineyard including leaf pulling, trellis design, irrigation, and pest management also should have been credit. (Read my blog on agriculture at rosewoodhillfarm.com).

One of my favorite wine writers is Thomas George Shaw, a very experienced London wine merchant, whose Wine, The Vine And The Cellar, is available free on Google Books. He wrote in 1863 about wines from the United States:

"The most important vineyards are those of Ohio, Missouri, and Indiana. Wine is also made in Western Virginia, the State of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. But the most celebrated is in Cincinnati, where there are large vineyards, especially those belonging to Messrs. Longworth and Zimmermann, who have gained a high reputation for their sparkling Catawba, about which I have expressed my own opinion. In the Northern and North Western States, wines of all kinds, generally in imitation of favourite European, are made; but all have a peculiar--what we should call an American -- flavour and taste ; and the Americans themselves appear to prefer those which are imported from Europe."

Paul Lukas would agree on the preeminence of Cincinnati in the wine world at that time: he writes that the history of fine wine in America started the day Nicholas Longworth arrived, almost penniless, in Cincinnati in the summer of 1803.

Mr. Longworth, "American wine's founding father," planted vineyards along the Ohio River and built the country's first successful winery. But by 1870, the vines had died from diseases no one understood. It would be almost a century before, as Lukas writes, Robert Mondavi would match Mr. Longworth in style and ambition to become the founding father of modern American wine.

Lukacs describes several of his heroes over the years:

Nicholas Longworth, the "founding father" of American wine, a short real estate tycoon who transformed Ohio into the "American Rhineland";

Dr. Charles Welch, a Methodist preacher who created nonalcoholic grape juice in the name of temperance;

Gustave Niebaum, a Finnish sea captain who made a fortune in the fur trade before establishing one of California's first great vineyards, Inglenook;

the secretive and dysfunctional Gallo brothers;

Robert Mondavi and his brother Peter who held opposing views about the direction American wine should take;

Philip Wagner, who first showed that good wines could be made on the East Coast if French-American hybrid vines were used rather than native American varieties;

Andre Tchelistcheff, a Russian-born oenologist, who taught two generations of Californians how to make truly fine wine;

Dr. Konstantin Frank, who was the first to successfully grow European vinifera vines in the East.

Frank Prial summarizes the Mondavi disagreement in his "New York Times" review of the book as follows:

"I would have started [this book] with Robert Mondavi slugging his brother, Peter, in their mother's St. Helena, Calif., kitchen 12 years earlier. Both events had a major impact on the future of American wine. But the fight was, well, more American. ... In 1964, Mr. Mondavi and his brother, Peter, were running the family winery, Charles Krug, in the Napa Valley. Krug wines did well, particularly the C. K. Mondavi line of jug wines. But Robert had a vision of wines that could match the best in the world. Peter, Mr. Lukacs recounts, was happy with the status quo. Heated words led to Robert's ouster from Krug and the opening, in 1966, of the Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville."

However the book is started, Lukacs tells the story beautifully. He avoids technical data, wine industry jargon and the tasting notes. Instead he writes a social history of winemakers.

Robert C. Ross 2007 2008

Early America wasn't noted for its wines: so what influenced the birth of the industry, and how did it so quickly rise to become a world wine influence? Paul Lukacs provides a history which begins with 17th century grape-growing and winemaking experiments right up to modern times, following the course of wine industry development from individuals who contributed to its rise to families and economics which fostered its evolution. Paul Lukacs is the wine columnist for the Washington Times and Washingtonian, and AMERICAN VINTAGE: THE RISE OF AMERICAN WINE is a winning study for any interested in wine development.

Diane C. Donovan

California Bookwatch