In one of the most reportorial pieces that M.F.K. Fisher ever wrote, she comments on the many factors that contribute to the actual cost of a good bottle of wine from California. She takes many factors into account: the cost of grapes, the sale of inexpensive bulk wine, poor vineyard management. The greatest surprise in the piece may be the article’s date—she penned it in for The Atlantic Monthly in 1944.
WINE, LIKE MOST OTHER PRODUCTS OF the land, has gone to war: into the making of tartrates for munitions, ethyl alcohol for smokeless powder and synthetic rubber, vital chemicals for rayon and for medicines. Hundreds of tank cars have been released voluntarily for government use. Distilleries have been converted to the production of non-drinkable liquids. There has been a drop of about 40 per cent in crushed grapes in the past three years. And men whose fathers once spoke French, Bohemian, Hungarian—every wine-mellowed tongue—have left their vines for battle.
Because of these things, most of the vintners of any repute are rationing themselves. They may be producing as much as before, because of good “years,” but they are holding on to as much as 60 per cent of their stocks, except for minimum deliveries to keep their names alive, and are paying more attention to the intricacies of developing and aging their fine wines.
This policy, farsighted and probably good, reduces most merchants to a state of helpless exasperation: they turn away hundreds of customers with the somewhat comfortless assurance that at least they can satisfy ten or fifteen. And for every fifteen, several dozen more, no matter how thirsty, remember from the skillful national advertising on the air and in the magazines that this or that wine, such and such a sherry or brandy, is the one to ask for when the war is over.
There are several reasons why what wine we are now able to buy costs so much more than it should, so much more than it must if it is ever to become a part of our national diet and our normal living instead of something saved for weddings and wakes. Many of these reasons can, according to the style of the times, be blamed in one way or another on the OPA.
There seems to be a state of mutual confusion between the Administration and the growers, in spite of numerous conferences. The one bald fact to emerge is that although a 1943 ceiling for retail wines was based on the price of $30 a ton for crushing-grapes in 1942, the average price in 1942 was really higher, and in 1943 was $87. And when it is known that the finer wine grapes, which constitute less than 10 per cent of the total wine grape acreage in California, fetched anywhere from $100 to $125 a ton last year, it can be seen why prices have risen in spite of (if not because of) government restrictions. This is especially unfortunate when the truth is that decent wine should cost no more than milk, which now sells for under 20 cents a quart!
Artful dodges thrive in such a situation, of course. One of the most natural is to stop selling bulk wine. Selling in bulk in California, Wisconsin, and Louisiana can only be done from the keg, even in peacetime, but until lately gallon jugs of bad to middling table wines have been procurable almost everywhere. What stocks still exist are almost surely prewar, and often fit only for poor vinegar. A wineman can make more money if a gallon is split into five parts instead of four, so most reputable wines are now marketed only in fifths or tenths—a sad blow to the average purse. And to escape labeling restrictions and more ceilings, many vineyards are now issuing “‘signature” or “reserve” bottles, which for the most part are all right but cost more than they should.
One of the most exciting things about the California wine industry is its size: over 90 per cent of the American vineyards are in this state. Unfortunately, and unlike the smaller Eastern vineyards, a safe 90 per cent of this acreage is planted with quick-producing, cheap, easily cultivated, and undistinguished stock. (Haraszthy alone brought more than 1400 varieties here in 1862, some of which were of necessity inferior.)
Furthermore this acreage is owned and cared for, very often, by people whose only idea of viticulture is how quickly they can market what they grow. This is largely the fault of prohibition, during which many despondent, ignorant, or impatient farmers plowed under their fine, slower vines—and then as quickly planted their land to mediocre stock when the tide turned. Probably a large percentage of the winegrowers even today are men without either idealism or a knowledge of their grapes.
Now that a growing appreciation of table wines and a rapid decrease in the supplies of hard liquors have thinned the shelves of every merchant, the shrewder farmers are not only forcing their vines: they are stretching their wines unmercifully. This is true of even a few of the good vineyards as well as the bad—vineyards which for years have struggled to maintain a certain standard of quality and which now, because of natural cupidity or a change of ownership, are buying indiscriminately from their less prosperous neighbors in order to turn out a larger number of bottles each year.
This, I think, is the main reason why wines from California are so often disappointing. A case bought in December will be good. Three or six months later the same product, ordered from the same vintner and cared for in the same way, will be flat, flabby, ignoble. This is more than disconcerting, especially to a person who not only likes to serve good wine but has a certain adopted, if not native, pride.
It is reassuring to know that there are still a few vineyards whose wines, when procurable, are steadfast. My great regret is that their products are too expensive for the average American to serve as they should he served: as a complement to the daily fare of our tables. They are for the most part produced in small vineyards, so that the quantity is limited. They are made with skillful care, from vines that need much attention—a method which of course raises the price. Most of them come from Northern California, and until lately have been almost unknown outside the state, except by a few connoisseurs and wine stewards.
If I wanted to buy them (which I do!) I’d do it by the case if possible, and from the best merchant near me. If I wanted only one good bottle, to share with a friend in time of travail or of joy, I’d go either to an upper-class dealer or to a large hotel and I’d ask for a full fine Grey Riesling, a Sauvignon. or a delicate Ugni Blanc from Livermore, or best of all a Pinot Chardonnay; a Cabernet, a Gamay, a native Zinfandel; a Pinot Noir from Napa or Sonoma County or even from Santa Cruz or Santa Clara. If it was an inexpensive honest red wine I looked for, not too high in tannic acid for Gargantuan consumption, I’d buy some of that still blended and bottled in straw-wrapped flasks near Asti.
I’d be safe—safe from the cupidity, the lack of standardization, the tumultuous confusion of the California wine industry. I’d be drinking well, and storing as patiently as possible the knowledge that there is gradually emerging, through all the turmoil, a quality of production that cannot be harmed by war or prejudice or even man’s dishonesty. The winegrowers with increasing skill are bottling three or four types of wine instead of an indiscriminate twenty or a horrible something called Maiden’s Breath or Old Saint Murgatroyd, and, thanks to some sixty-five years of research by the state oenologists, are at this moment increasing the production of finer wines from a possible 10 per cent to a probable 25 per cent or 30 per cent.
The Wine Institute, Delphic source of all such cheering prophecies, says that the trade secret that prices are soon to plunge downward (with the resumption of distilling) can now be whispered encouragingly by all wine-lovers, such as I, who feel at times that they see through a glass very darkly indeed. Distribution, too, will make it possible to buy a decent Zinfandel in Keokuk and Kalamazoo. War has at last brought financial stability and a resulting professional zeal, the Institute says happily; things are much better than they were three years or even three months ago.
And meantime, there is good wine to be found for the looking, an earnest for the future, and it still “comforteth the harte and causeth a body to be mery”—fair enough in these days.