by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Among the many significant changes in governance wrought by the ratification of California’s second and current constitution in 1879 was the establishment of commissions to oversee important aspects of the Golden State’s operations. One of these was for viticulture, as grape growing and wine-making were vital aspects of the state’s agricultural economy. The industry’s origins dated to the 18th century and the importation of vinis vinifera by Franciscan priests at the missions of southern California—hence the name of “Mission grape” applied to it.
After the American seizure of Mexican California in 1847 and the subsequent admission of California as the 31st state, Los Angeles County was the center of winemaking, though the quality of its table wines was, to put it bluntly, generally poor, while fortified products like Angelica, a sweet desert wine, port, and brandy fared better. Among the viticulturists of our region was William Workman, a former distiller of whisky in New Mexico who planted grapes soon after settling on the Rancho La Puente in 1842.
Within a short period of time, however, it was realized that the soils and conditions in the counties of Napa and Sonoma were far superior to our area and vineyards there yielded product that easily eclipsed those of Los Angeles County. Despite the rapid ascension of those northern regions, ours continued to be a major producer, including after the creation of the State Viticulture Commission.
The featured object from the Museum’s holdings for this post is the Report of the Sixth Annual State Viticultural Convention, held in San Francisco from 7-10 March 1888 and conducted under the authority of the Commission. The body consisted of nine commissioners from various regions, including Los Angeles district representative Leonard J. Rose, of the Sunny Slope estate in the San Gabriel Valley, while one of his near neighbors, James DeBarth Shorb, of the San Marino Ranch (centered in and around today’s Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens) was an at-large member.
The president of the organization was Arpad Haraszthy (1840-1900), a native of Hungary and son of Agoston (1812-1869), often called the “Father of California Wine” for his work and who migrated from Wisconsin to Gold Rush California, making a name for himself in San Diego before relocating to San Francisco and then Sonoma County, where he bought a vineyard that he renamed Buena Vista and which is the oldest continuously operated one in the state.
Arpad, whose sister Ida married Los Angeles County Surveyor and Rancho La Brea owner Henry Hancock, studied viticulture in New Jersey and France, where he became very familiar with the manufacturing of champagne (called sparkling wine here). After working for his father at Buena Vista for several years, Haraszthy moved to San Francisco and formed a winemaking company that eventually bore his name. When the Viticultural Commission was formed in 1880, he was named its president and continued in that role until the year this report was issued.
Haraszthy was a prolific writer on all things wine, including California-based journals like The Overland Monthly, as well as national ones, such as Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, and another interesting essay of his formed much of his opening address for the 1888 convention, where, after general remarks about the confab, he discoursed on “the past, the present, and the possible future of vine growing, wine ad raisin making in our State.” He quickly noted that, while there was “rapid progress” in recent years, “we must not flatter ourselves that there is nothing more to do,” as “we are only on the eve of greater work; and, I trust, more satisfactory results.”
These, however, could only happen with more knowledge and research, as well as “mature consideration on the numerous, novel, and peculiar circumstances that surround us.” While the soil in California often had similar aspects to those of Europe, the climate was very different and it was only through “using careful judgment and untiring labor to study and understand them in all their bearings” that further improvement could be made. Rainfall, heat and the drier atmosphere in the Golden State “would have a tendency to produce very different results,” and, so, it was vital that California winemakers not try to imitate Europe’s vintages.
Instead, he continued, it was essential “to produce wines of character essentially their own, possessing all those pleasing qualities that would make them desirable in point of strength, color, flavor, body, bouquet, and general attractive fruitness of taste.” Noting that diversity was certainly found among Europe’s products, Haraszthy opined that, “when this result is attained, the consumers of California wines will soon be weaned from drinking the wines of France, or Germany, instead of their own country.”
The problem, however, was that,
Unfortunately the average American has not yet become a wine drinker. He does not use wine as a portion or a part of his daily meals, but only to entertain a friend, and on such occasions, through false pride, he ever spares his purse; wishing his guest to be impressed rather with the exorbitant price of the wine set before him, than its true qualities.
What was helpful was that California media “has nobly assisted in stamping out this false pride, and to induce the wine consumers to recognize that there is [are] quite as good ordinary table wines made in our State as are brought from abroad, and purer and far cheaper.” Once a longstanding prejudice against California wine was overcome, production and exports would “attain a magnitude and create a wealth in our State that few now dream of.”
Reviewing some history, Haraszthy noted the mission-era beginnings of viticulture and he commented that “even after the arrival of the Americans with a following representation of nearly every other civilized nationality on the globe, but little progress was made in vine planting till the year 1858.” This was followed by another three-year burst from 1862, but he added that “most of these plantations, however, were made with the intention of producting grapes for table use, and not for wine making.”
By 1870, he recorded, “the grape interest began to lag and become discouraged for want of demand,” though it should be noted that Workman, for one, expanded his viticultural work after the floods and droughts and the resulting decimation of his cattle herds during the first half of the Sixties and from 1864 onward, built three wineries and extended his vineyard to some 100 acres, comprising about 100,000 vines. Haraszthy further explained that, in 1876, the year Workman committed suicide after the bank he ran with son-in-law, F.P.F. Temple, failed, “the prospects of the viticultural industries became so discouraging that a number of vineyards, planted for wine making, were entirely uprooted, and either trees [fruits like oranges and nuts such as walnuts] planted instead of vines, or the land turned back to grain fields.”
When the Seventies came to an end, though, “a new impetus was given the planting of vines, from the fact that new markets had been formed for our wines, such as the were, in the Eastern states and the people began getting used to the peculiar taste and character of the wines of California.” In greater Los Angeles, Mathew Keller invested much time and money in promoting his product in the east, though to mixed success, prior to his death in 1881, while Rose also worked aggressively in marketing his wines and brandies in that part of the nation.
Before 1880, Haraszthy continued, there were many European grape varieties brought to California, “nevertheless the plantations of foreign grapes were very limited,” and he remarked that “with the exception of a few far-seeing individuals,” himself included, “nobody believed that any other grapes were as good as the old Mission, introduced by the Padres.” To date, he went on, “we have . . . a quixotic spirit in some parts of our State,” meaning mainly ours, “still advocating the planting of this very poor quality-lacking grape for wine making. He did allow that “an ordinary, coarse, heavy, flavorless white wine” came from the grape, while it was “taking an indefinite time to ripen and mature into an indifferent drinking quality,” but “no drinkable red wine has ever been made from it.”
This, more than any other reason, led to the bad reputation of California wine elsewhere. Even the claim that the Mission grape was a good bearer and producer was false, intoned Haraszthy, as it does so unevenly “and takes upon it almost every disease that comes along.” He took it as a good sign that “soon the phylloxera,” a disease caused by an insect, “and the grafting knife will have rid us of this very poor grape.” Vineyards now had examples of hardier grapes more resistant to disease and which were more even in bearing and “producing finer quality and greater quantity than the Mission ever succeeded in doing under the most favorable conditions.”
Thanks to those viticultural visionaries, like him, “new faith was born, and the belief began spreading that under proper conditions California might some day make good wines.” Even as the poor product of the Mission grape was given a boost by such figures as Keller and Rose, there was a problem of a shortfall in 1879 with the fact that “old stocks had been exhausted” and prices leapt, leaving a low supply. But, “this awakened the public interest in vine planting” even with low levels of knowledge, the lack of systemic thinking and no good precedents from which to draw.
The formation of the Commission, with modest funding, was, therefore, essential, and its president for its eight years of existence to date, added that its work was “a labor of love, taken willingly and borne patiently for the purpose of advancing the best interests of viticulture,” though how successfully was for the future to decide. Moreover, “it was mainly through their instrumentality that new and well authenticated varieties of grapevines were brought from every vine-growing country in the world,” including Africa, Asia, “the romantic banks” of the Rhine, the south of France and “the granite hills of Portugal.”
In America, it was further observed, efforts were undertaken in Florida, the Mississippi River valley, and Arizona and California mountains to find grapes that were “capable of resisting the havoc-dealing phylloxera,” this work done “through an officer who need not be named,” presumably the author. Haraszthy agreed with estimates that there were some 35,000 acres of vineyards in the state in 1880, 80% of them dedicated to the Mission variety, but, currently, the acreage planted was more than four times that number, some 150,000, “of which 90 [er cent are of foreign varieties, and many of them of them the most noted grapes.” Consequently, due to this switch, this “revolutionized public opinion in favor of California wines, and new markets conquered that the most sanguine among you scarce hoped for.”
There were opinions that the failure of deriving good wine with the Mission grape was “our want of knowledge of the principles and practice of fermentation,” but the writer asserted that “since the general introduction” of good grape varieties, “a far better wine is made with no more knowledge, in the same press, houses, and cellars, with the same implements, the same casks, and no greater care.” It was simply better grapes that wine was made “that have commanded the respect and received encouragement even of the most fastidious wine drinkers.”
Haraszthy commented that,
The knowledge of selecting the proper variety of grape, or the art of making wine, cannot be generalized. Such knowledge and art have to be attained locally. A grape, for instance, from which a good wine has been made in one locality, as you are aware, may produce a very poor wine in another, owing either to the character of the soil, the drainage, the greater or less moisture, and other climatic differences.
Each district in California would need experimentation in planting and cultivating vines as well as in making wine, though one section could certainly provide instruction and lessons from another, hence the holding of the conventions to bring winemakers together “and incite the laudable emulation of those who can be of most use to his fellow vine growers, by giving the greatest amount of information.”
A key project of the Commission was to obtain as much information as it could about how many vines were planted to how many varieties on how many acres as well as how much wine was made. Despite the fact that “the work was entered upon with zeal and prosecuted vigorously,” it was halted because of “unreliable statements” provided to it and, in some cases, “the unwillingness to give any information.”
This included efforts by individuals and the San Francisco Wine Dealers’ Association, though Haraszthy added that “pretty close estimates have been made, or at least they are accepted as close.” With this, he informed his hearers and readers, “we will consider some of the points, in the shape of figures, consider the past, present, and possible future of our industry, the progress made in the sale of our wines at home and abroad, the ruling prices, and total estimated values.”
With this, we’ll come to a halt and return tomorrow with the rest of Haraszthy’s speech, including those estimated statistics and his summation of those future possibilities, so be sure to check back in then.