by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Returning for this second part and the opening address given on 7 March 1888 by prominent California wine industry leader and California Viticultural Commission president Arpad Haraszthy at the state convention, it might be a good time to note that William Workman’s three decades and more of viticulture included his grandson, Francis W. Temple, serving as his winemaker during the last years of Workman’s life during the first half of the 1870s.
Temple, who studied for a couple of years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, continued to operate the Workman winery, located in three brick structures, constructed in the mid Sixties just south of the existing Workman House, including for three years while Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, who’d loaned close to $350,000 to the doomed Temple and Workman bank of Los Angeles, allowed the interest to accumulate so that the principal would be beyond redeeming.
From 1876 to 1879, Francis made enough money from operations to buy, for $5,000, 75 acres of what had once been a domain of close to 25,000 acres of Rancho La Puente, including the Workman House, the wineries, vineyards and orchards, outbuildings, the family’s private El Campo Santo Cemetery, and more. The deal was made in fall 1880 and for the next eight years, he successfully practiced viticulture, but, in August 1888, just a few months after the convention, he died of tuberculosis, a disease that affected others in his family.
What Haraszthy discussed in his address provides notable context for the grape growing and wine making that took place at the Homestead during the Eighties, including statistics that also help understand conditions in the Golden State and its burgeoning wine industry in the years after the “Long Depression” that lasted much of the previous decades and during what, locally, was called the Boom of the 1880s, with enormous growth in greater Los Angeles, peaking during 1887 and 1888 when Temple’s cousin, William H. Workman, was the Angel City’s mayor.
Based on the supposition that there some 150,000 acres of vineyards in the state, Haraszthy presumed that, in full bearing in 1890, values could be $300 per acre, absent of any improvements, so that the total would be $45 million. This allowed for the fact that a small amount of such land, “planted with Mission,” which he’d previously noted was a poor grape for quality wine, ” and some other very common varieties” might be worth $200 an acre, while others, set out with high quality fruit, would fetch more than the amount he specified as general.
Taking on improvements, respecting houses, wineries and cellars, barrels, presses, outbuildings and more pertaining to agricultural operations, the writer pegged the statewide total as $20 million. Comparing this to figures published before the establishment of the Commission when the California constitution, still current, was ratified in 1879, he noted that there were then 35,000 acres of vineyards, 80% planted to the Mission grape, and even using the $300/acre figure, the total was then $10.5 million, with improvements at $4 million. That meant a total increase in values, in some eight years, of about $50 million, with “a proportionate greater income to the State through the enhanced value of vineyard and contiguous lands.”
Moreover, offered Haraszthy, “we might smilingly say to the State that it has reaped and will continue to reap a very handsome income from the paltry sums given to support the Board of Viticulture.” Beyond this, he supposed that “we may doubt whether any private investment has ever secured such golden returns,” excepting those of railroads, shipping and other transportation entities. He added that, “owing to many contingencies” concerning frost, winds, heat, insects and disease, “the production of our vineyards has not kept pace with the number of vines planted, in point of quantity.”
A table of production since 1881 showed the 12 million gallons were rendered that year, but there was a drop of a quarter to some 9 million the following year and another million gallon decline in 1883. There was a notable rebound in which the yield doubled to 16 million gallons the next year, though a more than 30% drop took place in 1885 to 11 million gallons. For 1886, there was a second big boost of well more than 60% to the peak of the period at 18 million gallons, before a moderate decline to 16 million was experienced in the most recent vintage.
Haraszthy felt, however, that given the number of vines existing, production should not have dropped in those last two years, but gone from 20 to 25 million gallons. He remarked that, for wine one year old or more and saleable in the market, there would have been “natural shrinkage and accidental losses” with “much of it [having been] spoiled and used for making vinegar or brandy,” this last being a major part of greater Los Angeles wine operations. Moreover, there was production solely for home use, as he pointed out that “much wine is made . . . every years by the Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese population, and either consumed in their own households, or sold in a small way to neighbors and friends.” In this way many grapes, otherwise of value, were “done away with.”
Acknowledging that it was particularly difficult to know how much was drunk by those who purchased or otherwise acquired California wine, the writer hazarded a guess that 2 million gallons were consumed in San Francisco and Oakland and another 3 million in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and the Washington territory, while some 7 million was exported to the rest of the country and abroad. This total of 12 million apparently did not include the rest of California, including greater Los Angeles, San Diego and other areas where, presumably, a fair amount of wine, brandy and other beverages were consumed. Taking sweet and dry wines and brandy into account, then, at amounts of some $700,000, the total value would be in the vicinity of $4.5 million.
Forecasting for the three years of 1888 to 1890, Haraszthy assumed that, if the existing 150,000 acres was still in bearing, that 125,000 would be devoted to wine and brandy production, with 15,000 used for raisins and 10,000 for table grapes. The estimate was that 50 million gallons of wine would be made with a value of $10 million and another 1.5 million of brandy at $2.1 million, while 1.5 million boxes of raisins would account for $3 million, and 40,000 tons of table grapes would be worth $1.2 million. All told, grapes and their final production would generate some $16.3 million and, assuming this was borne out, it seemed clear that “the State is doing well to foster an enterprise that can bring such returns,” especially because most comprised exports that “bring us harvests of gold, to enrich our citizens, encourage labor, and create prosperity.”
Yet, 1887 proved to be a year in which “the prices paid for wines . . . ranged most discouragingly low” as “there seemed to be a regular stampede among the producers” and worries that the year’s vintage “would turn out enormously large.” In fact, overproduction was a worry in recent years, to which prior posts on this blog alluded, but he noted that this fear was unrealized and, though 1886 wines fetched some 13 to 14 cents a gallon the prior August, the new vintages were realizing 17 to 20 cents for ordinary ones and more for finer examples. A table of grape varieties showed prices for the 1887 yield with the Mission, expectedly, at the bottom at seven to eight dollars per ton, Zinfandel at double that amount, Riesling and Burgundy at $18 to $20, and Petit Pinot and Cabernet topping the field at $25 to $30.
Obviously, these figures were dependent on location and “the universal rule of supply and demand,” but Haraszthy remarked that
It is a matter of fact that the reputation of our wines is favorably increasing, both among ourselves and among the wine drinkers in other countries. This is owing chiefly to the laudable ambition of our wine makers to not only increase their knowledge in the modes of fermentation and preservation of their wines, but also to their persistent efforts toward securing better quality, though the planting of vines more adapted to their locality and of the choicer varieties.
Key to those efforts was to “find us markets for all our surplus in Asia, South America, and even in Europe” although “were the Americans but wine drinkers at home, as they ought to be, for their own good and the cause of true temperance,” the suggestion apparently being that regular, normalized and responsible consumption, as in Europe, would mean a temperate level of drinking that would not require total abstinence and the crusade for reformers to seek this avowed moral goal.
In any case, exports, being vital, were laid out in tables from 1882 to 1887, with the first four years providing amounts in gallons shipped by rail and sea. For the first year, the total was 1.45 million by train and 1.365 by ship, with an increase the following year by nearly 450,000 gallons for the first and a slight decrease for the second. In 1884, the ocean-bound transport level declined further to about 1.2 million, while rail shipments surged nearly a quarter to over 2.3 million. These trends continued over the next two years, so that, in 1886, shipping by sea was down to under 800,000 gallons while those by train surged to close to 4.5 million. Of course, grand totals leapt to nearly double and the aggregate for 1887, not broken down by route type, was close to 6.5 million.
Essential to this change as the fact that “the freight rates very greatly influence the possible increase or decrease of our eastern shipments,” and the previous “stiff” charges from the railroads were lowered by 1885—it bears noting that the state also created a Railroad Commission, forebear of today’s Public Utilities Commission, because of widespread complaints of onerous rail freight charges, though the Commission definitely was under the heavy influence of the powerful and near monopolistic Southern Pacific during this period.
The result was a jump of about a third and then another 45% in rail shipments for 1885 and 1886. Also likely important in this was that the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe made a direct transcontinental link to greater Los Angeles at the end of 1885, so it was clearly in the best interests of the Southern Pacific to adjust rates accordingly. Haraszthy observed that “it would be well for the transportation companies to . . . devise some means for the transportation at such rates as will permit this industry to develop its magnitude, and increase their own carrying trade.” Distance was a challenge, he added, and “we in California have much to contend against.”
This also involved expenses related to imported wood for making barrels with these “at so much a pound, coming to us empty, and so much a pound going away from us filled with wine.” The result was that “these additional costs, and they are not moderate, increases the price of the wine to the consumer, and tends to prevent its more general use in the Atlantic and Western States.” If, however, shipping costs could continue to be lowered, Haraszthy argued,
When our wines, in all their unrivaled purity, can be laid down at the door of the eastern laborer at the same price to him as beer, this industry will develop beyond our most sanguine expectations.
The author then turned to national laws concerning “the protection of the purity of our wines and regulations for their sale,” though Haraszthy limited his remarks, noting that the Commission expressed its views to California’s House delegation and its senators, with bills put forward that “if passed, will give our industry great immediate relief.” He continued with “a timely word of caution” that “those who ask for any reduction either on the tax on distilled spirits, or on fruit brandies” would constitute “no greater peril to the advance of wine making in this State.” The Commission’s “mature consideration” from “practical knowledge” was such that it “wisely concluded that it would be dangerous to our best interests to have the tax on fruit brandies either lessened or removed, except such as was necessary for the production or preservation of sweet wines, or for wines destined for export to foreign countries only.”
Given the whipsaw effect of the current administration’s approach to tariffs, several recent posts here have looked at some of the history of these imposts, specifically from the 1892 and 1928 presidential election campaigns. In his address, Haraszthy briefly referred to the debates during the runup to the 1888 vote (which was won by Democrat Grover Cleveland, the first of his party to win election since 1856, with Republicans on an astounding dominance of more than three decades, and he favored lowered tariffs).
Haraszthy told his audience and readership of this report that,
The tariff question is another matter of very serious import, and should demand our continuous watchfulness. The reduction on any American industry—whether it be wool, or raisins, or silk, or sugar—you should bear in mind, is a blow likewise struck at you, at your enterprise, at your homes. If you want to be protected, then you should uphold and protect every other American industry.
As noted in these prior posts, protective tariffs, dating back to the early days of our republic, were often considered necessary by more conservative Americans because we were mainly an agricultural nation, though Whigs and their successor Democrats sought to roll back tariff rates arguing for freer competition (going both ways, including American exports and the tariffs imposed on them abroad).
By the early 20th century, however, our transformational turn to industrialization and growing world trade substantially changed the playing field, something that became clearer when the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 helped to worsen, rather than improve, the Great Depression. It is no accident, however, that the administration now hearkens back to the 1890s and, specifically, the election in 1896 of Republican William McKinley to the presidency as something of a “golden age,” though it should also be noted that this was the “Gilded Age” of robber barons. Tariffs, moreover, were vital to federal revenue through the 19th century, but, as economic conditions evolved and as the income tax (there was one during the Civil War years) was brought back in 1913, they were less important to the treasury’s coffers.
Harazthy ended his address by stating, “it gives me great pleasure to note the universal and growing interest shown in the success of our Conventions” as “their deliberations are eagerly watched, not only by the viticulturists themselves, but by our influential and prominent men, and their great public value is now beyond question.” He further remarked that he hoped future conclaves would begin as successfully as this one, but, as some sessions in the convention noted, there were ominous signs of disease, especially in greater Los Angeles, affecting vineyards.
What became known as Pierce’s disease, a bacterial infection, began in Anaheim, established by German vineyardists some three decades before, and rapidly ravaged regional vines, destroying nearly all of them, sparing just a few areas, such as in Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga, but including the Workman/Temple vineyard at the Homestead. Devastating as this was locally, California’s wine industry did continue to grow in quality and quantity in succeeding years, though the onset of Prohibition in 1920 and lasting a baker’s dozen of years had an obvious and enormous impact. In recent decades, however, the Golden State’s wine industry has surged again, though we’ll see what climate change does to it here and worldwide.
It seems that over the past few decades, California wine has not only gained global recognition as a world-class product comparable to French wines, but has also moved its market price beyond the low-end category, where it once stood alongside several imported foreign quality wines.