Troubled Times: 1900-1950

By the turn of the century many wineries had been established throughout the Northeast. Most attempts with V. vinifera vines had failed due to the presence of phylloxera, powdery and downy mildew, and black rot. However research was underway that focused on improving quality of native grape wines and enabling growth of vinifera vines by countering the pests and pathogens plaguing the European vines.

During this period the California wine industry had quickly developed and began to dominate wine production in the United States. Competition from California led to a decline of commercial viticulture in the Northeast in the early 1900’s as wineries struggled to keep up with the volume and quality of wines coming from the West. Despite the commercial situation, small wineries continued increasing production and improving quality. But production was suddenly put to a dramatic end with the World War I, followed by the introduction of Prohibition in 1920.

Though Prohibition made commercial wine production illegal, the Volstead Act allowed the manufacture of “nonintoxicating fruit juices.” This was loosely interpreted to allow home winemaking. As a result vineyard plantings saw a significant increase, though quality plantings decreased. Many commercial vineyards were neglected, abandoned, or replanted with table grapes. Americans continued drinking wine, but mainly homemade versions which typically were not fermented dry. After Prohibition the average American consumer’s taste had shifted toward sweet wines.

Prohibition was repealed in 1933. A valiant attempt at recovery of the nearly-dead industry was attempted though a dearth of talent was faced due to a lack of good vineyards and the fact that many winegrowers had died. And shortly after Repeal the industry was hit with another devastating blow: The Great Depression. During the Depression, consumers demanded cheap jug wine (referred to via the unfortunate racist slur dago red) and sweet, fortified wine. Before Prohibition and the Depression, dry table wines outsold sweet wines by three to one, but afterward, the ratio of demand changed dramatically. For decades, wine production was low and limited.

The wineries that survived this period tended to be large producers that were able to pivot to “sacramental” wine during Prohibition, then churn out “port,” “sherry,” and “burgundy” during the Depression. The Finger Lakes wine industry was dominated by Taylor, Great Western, Gold Seal, Canandiagua Industries, and Widmer's, all making wine with native and hybrid grapes. Hudson Valley’s industry was in terminal decline, with Hudson Valley Wine Company still in business but struggling. Wine production in most of the other Northeast states came to a halt. Organizations were created to unite the wine industry such as the Eastern Wine Growers Association and the Wine Conference of America, but these received little traction and quickly dissolved. The great wave of prosperity that came after World War II found American consumers believing that American wine was cheap, unappealing, and of low quality, and that fine wines inherently must come from Europe.

The precipitous decline of wine production in the Northeast during the first half of the 20th century had nearly erased all progress made in the 1800’s. According to Paul Lukacs in The Rise Of American Wine (American Heritage Magazine), “the public, whose taste had been nurtured on thirteen years of roughedged Prohibition wine, lost what little interest it had in dry table wines, and by 1940 well over 80 percent of American wine was either sweet or fortified. Then came world war, and by midcentury it had been almost a lifetime since anyone outside Northern California had drunk high-quality American wine.”