The Journal is our new blog outpost, where we share stories of wine, travel, dining, cooking, hospitality, and anything else related to the art of living well.
Much has been made, and written, about the current state of America's wine industry. We're inundated with news article after news article publicizing which behemoth wineries are winding down production, which private equity group is strip mining what portfolio of brands, etc.
Then you've got the independent producers themselves, many of whom have spent the last five-plus years since the height of the COVID pandemic sounding the alarm for their own businesses. You'd be forgiven for thinking that there's no good news to be had in American wine.
And yet, for those of us actually drinking–don't even get me started on the alcohol-consumption data fear mongering–it's hard to reconcile those stories against what I believe to be an indisputable truth: there's never been more great American wine available than right now.
Maybe this is the best way to help them out...talking about how good our homegrown wines are these days. And to do that, we really have to take a brief step back in history, with two recent anniversaries that have been top of mind.
Back in 1776, the vast majority of wine being drank in what were the Colonies came from Europe–and much of it was fortified, particularly Madeira. If you looked out West, Spanish missionaries planted Mission at each step up the Camino Real, but you'd be hard pressed to get access to it outside of church. Sure, folks like Thomas Jefferson and others set out to grow grapes up and down the East Coast but what we would generously call, "The American Wine Industry", really got going nearly a century later with waves of immigrants coming from Europe. The 19th Century saw homesteading and ranch building, vineyards popping up thanks to families from Italy, Portugal, France, Germany, Morocco, and more.
The evidence of this is still visible in the moguls of Sonoma Valley, legendary hilltop sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and more.
Two hundred years after the Declaration of Independence, Steven Spurrier organized the Judgement of Paris putting American wines against their French counterparts. In defeat, it was the French (yet again) helping give us Americans some international shine!
There are families in Burgundy and Chianti and Wehlener that can trace their winemaking histories back to well before the birth of America. And yet, it took us fewer than 100 years to go from Prohibition to what we have today. There's something to celebrate there. People like Ric Forman cutting their teeth under the guise of Napa icons before setting out on their own. It's the kind of spirit that neither history nor tradition can't account for.
For decades, too many people thought that the mark of a great American wine was one that could be mistaken for its European version in blind tasting. The idea being, for example, that Chardonnay or Pinot Noir in the States needs to be reminiscent of Burgundy for it to be of real quality or worth.
Thankfully, that non-sense is slowly fading away. We're done apologizing for European grape varieties tasting a bit different over here and instead, focusing on the uniqueness of not only our terroir, but our entrepreneurial spirit.
Because guess what? You can drive up and down the Santa Ynez Valley and taste lush, beautiful Pinot Noir just down the street from a spot making meaty Syrah and lip-smacking Savagnin.
Take a day trip out to the Columbia Gorge for Mencia next door to Cabernet Franc. How about funky, unfiltered Pet-Nats in the Hamptons not far from some crisp Tocai Friulano? That's all possible here, and in a way that you just don't see anywhere else.
Of course, variety and creativity only get you so far. At the end of the day, the wines still have to be compelling in their own right. We're now seeing third and even fourth generations put their mark on wineries all over the country, taking the lessons they learned at home and abroad to work in pursuit of something bigger than themselves.
It took some time, sure. But man oh man...there's just so much to be excited about in American wine right now. Come on down and ask us to prove it to you.
-- Will