American Wine Comes of Age

RISING starkly from the dusty fields of California's San Joaquin Valley are 100 huge metal cylinders that look like an array of petrochemical tanks. Alongside them are rows of mostly windowless industrial buildings that sprawl over an area as large as six city blocks. This symbol of technological power is not a pulsing refinery; it is the E. & J. Gallo Winery of Modesto, Calif. Inside the cylinders, millions of gallons of California Burgundy, Chablis and rosé age. Inside the buildings, squads of chemists pore over their latest oenological formulations, while viniculturists experiment with ways to improve soil and vines. Wine—the beverage that was prescribed as a medicine by Hippocrates and celebrated in poem or aphorism by Euripides, Shakespeare and Thomas Jefferson—has become a modern, fast-growing, competitive industry.

Americans will spend close to $2 billion on wine this year, twice as much as in 1968. The growth in wine consumption is outpacing that of hard liquor and beer, though Americans will spend ten times as much on those beverages combined as on wine. This year a U.S. adult will drink an average 2.4 gallons of wine; that is still quite a few sips behind such iron-livered veterans as the French (29 gallons) or the Italians (30 gallons), meaning that the U.S. industry still has plenty of room to grow. Last year alone, retail wine sales rose 59% in Wisconsin, 65% in Vermont and 98% in Rhode Island. Young people have become particularly avid imbibers. On campuses, wines are considered the best accompaniment to informal meals and exotic smokes. Consumption will reach an alltime peak this week because the biggest wine-drinking day of the year is traditionally Thanksgiving.

Wine clubs and college wine courses are multiplying as fast as yeast on freshly crushed grapes. Wine tastings are taking their place alongside cocktail parties in the repertory of folkways. Wine books—as many as 50 new ones this year—are flowing from the presses. At least a quarter of a million American homes have wine vats bubbling quietly in closets or basements. For less than $ 1 a bottle, one can buy all the necessary accouterments, including a can of grape concentrate, to make a few of the 200 gallons of wine a year that heads of households in the U.S. are allowed to produce without paying taxes. Physicians are prescribing wine to help lower blood cholesterol, ease glaucoma and lessen nervous tension. Some doctors are recommending wine in weight-reducing diets. A 4-oz. glass of red, white or rosé wine contains just under 100 calories. As St. Paul advised Timothy: "Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities."