INDUSTRY: American Wine Comes of Age

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French experts often politely describe U.S. wine as pleasant but not great. Baron Philippe de Rothschild, millionaire oenophile and vintner (Château Mouton Rothschild), says: "To develop character, great wines must go through hardship. Snow. Drought. Storms. There must be suffering to produce it. In California everything is much too perfect. The soil is too rich. The weather is too good. The wine all comes out industrially uniform, like Coca-Cola." In 1966, the Paris chain store Prisunic put three lines of California wines on sale. Some 60,000 bottles gathered dust and derision for several months before being shipped to the provinces, where they bombed again. Only one French retailer, Paris' prestigious Fauchon, now stocks them.

But France is taking no chances that the fast-rising California vintners will post a new American challenge. France imposes the Common Market's 25¢-a-bottle tax on U.S. wine, and bars entry of California wines with French place names, like Burgundy or Pinot de la Loire. By contrast, U.S. tariffs on wine imports are only about 7½¢ a bottle, and nontariff restrictions are practically nonexistent. California lobbyists are trying to persuade the Treasury to require that imports be sold in standard American-sized wine bottles of 4/5 quart (25.6 oz.). European wines usually come in 24-oz. containers or, as Ernest Gallo calls them, "cheater bottles." The French complain that to adopt different bottles for the U.S. than for the rest of the world would raise costs and make French wine less competitive in the U.S. The label and bottle disputes are likely to be the focus of an international debate in next year's meeting of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Grape Rush. The future of California wine is clouded by much more than international disputes. The far greater problem: success breeds grapes. Twice as many new wine-grape vines are being planted in California this year as last. Because of overplanting, the wine supply may catch up with demand within the next three or four years. "By 1974 the amount of Cabernet Sauvignon alone will triple," predicts Jack Welch, vice president of Christian Brothers. "Just where is all that Cabernet going to find a home?"

One possible consequence is that grape prices—and wine prices—may eventually fall to the levels of the mid-1960s. If so, some growers, winery owners and over-bullish investors will be clobbered, but consumers will benefit. Retail prices of the best California wines could be brought within the reach of more Americans. The French might even have to drop their prices in response; right now, French prices are rising so fast (Medocs and St. Emilions have tripled in the past two years) that many Americans are turning to California wines out of economic necessity. And surplus premium grapes could be bought up cheaply and blended into lower-priced wines, making America's vin ordinaire rather extraordinaire.