Wine Country, U.S.A.

Thomas Jefferson, renowned horticulturalist and noted wine collector, tried for more than 50 years to grow grapes for fine wine in Virginia. Each attempt ended in disaster.

Two centuries later, Virginia winemakers are succeeding where Jefferson failed. Last month, a 1991 Cabernet Sauvignon from Autumn Hill Vineyards in Standardsville, Va. won a double gold medal at the San Francisco Fair wine competition against wines from around the world, including the Napa Valley.

A boom is occurring in winemaking around the United States. Today the phrase “wine country,” which a few years ago meant Napa Valley and Sonoma County, now also means Charlottesville, Va.; Lubbock, Texas; Hermann, Mo.; Grand Junction, Colo., and Elephant Butte, N.M.

Scientific advances make this possible, giving man control over the elements as they relate to grape growing. The result is finer wine than could have been imagined even 20 years ago. In 1973, when Leon Adams wrote his book “The Wines of America” (McGraw-Hill), there were 254 bonded wineries in 18 states. Today, the Wines and Vines Magazine Annual Directory lists more than 1,200 bonded wineries in the United States; some 200 more exist as glorified home winemaking operations.

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Only six states, says Wines and Vines publisher Sandy Hiaring, have no bonded wineries--South and North Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming, Nebraska and Delaware.

Of course, it isn’t easy being an American wine pioneer. Extreme cold causes winterkill; pestilence ravages vines and drops crop sizes below profitability. Humidity causes mold and mildew that can trash the crop before harvest.

In some areas--Long Island, N.Y., for instance--hurricanes tear at vines. In West Texas, high winds, tornadoes and hail storms threaten plantings and rain can cause mold. Sudden temperature drops in Missouri and Wisconsin cause winterkill that destroys European vines and forces the use of hybrid grapes (which make wines that might taste unusual to those whose palates were trained on vinifera, or European-grape wines).

In these harsh climes, grape-growing has survived only through the development of better trellising systems, other methods to protect vines from harsh winters, the use of newer and safer fungicides and a host of other scientific advances.

The harsher the weather, the more expensive it is to make wine--yet winemakers all seem to love the challenge. They may know they’ll never get rich; most say they do it for the love of the craft.

Virginia

Virginia had no wineries 20 years ago, but in 1976, Robert de Treville Lawrence, aware of Jefferson’s failed grape-growing efforts, planted vines in Fauquier County in northern Virginia and formed the Vinifera Winegrowers Society.

“By 1981, some fine wines were being made here, but they were exceptions rather than the rule,” says Shep Rouse, winemaker for two small wineries as well as his own new Rockbridge Vineyards, founded months ago as Virginia’s 44th bonded winery.

Six years ago, Bruce Geocklein was hired as state enologist and Tony Wolf as state viticulturist, working under the aegis of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Almost immediately, Rouse says, there was a marked improvement in Virginia wines. “In 1989, before the Governor’s Cup Wine Competition, we did a pre-screening of the 110 wines that had been submitted, and we rejected only six. So we eliminated the pre-screening after 1989. The wines were pretty good.”

Rouse says Virginia’s main problem is a lack of control of water through the growing season. “Too much water,” he says, “makes for a greater canopy of leaves, which means more humidity under the canopy, which can create fungus.”

Modern trellis systems were needed, and they didn’t come in until, as Rouse puts it, “the first wave of dilettantes left. The problem was that some of the early wines poisoned the well. The wines had a stigma because there was some pretty lousy stuff here.”

Now, however, Virginia wine festivals attract huge crowds. In 1987, the two-day Vintage Virginia wine festival (started in 1982) had 4,000 visitors. This year’s event in June attracted 30,000 who paid $15 each. Thirty-six wineries participated.

The first wineries in Virginia--Piedmont Vineyards and Meredyth Vineyards--remain successful, the latter under former philosophy teacher Archie Smith III. The most aggressive is Prince Michel Vineyards in Leon, which recently hired winemaker Gale Sysock away from Santa Barbara’s Zaca Mesa Winery.

New York

One of the earliest success stories in the non-West Coast wine game came on the East Coast, in New York’s Finger Lakes district northwest of New York City. Forty years ago, cold winters and humidity in summer made growing French grapes difficult, so hybrids--crosses of native American and French grape varieties--were developed. These hardier vines survived harsh weather, though the wines can have an aroma that is odd to those unfamiliar with them. They take getting used to.

There was a lone voice in favor of growing European vines--Dr. Konstantin Frank, whose fierce advocacy of European varieties galled Walter S. Taylor at Bully Hill Vineyards. Taylor, a cantankerous sort, raged that the Finger Lakes region was too cold to grow French grapes and that hybrids made better wine anyway.

But Frank, an acerbic Russian-born scientist, eventually persuaded Charles Fournier of Gold Seal Winery to experiment with the French grapes, and Fournier’s efforts caused dozens of wineries to follow suit. By 1980, major plantings of French vines had gone into Finger Lakes soil. One winery, Glenora Wine Cellars, is on the verge of distributing its wine in California.

Meanwhile, Alex Hargrave was pioneering the same varieties on Long Island, where dozens of wineries are now making excellent wine. At the same time, Mark Miller was plowing Hudson Valley ground in developing his Benmarl Winery where more than a dozen wineries now operate, including Brotherhood, which claims to be America’s oldest winery, Adair Vineyards and Millbrook.

Today, the New York State Wine and Grape Foundation boasts 100 winery members in four distinct growing regions. It has an annual budget of $1 million to promote New York wines, encourage tourism and sponsor research into wine-related subjects. Just two days ago, the first New York Governor’s Cup wine competition, drew 167 entries.

“We’ve made great strides, but nothing like (what we can do in) the future,” says foundation director Jim Trezise.

New Yorkers once shunned their own wines. Today it’s not uncommon to see a New York restaurant offering a Wagner Vineyards Seyval Blanc or a Palmer Vineyards Chardonnay. (Palmer’s 1991 Chardonnay, $13, won a double gold medal at the recent 1993 San Francisco Fair wine competition.)

“It hasn’t hurt that Gov. Mario Cuomo serves New York wines in Albany,” says Trezise with a grin.

Missouri

Hybrids are the key to success in the Missouri wine country. Here in the Ozark Mountains, “Canadian Clipper” winds can turn a mild day into a bitterly cold winter afternoon in hours. This can wipe out vinifera vines.

“Most of the common vinifera are just too sensitive to withstand these severe, erratic temperature changes,” says Jim Ashby, supervisor of the Missouri Department of Agriculture’s Grape and Wine Program.

“We’ll have a long warm fall, where the vines are not fully dormant,” says Ashby. “Into December we’ll get several weeks of 60- and 70-degree weather, and the vines start to wake up again. Then this Clipper comes in while the sap in the vines is still up. In extreme cases, the entire vine dies above ground level.”

Ashby says that even if winterkill is avoided, the vines still may be devastated by spring frost. And then there are the hot, muggy summers that, he says, “are good for ripening but bad for downy mildew, powdery mildew, bunch rot and black rot.”

Two-thirds of the state’s plantings are hybrids instead of European grapes. Creative winemakers have made great wines from Seyval, Vidal, Vignoles and Norton.

Vignoles, an aromatic grape not unlike Gewurztraminer, makes a delightful off-dry wine that has won gold medals and sweepstakes honors at a number of national wine competitions over the classical vinifera grapes.

Much of the success of Missouri’s wine program is due to energetic research work at an experimental vineyard at Mountain Grove, 60 miles east of Springfield. The project is coordinated by Southwest Missouri State University, whose half-million-dollar annual budget is funded by a 6-cents-per-gallon tax on all wine sales in the state.

(Nine states, but not California, have marketing orders and/or taxes that raise funds to aid their wine industries, some on a fund-matching basis.)

Ashby says that from 1986 to 1992, Missouri wines increased in sales by 63% while consumption of all wine in the state decreased by 19%--indicating that Missourians are now concentrating their wine consumption on local products.

Indeed, the annual Oktoberfest events in Hermann and Augusta, once small, regional festivals, now bring out crowds as large as 50,000. The traditional oom-pah-pah bands and bratwurst are accompanied not just by beer but by wines called Cynthiana and Catawba.

Says Ashby: “The wineries are 50 minutes from 2 million people in St. Louis, and it’s a refreshing break from the big city to see wine in a small town.”

One attraction is Stone Hill Winery, founded in 1847, a decade before California’s first commercial winery, Buena Vista, was founded in Sonoma by Haraszthy.

Wisconsin

Of course, vinifera success stories are not universal. One of the harshest of climates in which to grow fine wine is Wisconsin. Agoston Haraszthy, the reputed father of California wine, first planted vines there after immigrating from Hungary. That venture failed and he moved to California.

But Bob Wollersheim was undeterred. He bought the old Haraszthy ranch in 1972, by then a run-down farm in Prairie du Sac, intending to grow traditional European grapes. To get advice and moral support, he met in New York with Frank, then the world’s foremost advocate of growing vinifera grapes in cold climates.

“He was sitting at his desk and I said: ‘Dr. Frank, I want to plant vinifera in Wisconsin and make fine wine,’ ” Wollersheim remembers. “Well, he was a short man and all I could see was his eyes above the top of the desk, but he put his hands on the desk and said: ‘Would you also try to ski at the Equator?’ ”

Frank’s words were harsh, but correct. Wisconsin was simply too cold for vinifera, yet today Wollersheim makes exceptional wine from the hybrids and now has a strong local following as well as a brisk tourist trade.

Texas

European grape varieties are possible in Texas, but they are grown most successfully near Lubbock in the Texas High Plains region. But only recently have the wines been very good.

In 1984, Texas winemaker Kim McPherson told horror stories about dumping a truckload of grapes into a crusher and “there was more rot than grapes.”

Today Texas is solving problems of rot caused by summer rain and humidity by trellising methods and by use of sulfur-based chemical sprays. Texas’ 26 wineries, aided by university agricultural programs and California-trained consultants, now make top Chardonnays, Cabernets and Sauvignon Blancs.

“We got great help from Tony Soter,” says McPherson, referring to one of the Napa Valley’s top enology consultants, who helped McPherson’s Caprock Winery develop a more approachable style of wine.

At Llano Estacado Winery nearby, winemaker Grant Douglass says: “Things have changed quite a bit in the last few years. We’re producing some real high-quality fruit because we’re becoming more sophisticated with viticulture and we’re learning from some past mistakes.”

The first great wines from West Texas were made by Jennifer and Bobby Cox at Pheasant Ridge Winery, just north of Lubbock.

Sales of wines in Texas are booming as the economy comes back. In the Lubbock area, a large medical center and three major medical institutions have spurred a construction boom, “and that’s been good for our sales,” says Douglass. “Doctors drink wine and they can afford premium wine.”

A university medical center affiliation also helps Paul Bonarrigo, president of Messina Hof Wine Cellars in Bryan, north of Houston.

“Five years ago we were producing about 8,000 cases of wine, and now we’re doing 35,000 cases,” says Bonarrigo. “And being four miles from Texas A&M; University has really helped our image.” He says his tasting room is crowded daily, and a company he formed called Designer Events does wine appreciation courses and cooking classes.

A key reason Texas wine sales are likely to increase, says Gary Foster, assistant commissioner for communications of the Texas Department of Agriculture, is a newly enacted Texas law that permits wine tasting rooms to charge for a glass of wine. Previously, only tours, no tasting, were permitted.

New Mexico

New Mexico, once a thriving wine state with a tradition dating back to the Spanish explorers in the late 1500s--had its wine industry wiped out by Prohibition. In the last decade it’s been making a strong comeback.

Of its 20 wineries, Anderson Valley Vineyards, Domaine Cheurlin and Gruet have gained the most national prominence, with the latter winning major medals for sparkling wine, and all three are selling well--in the state and outside.

Other Regions

Between the 1820s and 1850s, Ohio was one of the nation’s most prominent winegrowing states with 3,000 acres of vineyards and a sobriquet, “the Rhine of America.” But first the Civil War and then Prohibition devastated the industry.

Winemaking has returned to some degree with 50 wineries now operating, but success was mostly local until June 6, when Chalet Debonne Vineyards’ 1992 Riesling won the sweepstakes award for best white wine at the San Francisco judging.

Rhode Island’s five wineries are headed by Sakonnet Vineyards in Little Compton. Sakonnet’s winemaker, Tom Cottrell, has worked in Napa (at Cuvaison Vineyards) and Sonoma (Chalk Hill Winery). His recent wines, made both from hybrids and traditional vinifera vines, have shown extremely well.

Nothing prohibits a winery from springing up anywhere, even if no grapes grow nearby. Grapes can be transported by truck across state lines to be fermented at a distant location.

In fact, Nevada’s only commercial winery, Pahrump Valley Vineyards, halfway between Las Vegas and Death Valley, does exactly that, bringing in fruit from California. Owner/winemaker Jack Sanders did plant three acres of grapes a year ago, but he encountered a hazard few other wine regions can claim. A herd of wild horses trampled on and ate the first plantings.