Reds and Whites from the Red, White, and Blue

Winemaking both did and didn’t start when European explorers and colonizers stumbled onto and, later, invaded the continent hundreds of years ago. In fact, the early history of American wine is a whole lot of “kinda’ but not yet.”

The European imperialists were thrilled to find native grapes growing up and down the east coast … but greatly disappointed to find that they produced wine that did not taste the way they wanted wine to taste. They brought vines from Europe … but couldn’t get them to succeed in our soil. Our own Thomas Jefferson famously threw a considerable amount of money and land and effort into making America a wine country … to no avail.

In 1740, James Alexander (gardener to William Penn’s son) found what we think was the first identified European/American hybrid grape, starting a whole, fun rabbit hole of American (and world) wine history. There was phylloxera and black rot and the decimation of the Cincinnati wine scene in the mid 1800s that lead to those wine people relocating to New York’s Finger Lakes region — so much “kinda’ but not yet.”

Fast forward to 2022, when, by then, the U.S. had become the fourth largest wine producer in the world, following Spain, France, and Italy. Today, our top wine producing states are California, Washington, New York, and Oregon — with California producing several times more wine than the other three combined. (We’re probably somewhere around the bottom of the top 10.)

Please join us this Friday as guest pourer Kris Nelson from importer/distributer Williams Corner Wine showcases some of their U.S. wines. It’s another one of our famous free walk-up tastings. Drop by anytime between 5:00 and 6:30 PM. It’ll be the easiest act of patriotism that you’ll ever be asked to perform.