Skip to main content
University of California Press

About the Book

A History of Wine in America is the definitive account of winemaking in the United States, first as it was carried out under Prohibition, and then as it developed and spread to all fifty states after the repeal of Prohibition. Engagingly written, exhaustively researched, and rich in detail, this book describes how Prohibition devastated the wine industry, the conditions of renewal after Repeal, the various New Deal measures that affected wine, and the early markets and methods. Thomas Pinney goes on to examine the effects of World War II and how the troubled postwar years led to the great wine boom of the late 1960s, the spread of winegrowing to almost every state, and its continued expansion to the present day.

The history of wine in America is, in many ways, the history of America and of American enterprise in microcosm. Pinney's sweeping narrative comprises a lively cast of characters that includes politicians, bootleggers, entrepreneurs, growers, scientists, and visionaries. Pinney relates the development of winemaking in states such as New York and Ohio; its extension to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, and other states; and its notable successes in California, Washington, and Oregon. He is the first to tell the complete and connected story of the rebirth of the wine industry in California, now one of the most successful winemaking regions in the world.

About the Author

Thomas Pinney is Professor of English, Emeritus, at Pomona College. He is the author of A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition (California, 1989) and has published scholarly work on George Eliot, Lord Macaulay, and Rudyard Kipling.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments

1. Forms of Life in a Dry World
2. The Rules Change
3. The Dismal ’30s
4. Making and Selling Wine in the ’30s
5. Countercurrents
6. Wine in the War Years
7. Postwar
8. Back East
9. Changing Weather
10. The Big Change: California
11. A New Dawn (I): The Northern and Central States
12. A New Dawn (II): The South
13. The West without California
14. California to the Present Day

Notes
Sources and Works Cited
Index

Reviews

“[A] thorough chronicle of 20th-century wine production and consumption in the United States [covering] everything from grape growing to the marketing and selling of the finished product.”
Library Journal
“[Pinney’s] sentences often sparkle with wry humor. . . . The final chapters have the feeling of magic about them: so much of American's wine future is yet unwritten.”
Publishers Weekly
“A must in any home where conversation about wine is likely to provoke the need for an authoritative reference.”
Indianapolis Star
“At last, we have the second volume of Thomas Pinney’s definitive history of wine in America. . . .Together, the two volumes comprise not only the most comprehensive history of wine in America to date, but an important work of historical literature.”
Wine & Spirits Magazine
“Exhaustively researched and full of great cocktail party facts (I can now explain, with authority, why you can't buy wine from a barrel in this country, why California wines are labeled by grape, not region, and how the Prohibition paradoxically caused an over-planting of vines). This reference text . . . will be invaluable to serious scholars of the grape. Fascinating reading.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Magisterial and judicious. . . . An indispensable view of what turns out to be, seen entire, a remarkable time.”
Decanter
“Magisterial work.”
The Economist
“Pinney . . . can now lay claim to the definitive history of American wine. . . . Revealing a sharp eye for detail and a dry, low-key wit, Pinney writes in an engaging style and with remarkable clarity.”
Wine Spectator
"Pinney covers new ground and new research, and treats the entire period in a new way. [History of Wine in America] will be welcomed by scholars and by wine enthusiasts."—Dr. James Lapsley, University of California, Davis

"A worthy successor to Pinney's landmark History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition, and like that volume evidencing a wealth of knowledge, presented with grace and style. In addition to telling fascinating stories, both of these books are invaluable references. Anyone interested in the history of American wine should read them."—Paul Lukacs, author of American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine

"I am confident the term definitive will apply to this work for innumerable vintages to come. Wine lovers from New England to California now have one place to turn for the history of their favorite beverage, wherever in America its grapes are grown."—Charles L. Sullivan, author of A Companion to California Wine and Zinfandel

"An essential reference book for anyone wishing to sound authoritative at the dinner table."—Bruce Cass, editor of The Oxford Companion to the Wines of North America

Awards

  • 2006 IACP- Cookbook Award–Wine, Beer & Spirits Category 2006, International Association of Culinary Professionals