American wine

Lore & Background

The earliest wine in what is now the United States is sometimes claimed to have been made around 1564 by French Huguenot settlers near Jacksonville, Florida, but there is no reliable historical evidence that they made wine from Scuppernong grapes at that time. Early English colonists in Virginia and the Carolinas attempted to grow European Vitis vinifera vines, beginning with the Virginia Company exporting French vines in 1619, but native pests and diseases caused repeated failures. In the Southwest, Spanish missions planted vineyards in New Mexico by 1629 and in California by 1680, using Mission grapes. William Penn planted a French vinifera vineyard in Pennsylvania in 1683, but there is no established link between this planting and the Alexander grape, which was first identified around 1800.

Reader's Guide

American wine's significance lies in its long history of adaptation and recovery. After early failures with European vines, hybrid grapes like Alexander emerged, and commercial wineries began in the late 1700s, such as Pierre Legaux's in Pennsylvania (1787) and John James Dufour's First Vineyard in Kentucky (1799). The industry expanded in Ohio, Missouri, and New York, but was devastated by Prohibition (1920–1933), which shifted American tastes toward sweet wines. Research at the University of California, Davis, and Cornell University revived quality production in the 20th century. Today, all 50 states have vineyards, with California, Washington, and Oregon producing over 90% of total output. The industry faces challenges from international competition and interstate shipping regulations.

Did You Know?

• The first documented attempts at wine production in the U.S. occurred in Florida in the 1560s, though the first substantial production began in New Mexico in the 1630s.
• California produces 80.8% of all U.S. wine as of 2023.
• The United States is the fourth-largest wine-producing country in the world.
• Prohibition began nationally in 1920, but exceptions allowed sacramental wine and fruit juice; home winemaking for personal consumption was effectively prohibited under the Volstead Act.

Origins and the Settlers' Grape Struggle

The story of American wine stretches back to a Viking expedition from Greenland that reportedly named the continent Vinland after the profusion of wild grape vines they encountered. The earliest documented wine in present-day U.S. territory was crafted between 1562 and 1564 by French Huguenot settlers near Jacksonville, Florida, using Scuppernong grapes. In the Virginia and Carolina colonies, wine production was explicitly written into founding charters as an official economic goal. Yet settlers quickly found that the native grape varieties—Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina—produced flavors they found unfamiliar and unappealing. This dissatisfaction drove repeated attempts to cultivate European Vitis vinifera. In 1619, the Virginia Company shipped French vinifera vines along with French vignerons to the colony, but native pests and vine diseases destroyed those early plantings. William Penn followed with a French vinifera vineyard in Pennsylvania in 1683, which may have crossbred with a native labrusca vine to produce the hybrid grape later known as Alexander.

The Southwest's Mission Wine Heritage

While the eastern colonies struggled with failed vinifera experiments, the Spanish Southwest was quietly building what would become the nation's oldest continuous wine tradition. In the territories of Las Californias and Santa Fe de Nuevo México, Spanish missions planted vineyards that established the foundations for the modern California and New Mexico wine industries. New Mexico's wine production began in 1628 or 1629, making it the oldest wine-producing region in the United States. By 1680, Mission grapes were already being cultivated for California wine. In 1769, Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra established the first major vineyard and winery in California near San Diego, and later missionaries carried vines northward, with Sonoma's first vineyard planted around 1805. The Mission grape, a Vitis vinifera variety known in South America as criolla, was the workhorse of these early operations, though it was considered of very modest quality. California's two native grape varieties, including Vitis californicus, produced poor-quality wine and were sometimes used only as rootstock. One of the first settlers to push beyond the Mission grape was Jean-Louis Vignes, who planted higher-quality vinifera varieties in a vineyard near Los Angeles.

Nineteenth-Century Expansion Across the Continent

The early nineteenth century saw American wine production spread across the continent. In 1799, the Kentucky General Assembly passed a bill establishing a commercial vineyard and winery, with Swiss vinedresser John James Dufour overseeing operations in Jessamine County. The first wine was consumed by subscribers in March 1803, and two five-gallon oak casks were delivered to President Thomas Jefferson in February 1805. The vineyard survived until a killing freeze in May 1809 destroyed the crop, prompting the Dufour family to relocate to Vevay, Indiana. In the mid-1830s, Nicholas Longworth founded the first commercially successful winery in the United States in Cincinnati, Ohio, producing a sparkling wine from Catawba grapes. By 1855, Ohio boasted 1,500 acres under vine, surpassing Missouri and Illinois, each with 1,100 acres. German immigrants arriving in the late 1840s played a crucial role in building the wine industries of those states. When black rot struck Ohio River Valley vineyards in the 1860s, several producers relocated to the Finger Lakes region of western New York. Meanwhile, Missouri's wine industry, centered on the German colony in Hermann, expanded rapidly along both shores of the Missouri River west of St. Louis, making the state second only to California in production by century's end.

Prohibition's Devastation and a Broken Revival

Prohibition dealt a near-fatal blow to American wine. Maine became the first state to go completely dry in 1846, and national Prohibition followed the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920, banning the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol. A narrow exception permitted sacramental wine for religious purposes, allowing some wineries to maintain minimal production. In New Mexico, the region's deep-rooted wine-making history and religious traditions meant that monks and nuns were able to preserve long-standing grape lineages for both sacramental and leisure use. Elsewhere, separate counties resorted to bootlegging, and home wine-making became widespread under permitted exemptions for personal production. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, operators faced the daunting task of reviving an industry that had been nearly extinguished. Many skilled wine-makers had died, vineyards had been neglected or replanted with table grapes, and a decade of prohibition had fundamentally shifted American palates. During the Great Depression that followed, consumers overwhelmingly demanded inexpensive jug wine rather than the quality products the industry had once produced.

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