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(Left) President Thomas Woodrow Wilson. (Right) Wilson’s wine cellar at 2340 S St NW, Washington, DC. Photos courtesy Library of Congress. (click to enlarge)

By Joseph Temple

A great show to check out on the History Channel is 10 Thing You Don’t Know About, a documentary series that uncovers little-known facts about popular historical subjects.  And during a recent episode dealing with the topic of prohibition, viewers were given a fascinating tour of President Woodrow Wilson’s private wine cellar.  According to the historian interviewed on the program, the collection was moved directly from the White House to Wilson’s home at 2340 S Street in Washington DC as he left office in March of 1921.  But with prohibition in effect – and the transportation of alcohol illegal – the ex-president was given a special exemption by Congress to move his vast collection to what is now known as Woodrow Wilson House, a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Reading Garrett Peck’s Prohibition in Washington D.C.: How Dry We Weren’t, the author notes that Wilson’s collection included many bottles of Champagne and Bordeaux from the 1920s which were probably given to him and his wife by Parisian diplomats working on Embassy Row in D.C. In fact, fellow Treaty of Versailles architect and former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau visited Wilson during his three-year stay on S Street.  Of course, being the good house guest, Clemenceau most likely brought a few bottles with him as a present for his gracious hosts!

Occupying the lowest room of the entire house, the president’s wine cellar symbolizes the many double standards of the prohibition era.  While the country’s poor risked prosecution for the mere consumption of alcohol, Wilson along with numerous manor-born politicians and wealthy elites acted as if the laws didn’t apply to them – and in most cases they didn’t.   Having a bottle in one hand and an Anti-Saloon League membership card in the other, many in Congress violated in private the policies they advocated for in public.  In fact, the reason why Wilson became so adamant in moving his collection from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was out of fear that his successor Warren Harding – a staunch supporter of the temperance movement — would drink it all.

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By Joseph Temple

Monaco’s Prince Rainier III once said that a postage stamp is “the best ambassador of a country.”  So its no surprise that many nations around the world have decided to promote their local wine making industries through philately.  From Austria to Australia and from Canada to Chile, viticulture has been the subject of numerous commemorative stamps over the years.

Below you can find a few wine themed postage stamps (in no particular order).  Is there any one stamp that catches your eye?  Have we missed anything?  Please share your comments with us and visit this link to see more wine and food stamps on our Pinterest site.

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By Jon Lebkowsky from Austin, Texas, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

By Joseph Temple

Texas, a place we sometimes associate with Stetson hats, grazing cattle, and pointy-eared armadillos.  But did you know that the second largest state in America is also carving out a reputation as a wine making hotspot?  In fact, with eight recognized American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) and nearly 300 wineries, the Lone Star State is now the fifth largest grape and wine producer in the United States.  And matching quality with quantity, 20 of their wineries recently took home a total of 87 medals at the 2014 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.  Simply put – don’t mess with Texas wine!

Given the history, it makes sense that Texans would be drawn to viticulture.  According to its Wine & Grape Growers Association website, the state is where the first vineyard in North America was established.  Similar to California, the presence of Spanish missionaries resulted in a demand for sacramental wine, with much of it coming from vineyards grown adjacent to their places of worship.

What many might not know is that a Texan saved European wine from complete devastation.  Thomas Munson was a Denison-based horticulturalist that through his travels developed more than 300 disease-resistant varieties of grapes.  So when phylloxera – a tiny insect that attacks the roots of grapevines — threatened vineyards across Europe, it was Munson who shipped his rootstocks to fight this disease.  Awarded the French Legion of Honor Cross of Merite Agricole in 1888 for his successful efforts, wine writer Karen MacNeil notes that to this day, the vines of Bordeaux and Burgundy have the same lineal rootstock as those in Denison and throughout Texas.

Thomas Munson (left) helped to save European vineyards from phylloxera in the late 19th century. You can download his iconic 1909 book Foundation of American Grape Culture (right), which is now in the public domain for free by clicking this link.

Fast-forward to the present and that same can-do spirit is alive and well in the vineyards across Texas.  Of the eight AVAs, West Texas is home to several including Mesilla Valley, which encompasses El Paso County and neighboring New Mexico.  Relatively high in elevation, the area is known for a long growing season with cooling winds funneling through the valley to help maintain acidity levels, which tend to be lower in hotter climates.  Fourteen different grape varieties are grown there, including Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Zinfandel.

Moving north up the panhandle is the Texas High Plains AVA, covering approximately eight million acres of land – of which 3,500 acres are used to make wine.  With a very dry climate, vintners are dependent on both the cooling winds and the subterranean Ogallala Aquifer, allowing them to produce Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chenin Blanc among others.

Traveling east to Munson’s hometown of Denison is the Texoma AVA, on the border with Oklahoma and just north of the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  Established in 2005, the wineries here number just six but with a diverse array of soil, both native Texas varieties as well as vitis vinifera varieties are grown here.

Texas AVA Map. Special thanks to GoTexanWine.org for the image.

Finally, covering an area of nine million acres is Texas Hill Country — the second largest AVA in the United States – encompassing the cities of Austin and San Antonio.  Being hundreds of miles away from the Gulf of Mexico insolates the vines from the hot and humid winds.

At the International Wine & Food Society, we have a solid presence across the state, with branches in Austin, Houston, Fort Worth, Northeast Texas and an upcoming branch in Dallas.  Perhaps these locals can chime in on what Lone State State wines they would recommend?

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By Joseph Temple

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT

Alex Sebastian, an escaped Nazi who flees to South America poses as a wealthy Rio de Janeiro socialite alongside his fellow Third Reich fugitives.  But little do people know that they are plotting revenge against the Allies by building their very own atomic bomb.  The only question is where to store the weapons grade uranium needed to detonate the bomb?

Director Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 motion picture Notorious starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman as American spies determined to uncover this explosive secret hidden inside a bottle of ’34 Pommard proves to be the perfect blend of wine and film.  As part of their undercover operation, Bergman’s character Alicia marries Alex and successfully steals the key to his wine cellar so she and Grant can go investigate while a lavish party takes place upstairs.

Searching for clues, Grant’s character Devlin discovers a sheet of paper located behind several vintages standing upright – an unusual position for any bottle in a wine cellar.  But while taking a closer look, a 1934 Pommard moves closer and closer off the shelf.  Delicate as the grapes that created this fine Pinot Noir, one careless mistake causes the bottle to come crashing down. Yet on impact, black sand is seen amongst the broken glass, raising the eyebrows of both Devlin and Alicia.

For Hitchcock to use a bottle of wine as the “MacGuffin” – a desired object that the protagonist pursues in a movie – is not surprising.  A passionate oenophile, the Master of Suspense was renown for giving those who visited his Bel-Air mansion a detailed tour of the custom built wine cellar he had installed.  And having purchased a vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains probably explains why many of his movies including The Birds were filmed in Northern California.  But his choice of 1934 Pommard as the bottle to store the uranium ore in reflects Hitch’s passion for French wines, and more specifically, the region of Burgundy.

While a collector of the best Bordeaux and Champagne, Hitchcock was most fervent about Burgundy’s Pinot Noir grapes. And just how one careless error broke the bottle ’34 Pommard and the secrets in it, the same rings true for any vintner who doesn’t pay close attention to detail while cultivating Pinot Noir.  As he would explain to actress Tippi Hedren in the 2012 made-for-TV movie The Girl: “It’s called the heartbreak grape. Do you know why? Of all the grapes used to make wine, these are the most fragile. It has a very thin skin, prone to disease, mould, every kind of rot and virus known to the vintner’s art. So growing Pinot Noir is a bit like making a movie – heartbreak guaranteed.”

Good evening, indeed!

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By Joseph Temple

After a brutal and unforgiving winter, the United States Department of Agriculture declared the Finger Lakes to be a disaster zone.  What impact this will have on the current harvest is still unknown, but with the area in the news, here’s ten interesting facts about this upstate New York wine region:

Special thanks to the New York Wine & Grape Foundation for providing most of these facts.

By Flickr user: Plutor South Boston, Massachusetts http://www.flickr.com/people/plutor/ [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

By Visit Finger Lakes (Flickr: Sunrise overlooking a vineyard) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

By Agne27 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

By Flickr user: Valerie Knoblauch Canandaigua, New York http://www.flickr.com/people/visitfingerlakes/ [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

By Bill (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The International Wine & Food Society is proud to have a strong presence across the state of New York with branches in New York City, Long Island and Buffalo.  Please click on any of the links to visit their respective websites.

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