Deletcations by Alec Waugh

Since President Johnson issued his fiat that whenever practicable, American wines should be served in United States embassies, I have only once been honored with an invitation to dine in one. On that occasion His Excellency ignored the fiat, and a worthy claret followed a delicate Moselle. Greatly though I enjoyed them, I was disappointed. I had been curious to see which American wines a discerning and generous host would give his guests. On the Eastern Seaboard and in mid-Atlantic states most wine lists carry a preponderance of New York State wines, and no doubt a taste for them can be acquired, as it can be for the Greek Rezzina, but a European palate cannot easily become accustomed to the foxy flavor of the Concord grape, and I did not expect to find a New York State wine on an ambassadorial table. California wines are in another category. The vine had been already introduced by the Spanish missionaries before the state was populated in the middle of the nineteenth century by a torrent of wine-needing immigrants who quickly recognized that the cool climate of the San Bernardino Valley was propitious for table wines and the dry heat of the San Joaquin Valley produced grapes with a high sugar content happily suited to dessert wines. The men who launched the wine industry knew their business, many of them through previous European training; they imported their vines from France and Germany; for their red wines the Pinot Noir and Gamay from Burgundy and the Cabarnet Sauvignon from Bordeaux; for white wines there were the Pinot Blanc and Pinot Chardonnay from Burgundy, the Semillon and Sauvignon blanc from Bordeaux, the Sylvaner, the Traminer and the. grey Riesling from Alsace, the Johannisberger Riesling from the Rhine. And they had the sound commercial sense to recruit Chinese laborers to tread their grapes, so that they themselves should have ample leisure in which to make their fortunes in an explosively bull economy.

The vines flourished in their new home but the industry was to suffer a grievous setback during Prohibition. After repeal, with rusty machinery, it had to re-educate a country that had grown accustomed to a regime of cocktails and highballs, was self-conscious about its ignorance of table wines, and was suspicious of the wine-snobbery in which so many connoisseurs indulged. It set about its difficult task with admirable practicality. It makes everything as easy as. possible for the neophyte. It does not confuse him with nomenclature. Many of the technicalities of the trade are expressed in French, and why, the beginner asks, should the adjective velouté (velvety) be a mark of praise, while fruité (fruity) indicates opprobrium. Wine is an abstruse subject, and a fairly lengthy study of wine manuals is required before you can distinguish on a wine list between Vosne-Romanée and Romanée-Conti, and appreciate that Gevrey-Chambertin is not the wine that accompanied Napoleon into battle. The American who for fifteen years had made do and not done badly with powerful, preprandial potations, did not want to be bothered with all that European chichi. The Californian wine industry has done its best to spare him that. It does not harass him with complicated labels. It concentrates on what it calls ‘varietal wines.” It tells the customer from which grapes the wine was made and leaves him to make his choice, believing that he will soon discover that red wines made from the Pinot Noir are, as in Burgundy, better than those made from the Gamay and are more expensive. There is hardly any talk of vintage years; there is no need when the climate is so consistent that with skilful blending the wines of one year are identical with those of its predecessors. Champagne is made on the “German system; after the second fermentation, the wine is cleaned in vats; there are none of the meticuleus manipulations of Rheims, with the daily twisting and tilting of each bottle till it is ready for the dégorgement, the substitution of one cork for another. No need for talk of vintages. It is mass production, yes, but does that matter when the result is so satisfactory? Sound Californian wines are as good as any you can get anywhere, except those few, very few localities—on the Rhone and on the Medoc, on the golden slopes of Burgundy and around Epernay; and then only in a lucky year. Californian wines are good but they are not great; but can we be quite certain yet that they could not be great, if the exact areas were found for their cultivation? The vine, after all, had traveled a long way before it came to those few sacred places. May not such vineyards exist with_ out our knowing it in California? The world has dire need of them. The supply of casual wines is so great that in France there is danger of overproduction. But though the population is increasing at an alarming rate, though there are more and more people capable of enjoying the amenities of living and consequently anx-_ ious to taste great wines, the supply of those wines cannot be increased. Bordeaux and Burgundy, the Rhine and Epernay can only produce just so much. The price of their great wines will soon be out of reach of all but a very few. It is sad for me to reflect that my grandchildren will only be able to afford on rare occa-— sions the third-and fourth-growth clarets that in the 1930s I drank as a matter of course three or four times a week, reserving Margaux and Chambertin for an occasion. Unless there is discovered some new source of excellence, and why should not a miracle be accorded us? The legions of Crassus when they assailed Bordeaux did not suspect that there were stored in its cellars wines far finer than their own prized Falernian. Why should not some California valley tilted at a certain angle to the sun contain fate-favored folds of soil capable of producing wines as great as the European but different from them as claret is from Burgundy and Chablis from Moselle, some new supremacy of bouquet that will permanently enrich mankind? It is fine that the White House is concerned about California’s wines. Could it not go a step further, and add the minor project to its many ampler ones—the search for nobler vineyards?

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Alec Waugh

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Since President Johnson issued his fiat that whenever practicable, American wines should be served in United States embassies, I have only once been honored with an invitation to dine in one. On that occasion His Excellency ignored the fiat, and a worthy claret followed a delicate Moselle. Greatly though I enjoyed them, I was disappointed. I had been curious to see which American wines a discerning and generous host would give his guests. On the Eastern Seaboard and in mid-Atlantic states most wine lists carry a preponderance of New York State wines, and no doubt a taste for them can be acquired, as it can be for the Greek Rezzina, but a European palate cannot easily become accustomed to the foxy flavor of the Concord grape, and I did not expect to find a New York State wine on an ambassadorial table. California wines are in another category. The vine had been already introduced by the Spanish missionaries before the state was populated in the middle of the nineteenth century by a torrent of wine-needing immigrants who quickly recognized that the cool climate of the San Bernardino Valley was propitious for table wines and the dry heat of the San Joaquin Valley produced grapes with a high sugar content happily suited to dessert wines. The men who launched the wine industry knew their business, many of them through previous European training; they imported their vines from France and Germany; for their red wines the Pinot Noir and Gamay from Burgundy and the Cabarnet Sauvignon from Bordeaux; for white wines there were the Pinot Blanc and Pinot Chardonnay from Burgundy, the Semillon and Sauvignon blanc from Bordeaux, the Sylvaner, the Traminer and the. grey Riesling from Alsace, the Johannisberger Riesling from the Rhine. And they had the sound commercial sense to recruit Chinese laborers to tread their grapes, so that they themselves should have ample leisure in which to make their fortunes in an explosively bull economy.

The vines flourished in their new home but the industry was to suffer a grievous setback during Prohibition. After repeal, with rusty machinery, it had to re-educate a country that had grown accustomed to a regime of cocktails and highballs, was self-conscious about its ignorance of table wines, and was suspicious of the wine-snobbery in which so many connoisseurs indulged. It set about its difficult task with admirable practicality. It makes everything as easy as. possible for the neophyte. It does not confuse him with nomenclature. Many of the technicalities of the trade are expressed in French, and why, the beginner asks, should the adjective velouté (velvety) be a mark of praise, while fruité (fruity) indicates opprobrium. Wine is an abstruse subject, and a fairly lengthy study of wine manuals is required before you can distinguish on a wine list between Vosne-Romanée and Romanée-Conti, and appreciate that Gevrey-Chambertin is not the wine that accompanied Napoleon into battle. The American who for fifteen years had made do and not done badly with powerful, preprandial potations, did not want to be bothered with all that European chichi. The Californian wine industry has done its best to spare him that. It does not harass him with complicated labels. It concentrates on what it calls ‘varietal wines.” It tells the customer from which grapes the wine was made and leaves him to make his choice, believing that he will soon discover that red wines made from the Pinot Noir are, as in Burgundy, better than those made from the Gamay and are more expensive. There is hardly any talk of vintage years; there is no need when the climate is so consistent that with skilful blending the wines of one year are identical with those of its predecessors. Champagne is made on the “German system; after the second fermentation, the wine is cleaned in vats; there are none of the meticuleus manipulations of Rheims, with the daily twisting and tilting of each bottle till it is ready for the dégorgement, the substitution of one cork for another. No need for talk of vintages. It is mass production, yes, but does that matter when the result is so satisfactory? Sound Californian wines are as good as any you can get anywhere, except those few, very few localities—on the Rhone and on the Medoc, on the golden slopes of Burgundy and around Epernay; and then only in a lucky year. Californian wines are good but they are not great; but can we be quite certain yet that they could not be great, if the exact areas were found for their cultivation? The vine, after all, had traveled a long way before it came to those few sacred places. May not such vineyards exist with_ out our knowing it in California? The world has dire need of them. The supply of casual wines is so great that in France there is danger of overproduction. But though the population is increasing at an alarming rate, though there are more and more people capable of enjoying the amenities of living and consequently anx-_ ious to taste great wines, the supply of those wines cannot be increased. Bordeaux and Burgundy, the Rhine and Epernay can only produce just so much. The price of their great wines will soon be out of reach of all but a very few. It is sad for me to reflect that my grandchildren will only be able to afford on rare occa-— sions the third-and fourth-growth clarets that in the 1930s I drank as a matter of course three or four times a week, reserving Margaux and Chambertin for an occasion. Unless there is discovered some new source of excellence, and why should not a miracle be accorded us? The legions of Crassus when they assailed Bordeaux did not suspect that there were stored in its cellars wines far finer than their own prized Falernian. Why should not some California valley tilted at a certain angle to the sun contain fate-favored folds of soil capable of producing wines as great as the European but different from them as claret is from Burgundy and Chablis from Moselle, some new supremacy of bouquet that will permanently enrich mankind? It is fine that the White House is concerned about California’s wines. Could it not go a step further, and add the minor project to its many ampler ones—the search for nobler vineyards?