Shaking California's Throne

Good vineyards are popping out all over

Thomas Jefferson, who knew well the wines of France and Italy, dreamed of growing great vintages in Virginia To no avail. European vines, planted by Italian workers at his estate near Charlottesville, soon succumbed to insects and disease. For almost two centuries it was considered impossible to raise in the East South or Midwest--anywhere save California--any vine but the American Vitis labmsca, whose fermented grapes have an acid, musky, "foxy" flavor.

Now, on Jefferson's old acreage Vitis vinifera, the noble vine of Europe is being grown. These vines and French-American hybrids, crossbreeds developed for more changeable climes, are also being cultivated in at least 27 other states and yielding serious table wines They are not, and never will be, Lafites or Corons but they are at least comparable to the local wines of France, and at best may prove in time to be far superior.

Jefferson's vision is being realized through science: the adaptation of distinguished vines that will survive cold climates and disease--and through art; the translation of grapes into wine. Eminent wine scientists, from Emile Peynaud of Bordeaux to Maynard Amerine of the University of California, have paved the way. At great expense and with the priestly dedication that produced the vintages of Europe, their test tubes are being translated into bottles by a new breed of American winemaker.

On a recent U.S. tour, Helmut Becker, a West German oenologist and a founder of the German Wine Academy reported: "Without doubt, the wine grape can be grown in almost all parts of the U.S., with the exception of Alaska. California's privilege to be the only vinifera grape-growing area does not exist any more. He added: "The states of Washington Oregon, Ohio, Michigan, New York Indiana, Pennsylvania and others are shaking the throne of California by competing with their fine quality and fruity wines [whose] freshness and elegance are a challenge to all of us "

Indeed, while California produces six of every ten bottles of table wine consumed in the U.S., and has doubled its production in a decade, wineries in every other grape-growing state command a fanatic following--even for the vintages that can be admired only for pricey presumptuousness. Experts believe that the good ones are here to stay; that this is in every sense, a growth industry.

The market is there. U.S. wine consumption has increased by almost 60% in this decade. This year or next, for the first time, Americans will down more wine than hard liquor.* Wine already outsells spirits in nine states: Arizona California, Idaho, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.

What might be called the new Chateaux Peorias are largely the fruit of one man's work: Konstantin Frank 78 a Russian of Alsatian ancestry whose family had tended wines for more than 500 years. With Soviet university degrees in viticulture and oenology, he had the temerity to plant 2,000 acres of vinifera in of all places, Odessa, where winter temperatures plunge to -40DEG F.--a country where, says Frank, "if you make spit, it will freeze before it hits ground." Moving with his family to the U.S. in 1951 he was disappointed by many of the wines that were being produced by the big New York State companies. Made basically of labrusca, many of these wines were watered, sugared and tarted out with as much as 25% California wine, shipped in by tank car--and legally sold as New York State wine.

It had been assumed for centuries that European vines could not survive the Northeast's killing winters. Grafting varietal vines on hardy Canadian rootstock Frank proved to New York vintners and other aspirants in Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arkansas and elsewhere that a noble grape could indeed be grown outside California's kindly climate. Frank, who immigrated to this country with $7 in his pocket, is now worth $5 million and has his own 78-acre vineyard in the munificent Finger Lakes district of upstate New York.

Thus, theoretically at least, the adapted Vitis vinifera can be grown just about anywhere from Odessa, U.S.S.R., to Odessa Texas. Another missionary for its widespread propagation is Treville Lawrence, who runs an experimental vineyard in The Plains, Va. Says he firmly: "The key to quality is vinifera. There is no other way to make a good wine. Other wines are simply hamburger wines." Among the vinous aristocrats that are flourishing in many of the wine-growing states: Cabernet Sauvignon, the soul of the great red Bordeaux; Pinot Noir, the heart of red Burgundies and a major source of champagne; Sauvignon Blanc, whence flow Bordeaux's finest whites and those of the Loire; Chardonnay, the esprit of all fine white Burgundies; and Riesling, the small yellow grape from which come the classic wines of Moselle, Alsace and the Rhine.

It may be possible, but in regions with short growing seasons and brutal winters, many winemakers--pace Dr. Frank--do not find it practical to grow Vitis vinifera. They compromise with hybrid vines developed in France and the U.S. over the past century, that are tough enough to survive nearly anything but an atomic blast. The most successful strains--whose names are listed on an honest bottle include: Seyval blanc, Baco noir, Marechal Foch, Aurore, Leon Millot, Chancellor Chelois, Villard and Vidal. They have been a major force in the vineyarding of America. The hero of the hybrids is Philip Wagner, who imported the first of these vines and grows them in his Boordy Vineyard near Baltimore. Wagner is in fact more committed to growing vines than making wines, and has helped seed huge acres of farmland with his hardy hybrids.

The growing and making of wines can be a hobby for some. For the most part, however, the new challengers are businessmen who figure on a solid cash return on their liquid investment. Regardless of the cost of the land, it may take at least $1,300 an acre to plant the good vines--though the return can be bountiful: around 3,000 bottles. The further cost of fertilizing, weeding, spraying, pruning, picking, vinification and bottling makes wine a costly enterprise. Then add the investment in sophisticated equipment: a single stainless-steel 1,000-gal. vat can soak the vintner for some $6,000.

Small wonder that most of the Chateaux Peoria enterprises are tiny by California standards and much of their wine is sold locally, often on their own premises. Few have more than 100 acres in vines. (On the other hand, Burgundy's La Romanee-Conti vineyard, one of the world's most justly famed, encompasses barely 4 1/2 acres.) Some of their owners, and professional oenologists, point out that the soil and microclimate in, say, parts of Massachusetts and Michigan are in many ways closer to the great winegrowing regions of Europe than are overheated California's. Writes Anthony Spinazzola, a wine columnist for the Boston Globe: "The greatest wine has always been made where the vine is at its extreme climatically, when the grape is right on the edge of its endurance."

Among the dozens of widely scattered Chateaux Peorias that boast some distinction:

Hargrave, a Long Island vineyard that only five years ago was a 66-acre potato farm, was founded by Alex Hargrave, 31, who holds a Harvard M.A. in Chinese studies, with the help of his wife Louisa, who studied wine chemistry, and his brother Charles. The Hargraves plant only vinifera, no hybrids. Remarked Alex: "If you can grow avocados, why grow brussels sprouts?" In spite of the Hargraves' recently planted vines and inexperience, their Sauvignon blanc was given top rating among New York wines tasted recently by Wine Author Alexis Bespaloff (The Fireside Book of Wine) and Vintage Magazine Publisher Philip Seldon. Seldon was also "impressed with the hints of the future" in the Hargraves' Pinot Noir.

Wiederkehr was named for Johann Wiederkehr, who settled in Altus, Ark., in the 1880s because the Ozark Mountain country reminded him of his native Switzerland. Johann planted native Concords and Delawares, but in 1958 his grandson Alcuin, now 43, began experimenting with vinifera and last year sold 10,000 gal. of such wines as Cabernet Sauvignon and Gewurztraminer, some of them in his own Alpine-style restaurant.

Tabor Hill was founded in 1968 in Buchanan, Mich., by Leonard Olson, then a 26-year-old steel salesman. "When we started with our vinifera, the local farmers said we were full of prunes, that it wouldn't work." Yet a 1971 Tabor Hill Vidal blanc was served in the White House by Michigander Gerald R. Ford. Though Olson and his partners are still struggling financially, they have visions of a mini-Napa Valley on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Meredyth, near Middleburg, Va., has been growing hybrids only since 1975 and already produces 85,000 bottles a year. Says Owner Archie Smith: "We're selling almost as quickly as we can get it out." Nearby Piedmont is the state's first commercial vinifera winery, and expects to double its capacity over the next two years. Both Meredyth and Piedmont used to be cattle farms. Says Piedmont's manager, Jim Cockrell, 35, who over the past four years oversaw the transition from cattle farm to vineyard: "It sure beats milking cows twice a day."

Benmarl, a Hudson Valley vineyard, was first planted in the mid-1800s and replanted in the '60s. Its new vintner, who grows both hybrids and vinifera, is Mark Miller, 58, a former magazine illustrator. He has successfully financed his operation by forming a Societe des Vignerons, a group of people who for an initial fee as high as $500, plus up to $50 a year, buy "vine-rights"--two vines--and are entitled to twelve bottles of Benmarl wine annually The 900 members of the societe also get first choice on all other Benmarl wines. A thirsty lot, they bought up 18,000 gal last year.

Wine, like every other form of art and artifice, stands or slumps on manners. These new American vintages are well-trained: they do not speak out of turn. They await parental approval. They are infants. Alexis Lichine, a wine grower shipper and guru (The New Encyclopedia of Wines & Spirits), observes that it has taken 20 centuries for the wines of Europe to evolve. Says he: "All it takes is time, trial and a great measure of good luck." To which, in the U.S., might be added patience, faith, curiosity and quite a few dollars.

* Even so, American wine consumption is relatively miniscule (1.8 gal. per person annually) compared to Italy's (30 gal.) and France's 27 gal.)

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