Came during prohibition

I turned 21 in 1999, decades after the roaring twenties. Because of this, I can honestly say that I don’t know what Prohibition feels like. I can only compare it to an empty barrel at a raging party or the feeling I had one night in high school when I saw a disgruntled gorilla cut off my beloved fake ID. I, like most of us, came of age in an era where wine flowed freely, beer was always available, and each teenager counted the days until their 21st birthday.

Those born in the early 19th century, however, were not so lucky. In an era marked by pandemic flu and a world war, an era in which drinking was not only used for pleasure but also as a much-needed escape from reality, Prohibition entered the picture.

Like an inopportune customer grabbing a stool at a local bar, saloon owners and booze lovers in America took one look at Prohibition and said, “We don’t want any.” But, it was not the common man’s decision and, as the beer spilled into tears, the whiskey shuddered and the Merlot cases won, Prohibition began on January 16, 1920 when the 18th Amendment went into effect, outlawing the production, transportation and sale of alcohol.

There were red flags against Prohibition from the beginning, anything the KKK ardently advocates is probably not the best idea, and Prohibition, in the end, did little more than increase alcohol consumption and pave the way for organized crime. Fourteen years later, in December 1933, Prohibition was repealed by the 21st Amendment, leaving many Americans raising their glasses to lawmakers for the first time in more than a decade.

The Volstead Act

During Prohibition, wine was treated a little differently than other types of alcohol, it was as if a bottle of Cabernet slipped the government a twenty and winked in a way that meant “shh … keep a cap of cork”. This was due to the Volstead Act. Passed the year before Prohibition began, it gave federal agents the ability to investigate and prosecute anyone caught in violation of Prohibition’s liquor laws. However, wines used for sacramental purposes were exempt from this law, allowing the wine to drain through crevices where the beer was too thick to seep.

Due to this act, limited quantities of wine could be produced both at home and in wineries. However, those made in warehouses were only available for purchase through warehouses owned and controlled by the government. Furthermore, it was only allowed to buy wine for use in religious ceremonies, particularly at mass. However, these rules did not prevent wine drinkers from only using wine for legal purposes: a conceptual “wine opener,” the Volstead Act provided a window of opportunity; one of the drinkers rushed past.

A study conducted in 1925, during the heart of Prohibition, found that the demand for sacramental wine increased by 800,000 gallons over a two-year period. Perhaps this demand was legitimately made by churchgoers (the ban sparked a religious revival of its own), but it is much more likely that people bought sacramental wine for other uses. Like the old saying there are no atheists in a trenchThere are no atheists in Prohibition when religious wines are legal.

The wineries

Despite the fact that Prohibition increased wine consumption by almost 100 percent, as often happens with the outlawing of anything, many wineries were forced to close their doors. For those who did not make sacramental wines, it was difficult to circumvent the law and the grapes of wrath arrived like no other time in history. Because of this, the ban drastically changed the grape industry, leaving grapes everywhere out of work. Wineries that survived this era did so in part by transforming their grapes from winemaking grapes into grapes that served nonalcoholic purposes, such as the Concord grapes used to make raisins, grape juice, and jam.

The California grape industry, in particular, was saved thanks to the Volstead Act, which allowed fermented fruit juices to be produced at home, giving wineries a reason to stay open. While this was intended to save the vinegar industry for American farmers, it also gave California wineries a way to break the prohibition rules. Those who ran the wineries began to produce a grape jelly called “Vine-go”, a jelly that, with the addition of water, would ferment into strong wine in about two months.

The wine itself

As Prohibition spread across the country and people everywhere began producing beer, whiskey, and wine in their homes, the quality of the liquor deteriorated greatly. Newbies to brewing and mixing were suddenly forced to acquire expert status. While some people made a liquor that was so strong that it left people blind or permanently paralyzed, wine was not that dangerous.

While wine did not take away from a person’s ability to walk or see, it did take away from some people’s ability to truly appreciate good wine. This was because, during this time, good wine was not so good after all.

Having built an elegant reputation dating back to biblical times, Prohibition made wine a little less sophisticated and a little more spontaneous. While it was previously produced by people recognized for their knowledge of winemaking, wine during Prohibition was often made by people who knew nothing about wine other than that they wanted to drink it. This naturally resulted in inferior tasting wines – after all, it wasn’t taste that many home winemakers were after.

When Prohibition came to an end, the wineries that had stored wine for the previous fourteen years were able to quench the thirst of some of the parched countries. However, since so many wineries had closed and others had been converted from wine grapes to other types of grapes, it took years for the wine industry to recover. During this recovery time, the wines were continuously made with lower quality, which prevented the planting of more vineyards.

For a time after Prohibition, it seemed like the wine industry was going down the drain. But, as the wineries began to transform back to producers of grapes for winemaking, the quality of the wine finally recovered. Within a few short years, the wine industry was on the rise and Americans were savoring each and every glass, probably now more than ever.