REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION 29 



Elections are to be held in half a dozen other States, so I say we ought 

 to start shaping public opinion NOW, start creating new markets for our 

 California wine NOW. 



Every day brings us nearer to the time when the whole country will be 

 face to face with the prohibition problem. 



We have a just cause and I believe that if the grape growers and wine- 

 makers of California yes, and of the whole United States will prepare for 

 the crisis and give as much time and thought and energy to this great ques- 

 tion as they do to the technical and commercial side of the industry, they 

 will come through the trying ordeal with flying colors. 



EARLY CALIFORNIA WINE INDUSTRY. 



By HENRY LACHMAN, 

 San Francisco. 



Having been invited to prepare a paper on "Early California Wine 

 Making," it is necessary to state that I will not be able to carry you back 

 any farther than the seventies, '76 being my first recollection of California 

 wines. 



At that time I knew how difficult it was to introduce California wines 

 to the general wine drinker, who was either a tourist or a wine drinker 

 accustomed to the European taste. 



Most wines in those days were principally a blend of Bordeaux wines 

 that came out as ballast, the return cargo then being principally grain. The 

 wine handled in those days was distributed by wholesale whiskey dealers. 

 In putting a wine on the market and supplying our French restaurants, even 

 though we sold them as California wines, we used a portion of our French 

 cargo wine in the blend when selling in bulk. Later there was a demand 

 for bottle wines. The California label was not accepted for a fine wine. 



There were also skeleton cases in those foreign bottoms that made the 

 trip that is, the case, the bottle, the straw cover, the wrapper, the cork, the 

 cap, and more often the label. Before bottles were manufactured in America 

 they were shipped out here in crates, as were also the straw covers. The 

 making of cases in California began about that time. 



As California wines began to improve, instead of giving them a half 

 blend of foreign wine the blend was reduced to possibly about 80 per cent 

 California and 20 per cent French. The demand in wine at that time was 

 for a French label, mostly fictitious brands. As we found that our California 

 wines were being consumed, it was in 1886 that we decided, if California 

 wines could be drunk under a foreign label they certainly could be drunk 

 under their own, and it was at this time that we refused to bottle any more 

 wine other than under a California brand and made an expose through the 

 "Chronicle" by Tom Vivian, which was printed broadcast, as "American 

 People Drinking Label," and from that time our California wines have been 



