In California the European grape flourished, and the state quickly became a bountiful source of wines resembling the familiar European types. Then, midway through the nineteenth century, the colonization and development of California transformed the situation. That recognition came slowly and was made reluctantly. Not until it was recognized that only the native grape varieties could succeed against the endemic diseases and harsh climate of North America did winemaking have a chance in the eastern part of the country. Few things can have been more eagerly tried and more thoroughly frustrated in American history than the enterprise of growing European varieties of grapes for the making of wine. The struggle to make the New World yield wine such as they had known in Europe was begun by the earliest settlers and was persisted in for generations, only to end in defeat over and over again. At any rate, that is the conviction from which this history has been written. Even more important, a knowledge of the difficulties they faced and of the work they did will help us to understand better the success that has at last been achieved. It is also instructive to see how many names celebrated in other connections also belong to the story of American winegrowing, from Captain John Smith onwards. Now that winegrowing in the United States has succeeded so brilliantly after long years of frustration, and now that it is beginning once again to spread to nearly every state in the union, it seems to me particularly fitting that the many obscure and forgotten people and their work lying behind that success should be brought out into the light. This history is a first attempt to tell the story of grape growing and winemaking in the United States from the beginning and in detail. A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1989 1989.
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