|
American wine has been produced for over 300 years. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 89 percent of all US wine.〔United States Department of Agriculture "(Global Wine Report August 2006 )," pp. 7-9〕 The United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world after France, Italy, and Spain.〔T. Stevenson, ''The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia'' Fourth Edition, pg 462, Dorling Kindersly, 2005 ISBN 0-7566-1324-8〕 The North American continent is home to several native species of grape, including ''Vitis labrusca'', ''Vitis riparia'', ''Vitis rotundifolia'', and ''Vitis vulpina.'' But the wine making industry is based on the cultivation of the European ''Vitis vinifera,'' which was introduced by European settlers.〔H. Johnson & J. Robinson ''The World Atlas of Wine'' pg 268 Mitchell Beazley Publishing 2005 ISBN 1-84000-332-4〕 With more than under vine, the United States is the sixth-most planted country in the world after France, Italy, Spain, China and Turkey.〔J. Robinson, ed. ''The Oxford Companion to Wine'', Third Edition p.719; Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-19-860990-6〕 ==History== (詳細はFrench Huguenot settlers from Scuppernong grapes at a settlement near Jacksonville, Florida.〔 In the early American colonies of Virginia and the Carolinas, wine making was an official goal laid out in the founding charters. However, settlers discovered that the wine made from the various native grapes had flavors which were unfamiliar and which they did not like. This led to repeated efforts to grow the familiar European ''Vitis vinifera'' varieties, beginning with the Virginia Company exporting French vinifera vines with French vignerons to Virginia in 1619. These early plantings met with failure as native pest and vine disease ravaged the vineyards. In 1683, William Penn planted a vineyard of French vinifera in Pennsylvania; it may have interbred with a native ''Vitis labrusca'' vine to create the hybrid grape Alexander. One of the first commercial wineries in the United States was founded in 1787 by Pierre Legaux in Pennsylvania. A settler in Indiana in 1806 produced wine made from the Alexander grape. Today French-American hybrid grapes are the staples of wine production on the East Coast of the United States.〔 The Kentucky General Assembly on November 21, 1799 passed a bill to establish a commercial vineyard and winery.〔''Littell's Laws of Kentucky'' Vol. 2, pp. 268-270〕 The vinedresser for the vineyard was John James Dufour, formerly of Vevey, Switzerland.〔 The vineyard was located overlooking the Kentucky River in Jessamine County in what is known as Blue Grass country of central Kentucky. Dufour named it First Vineyard on November 5, 1798.〔''The Swiss Settlement of Switzerland County, Indiana'', page 293, Day Journal of J.J. Dufour〕 The vineyard's current address in 5800 Sugar Creek Pike, Nicholasville, Kentucky. The first wine from First Vineyard was consumed by subscribers to the vineyard at John Postelthwaite's house on March 21, 1803.〔''Kentucky Gazette'', March 29, 1803〕 Two 5-gallon oak casks of wine were taken to President Thomas Jefferson in Washington, D.C. in February 1805.〔Library of Congress Doc#25644 Letters of Jefferson and Doc#25657 Letters of Jefferson〕 The vineyard continued until 1809, when a killing freeze in May destroyed the crop and many vines. The Dufour family abandoned Kentucky and migrated west to Vevay, Indiana, a center of a Swiss-immigrant community.〔John James Dufour, ''The Swiss Settlement of Switzerland County, Indiana'', page XVII; and John James Dufour, ''The American Vine-Dressers Guide'',page 10 ISBN 2-940289-00-X〕 In California, the first vineyard and winery was established in 1769 by the Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra near San Diego. Later missionaries carried vines northward; Sonoma's first vineyard was planted around 1805.〔 California has two native grape varieties, but they make very poor quality wine. The California Wild Grape (Vitis californicus) does not produce wine-quality fruit, although it sometimes is used as rootstock for wine grape varieties.〔J. Robinson, ed. The Oxford Companion to Wine Third Edition, p.756; Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-19-860990-6〕 The missionaries used the Mission grape. (In South America, this grape is known as ''criolla'' or "colonialized European".) Although a ''Vitis vinifera'' variety, it is a grape of "very modest" quality. Jean-Louis Vignes was one of the early settlers to use a higher quality vinifera in his vineyard near Los Angeles.〔 The first winery in the United States to become commercially successful was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio in the mid-1830s by Nicholas Longworth. He made a sparkling wine from Catawba grapes. By 1855 Ohio had 1500 acres in vineyards, according to travel writer Frederick Law Olmsted, who said it was more than in Missouri and Illinois, which each had 1100 acres in wine.〔Frederick Law Olmsted, (''A Journey through Texas'' ) (1859), pp. 6-7, at Open Library.org, Library of Congress〕 German immigrants from the late 1840s had been instrumental in building the wine industry in those states. In the 1860s, vineyards in the Ohio River Valley were attacked by Black rot. This prompted several winemakers to move north to the Finger Lakes region of western New York. During this time, the Missouri wine industry, centered on the German colony in Hermann, was expanding rapidly along both shores of the Missouri River west of St. Louis. By the end of the century, the state was second to California in wine production.〔 In the late 19th century, the phylloxera epidemic in the West and Pierce's disease in the East ravaged the American wine industry.〔 Prohibition in the United States began when the state of Maine became the first state to go completely dry in 1846. Nationally, Prohibition was implemented after ratification by the states of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920, which forbade the manufacturing, sale and transport of alcohol. Exceptions were made for sacramental wine used for religious purposes, and some wineries were able to maintain minimal production under those auspices, but most vineyards ceased operations. Others resorted to bootlegging. Home winemaking also became common, allowed through exemptions for sacramental wines and production for home use.〔Section 29 of the Volstead Act (27 U.S.C. § 46)〕 Following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, operators tried to revive the American wine making industry, which was nearly ended. Many talented winemakers had died, vineyards had been neglected or replanted with table grapes, and Prohibition had changed Americans' taste in wines. During the Great Depression, consumers demanded cheap "jug wine" (so-called dago red) and sweet, fortified (high alcohol) wine. Before Prohibition dry table wines outsold sweet wines by three to one, but afterward, the ratio of demand changed dramatically. As a result, by 1935, 81% of California's production was sweet wines. For decades, wine production was low and limited. Leading the way to new methods of wine production was research conducted at the University of California, Davis and some of the state universities in New York. Faculty at the universities published reports on which varieties of grapes grew best in which regions, held seminars on winemaking techniques, consulted with grape growers and winemakers, offered academic degrees in viticulture, and promoted the production of quality wines. In the 1970s and 1980s, success by Californian winemakers in the northern part of the state helped to secure foreign investment from other winemaking regions, most notably the Champenois of France. Winemakers also cultivated vineyards in Oregon and Washington, on Long Island in New York, and numerous other new locales. Americans became more educated about wines and increased their demand for high-quality wine. All 50 states now have some acreage in vineyard cultivation. By 2004, 668 million gallons (25.3 million hectoliters) of wine were consumed in the United States. California produces more than 88.5% of the wine, followed by New York, Washington and Oregon. In the second decade of the 21st century, the US wine industry faces the growing challenges of competition from international exports and managing domestic regulations on interstate sales and shipment of wine.〔J. Robinson, ed. ''The Oxford Companion to Wine'' Third Edition, p.720; Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-19-860990-6〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「American wine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|