A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present

1. Forms of Life in a Dry World

1 FORMS OF LIFE IN A DRY WORLD THE VOLSTEAD ACT On 16 January 1919 the senators of the Nebraska state legislature, by a vote of thirty-one to one, ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic drink throughout the nation. With the Nebraska vote, the amendment received the required support of a two-thirds majority of the states for it to pass into law. Now it would become effective a year from the day of the clinching vote— that is, at midnight on 16 January 1920—and it seemed clear that at that time, the drinking of wine (to say nothing of beer and whiskey) must come to an end for the people of the United States. The language of the amendment was curt and uncompromising: The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. To convert this sweeping command into practical administration, the U.S. Congress passed the National Prohibition Act on 28 October 1919, over the veto of President Wilson.1 This piece of legislation was thereafter always called the Volstead Act, in reference to its ostensible author, Andrew Volstead, a veteran Republican congressman from Minnesota. Volstead’s congressional career was devoted mostly to defending the interests of the farmers of the upper Midwest, but as a teetotaler and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee , he took on the task of drafting the bill that was to enforce Prohibition. Although 1 Volstead always said otherwise, it was generally understood that the real author of the bill was Wayne B. Wheeler, the animating spirit of the Anti-Saloon League, the main organizing power behind the successful drive for constitutional prohibition.2 The act thus was an opportunity for the forces that had brought about Prohibition to dictate their terms to the nation. The key provision of the Volstead Act was its definition of intoxicating liquor as anything containing more than 0.5 percent alcohol. The basis of the definition was simply the measure traditionally used for purposes of taxation, but its intent was obviously to cast the net of prohibition as widely as the most ambitious reformer could hope. The definition was devastating to the brewers of beer and the makers of wine. Unlike the distillers of spirits, who had always been the main target of the prohibition campaign, they had at least been able to hope, down to the last moment, that their produce would be spared and their livelihoods continue. The terms of the act extinguished that hope. Yet the Volstead Act’s severe notion of what constituted an intoxicating drink was modified by some important omissions and exceptions. The significance of these irregularities was probably not clearly grasped by the act’s framers, but it became increasingly evident during the course of the Prohibition years. The act, like the amendment itself, did not specify “alcoholic” but only “intoxicating” drink; nor, like the amendment, did it prohibit any “use” or “purchase” of such drink—these important details, it has been said, are evidence of a practical recognition on the part of the Drys that they could not successfully achieve a “radical, bone-dry amendment.”3 Both the act and the amendment were directed not against the consumer, but instead against the producer and dealer (the “tra‹c,” in the language of the Anti-Saloon League). Thus the purchase, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages had no penalty attached to them. The bootlegger might be subject to the rigors of the law, but his customer was secure. People prudent enough to supply themselves before the trade shut down could enjoy their cellars with impunity.4 And if they could manage, illegally, to replenish them, the supplies once in hand were theirs, legally, to drink and to share with friends. Apart from these omissions, the act was further weakened by an exception allowing heads of families to make up to 200 gallons annually of “fruit juices” exclusively for consumption in the home. The language of the provision was obscure and contradictory, but as we shall see, its effect was to license home winemaking. Another exception allowed the production of alcohol for “non-beverage” purposes. Mostly, this meant the large-scale production of alcohol for industrial uses—in paints, solvents, and chemicals, and in the manufacturing processes for...