Phylloxera and Prohibition: When Napa Nearly Died
Near St. Helena, California
The vineyards around you look timeless, but Napa wine very nearly died twice within a single generation. The first blow was a tiny insect. In the eighteen nineties a root feeding louse called phylloxera swept through the valley, attacking the roots of the European grapevines.
By some estimates it destroyed most of Napa's vines, and by the turn of the century many vineyards were ruined. Growers eventually learned to graft their vines onto resistant American rootstock, but many gave up and planted walnuts and prunes instead. The vines were barely recovering when the second blow fell.
National Prohibition took effect in nineteen twenty and outlawed the commercial sale of wine for thirteen years. Most of the wineries that had survived the insect now closed for good. A stubborn few hung on by making sacramental wine for churches or selling grapes to home winemakers, who were still allowed to produce a small amount.
Beringer was among the survivors. When Prohibition was repealed in nineteen thirty three, the valley had to rebuild almost from nothing. It took the valley decades to fully recover.
Everything green you see is the fruit of that long, patient comeback.
