MADE IN AMERICA WORDS KRYSTAL KAKIMOTO
Over the past 300 years, America’s love affair with wine has matured, moving wine from the fringes of society to the center of the table. This once European area of expertise has grown to become a multi-billion dollar industry that combines technological enhancements embraced by Americans blended with Old World sensibilities and techniques inherited from overseas. California leads the American wine industry producing nearly 90% of the nation’s wine with nearly 250 million cases annually. Yet, despite its current success, California’s wine roots have a far humbler beginning, which dates to the 1800s when Franciscan missions planted grapes to make sacramental wine. The Gold Rush brought an influx of immigrants to the state that brought their winemaking techniques with them, but wine production came to a screeching halt during the 1920s when Prohibition banned the manufacturing, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Despite Prohibition’s repeal in 1933, it took decades for the knowledge and skills lost to be regained and implemented, leading to Americans’ love of sweeter, cheaper “jug wines” in the interim. 84
And California wines were unable to garner international respect until the Judgement of Paris in 1976 when a 1973 Chateau Montelena, a California Chardonnay, and a 1973 Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon beat eight French wines in a blind taste competition breaking the myth that great wines were only made in France. Today, there are over 4,000 wineries in the state and over 100 varietals in play, yet Cabernet Sauvignon has achieved the reputation as one of the dominant varietals of California. As with many New World wines, California Cabernet Sauvignon tends to be a robust, full-bodied, fruit-forward wine with a lush, sensuous quality stemming from the long, sunny days, which allow the grapes to achieve full maturation. An epitome of California Cabernet Sauvignon is the 2012 Selene “Dead Fred Vineyard” ($50 per bottle; winecountryconnection.net), which offers a palate dripping with blueberry syrup and black currants mingled with seductive notes of brown sugar. The heft of this wine calls for a dish bearing equal power such as a beef stir-fry that begins with succulent sirloin with KAUA‘I TRAVELER
