Roots

An Italian Tradition

On May 6th of 1913, Antonio Joseph Finco immigrated to the United States from Gallio, Italy, a small village near Assiago in the northern part of the country. Antonio, like his father and fathers before him, made wine. However, upon moving to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, he found grapes hard to come by. Anxious to preserve his heritage and carry on the tradition of years of ancestors before him, Antonio and the Italians of Ironwood, Michigan, ordered grapes from the early producers in California. Rail cars of grapes would arrive and each family would make their own wine from grapes that had traveled several thousand miles.

This tradition of winemaking continued through out Prohibition or the Volstead Act, as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution became known. The law did not technically ban the actual consumption of alcohol, but made obtaining it legally difficult. Specifically, Section 29 of the Act allowed 200 gallons (the equivalent of about 1000 750 ml bottles) of “non-intoxicating cider and fruit juice” to be made each year at home. The definition of “intoxicating” in 1920s was the loop hole that literally created a boom in the sale of grapes for making wine at home. Under the Act, vineyards and wineries were allowed to keep producing grapes and wine for home use and sacramental purposes. Nonetheless, the wine industry was decimated from over 700 wineries before Prohibition to only approximately 130 left after its repealment.

Zinfandel grapes, what the Italians had known in Italy as Primitiva, were popular among home winemakers living near the California vineyards, but its tight bunches left their thin skins vulnerable to rot on the long journey from the western vineyards of California to the east. The thick skins of Alicante Bouschet were less susceptible to rot, so this and similar varieties were widely planted for the home wine-making market. Alicante Bouschet or “shipping grapes” sold at as much as $50 per ton or more than 2 to 3 times the pre-prohibition price. Business for these growers was booming.

During the dark days of the Depression, the Finco family and neighbors, along with the thousands of home wine makers across America kept winemaking alive until the repeal of Prohibition with the 21st Amendment in 1933. Through out the temperance movement and Prohibition, the Finco household in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, like all of their Italian family and neighbors, were able to continue to legally make roughly 1,000 bottles of wine in their homes each year and, most importantly, were able to continue to drink their wine daily with their meals. The Finco family lifestyle of drinking wine with family meals is more than a European tradition; it is a way of life embraced by millions of Americans today.

Growing up in Northern Minnesota with an Irish father and an Italian mother, Michael Gould remembers visiting his maternal relatives in Ironwood. Each house served their own wine and, for the younger ones, homemade biscotti. “We would dip the biscuit into the wine and soon be asleep,” recalls Mike. “This economical approach to a babysitter was probably my first taste of wine.”