What we have in mind when we talk about ‘fine wine’ is European – bottles of French, maybe Italian, maybe Spanish origin. Even in the US, a country not lacking in ego, European wines have long been hailed as the hallmark of quality.
‘Wine has never been embedded in the American lifestyle the way it is for so many Europeans. It’s a luxury product, not an art form tethered to day-to-day life,’ says Axel Borg, the distinguished librarian emeritus for food and wine at the UC Davis Library (a title just as hard-won and venerable as it sounds).
It goes without saying, however, that American wine arrived on the scene at a bit of a temporal disadvantage. European winemakers began to cultivate vines and generational traditions long before we’d even entered the arena, but in addition to the timing deficit we also have Prohibition to blame – essentially an involuntary reset button for much of the US wine industry.
‘Wine has always had cultural
