Notes From the Vintner Welcome to our column. We hope that you will return to learn interesting notes on wine, and related subjects. Wine is a great gift from God to be used for the enjoyment of man. It is a food, and should be treated as such. It is meant to lift up the body and lighten the soul. 9/1/00 The Medal of Honor..Cynthiana The Cynthiana wine was entered in competition in Vienna in the 1860’s, and won the Medal of Honor. People of Europe now knew that America could produce fine wine. Cynthiana was a native grape that did not grow in Europe. It is a river grape from Arkansas and Missouri. Leon Adams, a leading United States wine author in the 1980’s, stated that this wine could be discovered as the leading native dry red wine grape of America. Cynthiana also had something else going, it was a grape that could combat the Phylloxera that was destroying the vineyards of Europe. Large amounts of Cynthiana rootstock was being shipped to France and other countries. As it turned out, it was the American vine that saved Europe’s grape and wine industry. The rootstock allowed the grafting of Europe’s native vines, and protection from Phylloxera. Even if go to the vineyard of France today, you can find some Cynthiana that came up from the root. People were moving West…to the promised land, California. Even Viticulture Professor Husmann, the leading grape person of Missouri, moved to California. There he stated that, “this was the true home of the grape”. The leading grape producing state of the union was no longer Missouri. Wines were still made in Missouri, and other eastern states, as it had been made in the past. But they did not grow and develop like the vineyards and wineries of California. California was the leading grape and wine producing state in the union as of 1870.  The European vines, Vitis Vinifera, did well in the western United States. Where they did not do well in the eastern part of the country, in California they grew very, very well. So now the center of vineyards and wine for the country was on the West Coast. Different vines for different states. Robert G Cowie Wine Maker Email The Vintner Vintner Notes Archive - 8/01/00 Vintner Notes Archive - 7/01/00 Vintner Notes Archive - 6/01/00 Vintner Notes Archive - 5/01/00 Vintner Notes Archive - 4/01/00