1920–1933 · United States
Prohibition in the United States
Thirteen years of prohibition set American wine back by generations.
What happened
National prohibition closed nearly all commercial wineries. A limited exemption for sacramental and home production kept some vineyards alive, but the industry's commercial infrastructure and expertise largely vanished.
Vineyards were replanted to thick-skinned varieties that survived rail shipping to home winemakers, at the expense of quality grapes.
Recovery took decades. The American fine wine industry is generally dated from the 1960s and 1970s rather than from repeal.
A patchwork of state-level distribution laws dating from repeal still shapes how wine is sold in the United States.
How firmly this is dated
Documented. Recorded contemporaneously. The date is not in question.
Federal statute and agricultural census data across the period.
Sources
Sources consulted
- American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) — Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), US Department of the Treasury
Along the timeline
Before · 1659–2010s
South African wine: Constantia, isolation and reconstruction
One of the oldest New World wine industries, a celebrated sweet wine, a century of cooperative control, and a difficult reckoning.
After · 1920–1933
What Prohibition did to American vineyards
The vineyards did not disappear — they were replanted to thick-skinned grapes that could survive a rail journey to home winemakers.