Prohibition in the Santa Clara Valley
👋 Hello, I’m Kevin Ferguson and welcome to 🍷 Rain on the Monte Bello Ridge,🍷 a memoir about health, aging and winemaking. (Book summary in 50 words)
Below is a middle chapter. Hope you enjoy it!
Prohibition in the Santa Clara Valley
In 1893, the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) was formed in Ohio, to lead a moral crusade against alcohol. With its singular focus to rid the country of liquor, it grew into a dues-paying pressure group with membership in the millions.1 Its driving force was a lawyer named Wayne Wheeler, a small man, about 5-foot-6, with wire-rimmed glasses and a tidy mustache. Having been spiked in the leg with a hayfork, as a kid by a drunken laborer on his family farm, it traumatized him and apparently led to his antipathy toward alcohol.2
Partnering with moralists, progressives, suffragists, and xenophobes, the ASL quickly grew with branches across the United States, marshaling resources for the singular focus of the prohibition fight. Between 1905 and 1917, states across the nation were imposing antiliquor laws.
In California, four attempts were made, but all of these antiliquor ballot initiatives failed, largely due to the heavy influx of Italian and Irish populations in San Francisco, which was the largest California city until the mid 1920s.
The wine industry’s place in California’s culture was no small factor, either. In the early twentieth century, some 90,000 acres of California soil were planted with wine grapes, and an annual crop valued at $75 million, making it central to the state’s economy.3
The anti-alcohol laws that were being passed by some states weren’t very effective, because people could buy alcohol across state lines. Few thought a national ban could happen, because it would sever important tax revenue. That was until 1913, Wheeler and the ASL lobbied for the 16th Amendment, imposing a national income tax to make the government less dependent on taxes from alcohol sales.
Meanwhile, temperance societies, which had a broader focus on improving society, such as expanding women’s rights, joined the anti-alcohol movement. They helped push for national legislation.
As the country got pulled into the First World War, Wheeler saw a national alcohol ban potentially as a patriotic attack on German breweries, since America was at war with Germany. Wheeler crafted the initial draft of the Volstead Act, designed to be the enforcement tool of The 18th Amendment, which prohibited the sale of “intoxicating alcohol.”4
It required three-fourths of the states to ratify the 18th amendment, which happened within 13 months, erasing the actions of California voters four consecutive times.
The 18th Amendment went into effect January 16, 1920.
AS THIS WAS all unfolding, Great Grandpa John Gemello abandoned his wine business and pursued a new endeavor, purchasing a one-third interest in a truck farm and sales territory, a more reliable income than trying to run a bootlegging operation.
The 1920s were just starting to see large-scale development and use of automobiles, which Gemello took advantage of for his unique farm. It was quite different from the others in the area, as all the produce was sold house-to-house. Trucks were needed for delivery, since most homes in his territory of Mountain View, Los Altos and Cupertino, were widely separated by apricot, walnut and prune orchards. Less than 2,000 people resided in Mountain View at the start of the decade.
The farm consisted of 25 acres, all planted year-round with vegetables of all varieties. Three small houses were on the farm, in which each partner lived with his family. The Gemello house was all wood with cracks in the doors and windows. Daylight peeked through these cracks. Great Grandma Teresa would stuff rags and towels in the cracks to insulate the home. The only running water was in the kitchen, and a wood stove provided the only heat. There was no inside plumbing on this property where they lived for six years - until the turning point of 1925.
The farm had a big barn-like building, which was a bunk house for about 10-12 men. The other half was a large kitchen and a big dining hall. Another large building housed the three trucks, one for each partner, and a warehouse space. The third big barn was for horses, hay, all of the farm equipment, and of course, a wine cellar. These men would not work without wine.
The Volstead Act had a surprising provision added after the initial draft that allowed for each head of the household to make up to 200 gallons of wine per year for “home use.” Peculiar? Certainly. “As this “worked out to nearly three bottles a day, only a very large family - or an exceedingly bibulous small one - was likely to consume this much on its own,” wrote Daniel Okrent in his book, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.
“I recall that once this man bought some wine from Picchetti during Prohibition and my dad hauled it into San Francisco by wagon, with four horses. I know that he got stopped right there at the city limits by the police, and when they found out who he was working for they just waved him in. ”
“We had this good friend all through Prohibition, at the Golden State Winery in San Francisco,” said Mario Gemello, my maternal grandfather. “I recall that once this man bought some wine from Picchetti during Prohibition and my dad hauled it into San Francisco by wagon, with four horses. I guess they were making sacramental wine or medicinal wine, or something. I know that he got stopped right there at the city limits by the police, and when they found out who he was working for they just waved him in. The arrangements had been made that the wine was coming.”5
John Gemello had planted about 8 acres of zinfandel grapes in the mid 1920s. Those vines came into bearing around 1928-29. “He sold some to his friends and kept some for himself,” Mario Gemello said.6
In the early 1920s, John Gemello’s house crew split up other duties, too. One cooked; another was the foreman; and the rest of the men worked on the farm, planting, raising and picking the vegetables. All of the work was done by hand. Only the ploughing and tilling of the soil was done with horses. All of the vegetables - picked daily - were brought into the big truck barn and divided equally among the partners. Every night after supper, six days a week, the three partners would load their trucks with their share of the produce for the next day’s house-to-house peddling.
During this time, Great Grandpa Gemello made many lasting friendships as he called on the majority of the families in these towns in and around Mountain View. He knew most of the teachers, priests, doctors, bankers, and business people.
Work was very hard, long hours with little time for the family. All these years, Great Grandpa was always looking for a farm that he could buy for his very own.
Last Call:The Rise and Fall of Prohibition pg. 35
Wayne Wheeler biography, www.AlcoholProblemsandSolutions.org
Last Call, pg. 175
Prohibition, a film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
Wines & Winemakers of the Santa Cruz Mountains; an oral history: interviews conducted by Charles L. Sullivan, 1992-1994, P. 11
Wines & Winemakers of the Santa Cruz Mountains, P. 10