Grape production in the United States is expanding rapidly as new growers are starting vineyards in all regions of the country. Commercial wine grape production in the Midwest, along with production in California, Oregon, and New York, has increased with the demand for high-quality wine.
During the last seven years (1997–2004) in Ohio, the number of licensed and bonded wineries has increased from 43 to more than 80. Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri are experiencing similar expansion as more people are becoming familiar with the wines produced from grapes grown in the Midwest.
Commercial wine-grape production has a long history in the Midwestern states. Some of the earliest work with grapevines occurred in Ohio and Indiana.
A Swedish immigrant, John James Dufour, worked diligently on improving grape growing in Indiana during the early 19th century. He settled in the prairie town of Vevay, Indiana, shortly after returning to the United States in 1816. Dufour chose the most suitable location available to start his new vineyards and begin making wine. He brought with him from Sweden considerable experience in growing grapes and making wine.
In addition to Dufour, Jean Daniel Morerod was well known in Vevay for his grape-growing ability. Morerod helped to pioneer some of the earliest wine making in southern Indiana.
Another great figure in American viticulture was a young Cincinnati attorney, Nicholas Longworth, who moved from New Jersey in 1803. His interest in growing grapes and making wine gave him notoriety in the United States as an important viticulturist. By the 1820s, Longworth was seeking out sources of various grape cultivars to grow in his newly established vineyards, cultivars that included the Catawba grape.
John Adlum, District of Columbia, was noted as the person from whom Longworth obtained the original Catawba vines. As the Catawba grape became more popular for making wine, Longworth quickly became an important spokesperson for the Cincinnati grape-growing area. The Ohio River Valley developed a national reputation for growing grapes, which led to it being nicknamed the Rhine of America.
For more than three decades, grape production around Cincinnati increased until grapevines began to experience serious decline due to the diseases of downy mildew, powdery mildew, and black rot (Figure 1). As grape diseases became more widespread, insects caused additional problems that resulted in a decrease in grape production in southwestern Ohio. Southern Ohio grape growers abandoned their vineyards and looked for other areas of Ohio to grow grapes.
Although the Lake Erie grape-growing area is much farther north than Cincinnati, its weather patterns are moderated by a large body of water. The Lake Erie area has been a good location for grape production and wine making because of the favorable attributes of an extended growing season and well-drained sandy soils. The Lake Erie grape-growing region has been a strong production area for more than 100 years and is still a strong viable area for growing American, French hybrid, and Vinifera wine grapes.
Northern Ohio grape production increased rapidly through the mid-1860s. Early success stories of grape growing along Lake Erie and on the islands led several individuals to start growing grapes in this region (Figure 2). By 1874 Ohio grape acreage totaled more than 10,000 acres and grew to a peak of 28,000 in 1889.
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| FIGURE 1. Bordeaux application to control diseases in the early 1900s. |
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| FIGURE 2. Grape harvest in the Lake Erie Region in the early 1900s. |
Unlike the level of attention given to the production of Catawba around Cincinnati, most grape production in northern Ohio was devoted to the American varieties, Concord and Niagara, in the mid- to latter 1800s. From the early 1900s through today, the Concord and the Niagara grapes have been the most widely grown grape varieties.
In 1919, Ohio was the first state to vote against the sale and the consumption of alcohol, ushering in the era of Prohibition. After Prohibition was enacted, Ohio grape production declined dramatically from a high of 32,000 acres, which was mostly planted to Catawba.
During Prohibition, grapes were only used for juice and fresh consumption and thus the demand for Concord and Niagara grapes increased. Some sacramental wine was produced for religious purposes, and home wine making was common. It was not until after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 that grapes were once again used for commercial wine making.
Since the mid-1970s, increased attention has been paid to growing French hybrid and Vinifera grapes for making high-quality wine. Of the 2,000 acres of grapes grown in Ohio today, some 300 to 400 acres are devoted to French hybrid and Vinifera production.
Missouri is a grape-producing state with a great history of wine making. Some of the first grape and wine producers in Missouri, as in Indiana, were from Sweden. In the town of Hermann, Missouri, in the early 1840s, a man by the name of Jacob Fugger became known for growing some of the earliest wine grapes including Isabella, Cynthiana (Norton), and Catawba. Until Fugger began growing grapes for commercial wine production, Jesuit priests had made wine in the early 1820s from locally grown wild grapes.
Charles Riley worked on grafting European vinifera onto American grape species in the 1870s. His use of native rootstocks was helpful in controlling phylloxera in Europe. Grape production in Missouri consists of predominantly red and white American varieties and to a lesser extent French hybrid and Vinifera varieties.
Illinois, although known for corn and soybeans, is becoming a popular region for wine-grape production. Early wine production started in Navoo, in western Illinois, by German settlers. Grape and wine production was limited until the 1990s at which time several growers started vineyards, and new wineries opened for business.
Today Illinois has more than 40 licensed and bonded wineries and more than 200 vineyards with some 1,000 acres. Most of the grape production is in the southern part of the state, but more vineyards are being planted in central and northern Illinois.
Grape production is an intensive cropping process. Maintaining modern vineyards in the Midwest requires recruiting migrant labor to accomplish certain tasks. As vineyard mechanization became more prevalent in the late 1960s, the number of migrant laborers needed dropped to only a few individuals who prune and tie vines in the juice-grape vineyards. Most of the grape harvest is done mechanically in juice-grape vineyards, with a few of the larger wine-grape growers using machines to harvest their vineyards.
Table grapes are produced on a very small scale in the Midwest. Most of the dessert grapes are imported from California or Chile. Some effort has been given to developing a seedless table-grape industry in Ohio and Indiana. For the most part, production and shipping costs have limited the desire for planting large numbers of acres of table grapes in the Midwest.
Some growers have planted one to two acres of table grapes as an alternative crop to diversify an established fruit farm. Most of these grapes are sold through roadside or farm markets. One reason for growing seedless table grapes locally is the fresh home-picked flavor that cannot be duplicated with imported grapes.