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The United States is a bit of a latecomer to the international wine scene. In the colonial and post-colonial eras, the wine industry was tiny and continued as such until the early 20th century, when California emerged as the dominant force in North American wine production. That quickly came to a halt with Prohibition, however, an ill-advised experiment that lasted from 1920 until 1932. Following repeal, California had to recreate its wine industry, a process that took a good 40 years to get up to speed.
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The United States is a bit of a latecomer to the international wine scene. In the colonial and post-colonial eras, the wine industry was tiny and continued as such until the early 20th century, when California emerged as the dominant force in North American wine production. That quickly came to a halt with Prohibition, however, an ill-advised experiment that lasted from 1920 until 1932. Following repeal, California had to recreate its wine industry, a process that took a good 40 years to get up to speed.
That a domestic wine industry didn't simply explode overnight should, frankly, come as no surprise; for whether it's the Puritanism in our cultural DNA or some other factor, the sad fact is that the U.S. is not really a nation of wine drinkers. Although we're third in total wine consumption after France and Italy, among wine-producing nations we rank only 34th on a per capita basis. In other words, a relatively small number of wine drinkers is responsible for most of the imbibing. You know who you are.
California is certainly the epicenter of wine production in the United States, but every state in the union can now boast at least one winery, of which there are now over 2,700 nationally (about a third of that number are in California). Of the wine regions outside of California, those in Oregon and Washington, in particular, have emerged in recent decades to become serious players on the domestic wine stage, certainly in terms of quality at the ultra-premium level, if not in total volume of production.
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