Wines of Eastern North America - by Hudson Cattell (Hardcover)

About the Book

In this history of the grape and wine industry in eastern North America, Hudson Cattell draws on extensive archival research and his more than thirty-five years as a wine journalist.

Book Synopsis

In 1975 there were 125 wineries in eastern North America. By 2013 there were more than 2,400. How and why the eastern United States and Canada became a major wine region of the world is the subject of this history. Unlike winemakers in California with its Mediterranean climate, the pioneers who founded the industry after Prohibition--1933 in the United States and 1927 in Ontario--had to overcome natural obstacles such as subzero cold in winter and high humidity in the summer that favored diseases devastating to grapevines. Enologists and viticulturists at Eastern research stations began to find grapevine varieties that could survive in the East and make world-class wines. These pioneers were followed by an increasing number of dedicated growers and winemakers who fought in each of their states to get laws dating back to Prohibition changed so that an industry could begin.Hudson Cattell, a leading authority on the wines of the East, in this book presents a comprehensive history of the growth of the industry from Prohibition to today. He draws on extensive archival research and his more than thirty-five years as a wine journalist specializing in the grape and wine industry of the wines of eastern North America. The second section of the book adds detail to the history in the form of multiple appendixes that can be referred to time and again. Included here is information on the origin of grapes used for wine in the East, the crosses used in developing the French hybrids and other varieties, how the grapes were named, and the types of wines made in the East and when. Cattell also provides a state-by-state history of the earliest wineries that led the way.

Review Quotes

Eastern American wine expert Cattell has gathered history, horticulture, wine evaluation, and more into an easily navigated reference. The first half of the book traces the history of winemaking in Eastern North America, from the settling of the first Europeans in the 16th century to the present. Cattell writes of successes and failures in importing old-world grape varieties, developing hybrids with wild and well-known grape varietals, and growing the commercial wine industry. Generous use of photos and maps illustrate the spread of the field from New York to the continental divide. The second part includes seven appendixes, copious notes, a bibliography, and an index. The appendixes cover the origins of Eastern wine grapes, descriptions of Eastern wine types, and early wine history, among other topics.

Hudson Cattell is the only person who could have written this book, for it rests on an intimate and detailed knowledge of the eastern American wine industry that he alone can have acquired. One may say, in fact, that he has been writing the book for the last thirty-eight years.... Cattell was in touch with everything that was going on in those expansive years from the 1970s; he knew everyone worth knowing and inteviewed most of them; he visited the whole territory and wrote about what he found there, obscure enterprises as well as the bigger and more splendid ones.... If you wanted to know what had been done and was doing on the eastern wine scene, you asked Hudson Cattell first. And now he has published a book that tells us, not everything he knows, but far more than anyone else has, so far, provided us. We should thank Hudson Cattell for what he has given us, a book that anyone with an interest in American wine should have.

About the Author

Hudson Cattell cofounded and edited Wine East magazine for more than twenty-five years and continues to contribute a "Wine East" section to Wines & Vines. He is a partner of L & H Photojournalism in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has written extensively on Eastern grapes and wines. His most recent book, written with Linda Jones McKee, is Pennsylvania Wine: A History.