(Wines&Vines) When Horatio P. Stoll debuted his California Grape Grower in 1919 on Geary Street in San Francisco, Prohibition loomed. On the first page of that first issue, grapegrowers were urged, “Don’t dig up your vines! A permanent market must be developed for every wine grape grown in California!” A detailed Summary of the National Prohibition Enforcement Law, effective Jan. 16, 1920, was published.

 Stoll, who had worked for the Wine and Wool Register paper, which folded under Prohibition, described the formation of an association of grapegrowers to keep the grape industry alive. E.M. Sheehan of the State Viticultural Board talked up alternative uses for the 400,000 tons of grapes produced annually in California. By June 1920, he would be president of the new 350-member Grape Growers Exchange.

 1920s 

Farming advice for vineyard issues in the 1920s came from the University Farm at Davis, Calif., and other experts and ran side by side with articles and homemaker recipes for how to make juices, sodas, jellies and compotes. WearEver Company advertised aluminum steam-jacketed kettles sold to Welch’s and others to make their grape juices. Asti’s Italian Swiss Colony advertised pasteurized and frozen grapes, juices and concentrates, while Stoll and his writers told growers how to move their grapes to markets out of state and overseas by rail and sea.