Wine Country Postcard Stories: From S.F. Earthquake To Winehaven: A Story Of 15 Millions Gallons Of Wine

During the 1870s and 1880s the California wine industry made a steady swing from Los Angeles to the north. The center of this burgeoning industry became San Francisco where great amounts of wine from the countryside were collected, blended, and shipped. In 1894 seven of the State’s largest and most powerful wine firms incorporated as the California Wine Association. Headquartered in San Francisco, the giant organization came to control the production of 84% of all pre-Prohibition California wine, and owned vineyards and wine cellars in every major wine-producing area of the State. In 1902 the C.W.A. produced 30,000,000 gallons of wine — nearly two-thirds of the State’s total production from a grape crush of over 225,000 tons — enough to supply every man, woman and child in America with a 5-pound basket of grapes.

When the earthquake hit in 1906, the C.W.A. controlled about half the wine in the City’s cellars, and together with its closely associated firms, such as Italian Swiss Colony and Lachman & Jacobi, the Association had direct or indirect control of some 75% of the commercial wine stored in San Francisco. The total was at least 15 million gallons. Some estimates have been much higher. The earthquake and resulting inferno destroyed all but one of the Association’s S.F. cellars. All others were reduced to a “chaos of hoops and debris.”

S. Lachman Co, 453–465 Brannan St., S.F., April 1906

One of the original C.W.A. wine houses, S. Lachman Co. had been a prominent leader in the wine industry since the early 1870s. In 1885, the firm built a new brick cellar with a storage capacity of over two million gallons. Following the founding of the C.W.A. this splendid facility, near the wharves and ready access to sea and railway, became the Association’s principal S.F. shipping depot. A mammoth Sherry holding-tank was installed, with an 80,000-gallon capacity (twenty-seven train car-loads, they say), it was advertised as the largest in the world. There was a sizeable bottling department employing some thirty men, and an adjoining cooper shop employing fifty to sixty men to make barrel repairs and construct a limited number of new barrels for wine shipments. All destroyed.

S. Lachman Co – Bust of Sam Lachman Atop a Pile of Bricks & Rubble, 1906

The brick exterior of the handsome Lachman building was graced with a stone bust of its founding father, Samuel Lachman (1825–1892), acknowledged guiding spirt and charitable leader of the California wine industry. As the story was reported: “… during the earthquake and fire of April 18, the great stone face of the late Sam Lachman, which was on top of the old Lachman Winery, fell and landed right side up on a pile of bricks and rubble.” Noble California wineman Mr. Charles Bundschu was inspired to write the following lines. A favorite wine country postcard story:

When the whirlpool of fire and flames burst forth

Taking block after block it its embrace

When from East to South and West to North The demon of Hell did race.

The holocaust also reached the Lachman Block And hugged it to utter destruction

While proudly defying the earthquake shock

The Fire fiend had doomed its reduction.

When the block bearing the Lachman Face

With a self-made man’s jovial smile

Fell thundering down from its lofty place

It landed right on top of the pile.

Old Lachman always landed on top

When the burdens of life he did share

Now when he landed he came to a stop

On the great rock-pile hurled through the air.

In the giant stone face true to life

That faced the elements in their strife

A grim look in the eyes seemed to say ‘My, but I had a bad fall today.’

Amazingly, the devastating loss of wines and facilities did not trigger a collapse of the California Wine Association. The firm was financially sound and adequately insured, while their prudent policy of scattering large reserve stocks of young and matured wines throughout their various statewide wineries assured a ready supply of wine. Within two weeks of the great fire and able to secure enough cooperage, the Association shipped two hundred carloads of wines to waiting Eastern markets. The immediate post-earthquake problem was obtaining new wine cellars.

Mammoth Wine Cellars. C.W.A. at Winehaven, c1908

When C.W.A. President Percy Morgan emphatically stated there would be no rebuilding of the S.F. cellars, a 47-acre tract of land was purchased on the eastern shore of S.F. Bay near Pt. Richmond. Here the Association erected an immense ten million-gallon capacity wine cellar of brick, concrete, and steel, with crushing and fermenting cellars, storage and shipping facilities. It was the largest and most up-to-date winery plant in existence — appropriately named Winehaven. On September 2, 1907, the C.W.A. held the formal dedication ceremonies. Everyone who was anyone in the Northern California wine, financial, and political world was invited. :: Interestingly, of the almost two dozen Winehaven postcards that have been found, with great struggle I might add, only two are in color, both artist’s conceptions and hand-colored. This one is particularly attractive, showing the industrial plant in action, trains front and rear, busy shipping pier, and the imposing brick wine storage cellar on the left, the large winery on the right.

Plant of C.W.A. at Winehaven, c1912

When finished, the main building accommodated the enormous storage cellar, the fermenting facility, bottling lines, receiving and shipping stations, and offices. The massive fortress-like brick structure, seen here on the left, was adorned with crenellated parapets with turrets on the corners, and giant “WINEHAVEN” and “CALIFORNIA WINE ASSOCIATION” signs across the rooftop. Other buildings housed the Sherry ovens, cooperage shops, and distillery.

This largest wine establishment in the world was ready to produce some one million gallons of wine each month. A long pier (rear), on which a narrow-gauge electric railroad hauled wine to the waiting steamships, stretched into the bay. The railway was also outfitted to accommodate the arrival and departure of the company-chartered steamer bringing visiting local clubs, stockholders or dignitaries for a day at Winehaven. Tour and luncheon included.

Barge ‘Nebraska’ Discharging 4243 Barrels of Wine…from Winehaven, 1912

An awesome postcard view of “the largest shipment of California wine ever loaded on a barge.” (Dec 1912 PW&SR) Over 4,200 barrels holding a quarter-million gallons of wine were placed on the barge Nebraska at Winehaven and sent across the bay to San Francisco. This sepia Edward Mitchell postcard shows the cargo ready to be hoisted aboard a freighter of the American-Hawaiian Steamship Co. for delivery to an eastern port. American-Hawaiian mailed the photo image to many clients in the East advertising their capable shipments of California products. The historic postcard is considered extremely rare.

“Calwa” Non-Alcoholic Still & Sparkling Grape Juice, c1908

Winehaven reigned as the largest winery in the world until the growing cry for Prohibition became law. Already in 1907 the C.W.A. had seen the trend of the times and had formed Calwa Products to begin manufacturing unfermented grape juice made from “the pure juice of selected fresh California grapes.” The Association had commenced its futile struggle to sustain operation. For several years sacramental wine for churches, prescription wine for medicinal use, and Calwa Grape Juice continued to be produced, but demand for these former side products could not keep the venerable plant running. By 1925 the vast Winehaven cellars had been emptied of wine, and over the next twelve years the cooperage and most of the production machinery were removed. In 1941 the government took possession of the facility to serve as a Navy Fuel Depot for some 50 years before being decommissioned in 1995. Most of the Winehaven site was added to the Historic Register in 1978, and the grand wine facility is still visible from the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. :: The series of Edw Mitchell stock postcards over-printed with Calwa Grape Juice ads date from c1908 and feature five different wine country views. My handsome mustachioed winegrower has another favorite wine country postcard story he waits to relate.