The Wine History Project collections include many archival records of historic families of San Luis Obispo County. Archival records encompass a wide range of materials that document the activities and history of individuals, organizations, or institutions. These records serve as a valuable resource for historical research, legal and administrative purposes, and preserving cultural heritage.

The complete collection of “Établissements Nicolas Maison Fondée en 1822 Lists Des Grands Vins“ includes 33 volumes. These were printed in Paris between the years 1929 – 1973. In the years 1937, 1940-1948, 1952, and 1968, no catalogues were published.

In April 2024 the David and Judy Breitstein historic collection catalog was highlighted on the Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County’s website. The catalog contains nearly 200 significant bottles of wine from California’s wine history: a collection which the Breitsteins’ assembled over more than 50 years of collecting.

A coordinated effort of national soil mapping began in the United States in 1899. It began with a nationwide partnership of federal, regional, state, and local agencies, private entities, and universities. This idea of a soil survey in our country, some say originated with Milton Whitney, a professor of geology and soil physics at the Maryland Agricultural College and a physicist at the Experiment Station. He published a paper in 1892, “Some Physical Properties of Soils in Relation to Moisture and Crop Distribution” in which he examined a number of soils.

The Pacific Rural Press was first established in San Francisco, California in 1871. It was formed to educate and serve the needs of California’s agricultural community, primarily addressing fruit and vegetable growers. It became a major agricultural journal that was published between the mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

Each grapevine will produce about 10 pounds of grapes. It has always been important to know what the yield is from the vineyards. Weighing the grapes is essential also because grapes sell today for thousands per ton. More grapes are being shipped through interstate commerce. Commercial sales are under the jurisdiction of the government, and there are a host of rules and regulations. There are legalities of being “commercially compliant.”

Oak wood barrels have been used for wine transportation for over five centuries. These barrels then became popular in use to ferment and age wine. Historically, oak barrels were the container used for fermentation and storage of both red and white wines. Today oak is used mainly for storage of red wines and for aging fortified wines.

Growers and winemakers are in the midst of harvesting grapes. The harvest is expected to be completed by the Thanksgiving holiday. One of the vessels winemakers will be using is the barrel. I have written two articles on these crucial vessels.

The Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County is always looking for places to showcase the wonderful historic objects which contributed to the settlement of California and the development of a wine culture in the county. What better place than one of the earliest Ranchos in the area? The Mexican government controlled Alta California from 1832 to 1846. The settlement of the this California territory was encouraged by granting large land areas to native-born and naturalized Mexican citizens. These land grants granted permanent ownership to male citizens. Mexico issued 27 permanent land grants between 1833 and 1846. These ranchos with land boundaries were mapped and became the basis for the California land survey system. The ranchos were devoted to raising cattle and sheep and agriculture.

The horse drawn plow. We’ve all seen it, at least in photographs in the history books. There’s a sort of magic to the image of plowing the land. An illusion mostly. Eventually the horse drawn plow was replaced with engine power. Why?

Archives have been an important way for societies to retain their knowledge and identities going back to ancient times. It’s a pride and privilege for me to continue this noble function for San Luis Obispo County’s wine history. As with any type of skilled work, archives have changed to embrace the benefits of our digital world.

The science series of the Wine History Project continues with an article about the hydrometer, and specifically the Sikes’ hydrometer that is part of our important collection of objects of all things related to wine. This is the third object to be researched of the six object which we have collected relating to enology.

There are major sciences involved in one being able to drink a glass of wine from a bottle of this beverage. The sciences of wine chemistry, viticulture, and enology are becoming more intricate and sophisticated each year. Science incorporates the tools that winemakers utilize to produce some of the best wines.

This recent exhibit now being displayed is at our Broad Street offices. The presentation demonstrates that these types of artifacts are created in a variety of sizes and metals. The exhibit presents five spigot-type objects from the Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County’s collection.

The winemaking process starts by placing the harvest of fruit in a vessel of the winemaker’s choice. Yeast cells on the skins of the grapes are added by the winemaker to metabolize the grape’s sugar producing ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. In the fermentation process, the grape’s natural color, aroma, and flavor are changed.

Beginning in 1953, the idea of an Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) happened with the establishment of the History Section of the Division of Beaches and Parks. The Office of Historic Preservation was officially established eventually in 1975 within the offices of the Director of California State Parks and was the outgrowth of the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 which called for the creation of a state agency to implement provisions of the law.

The National Park Service (NPS) identifies four cultural landscape types: historic designed, historic vernacular, historic agricultural, and ethnographic. Shouldn’t vineyards also be identified nationally as historic agricultural cultural landscapes?

Traditional winemaking tools are still in use today in the country of Georgia. In contrast to California’s modern winemaking machinery, and even to the 18th and 19th century tools in our Collection at the Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County, these wooden pitchforks, gourds, slabs of cherry bark, and other tools are still in use when it comes to winemaking using qvevris.

Corkscrews are a simple device. Originally they had a pointed spiral piece of metal turned by a handle back in the simplistic days of lore. The first-known use of this term, corkscrew, was in 1698.

Back in the seventeenth century, most commoners drank cider and beer from barrels; only kings and noble families could afford to have made-to-order glass bottles for their wines. It was a very expensive luxury to hire artisans to make hand-crafted glass bottles to showcase and store wine.

The California Wine Revolution started over 50 years ago. It was a time when a generation of men and women came of age and found their own voices. They embraced the arts, social change, civil rights, politics, culinary arts, athletics, the environment, and the freedom to break with the past and create their own choices.

The Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County has four rare “Chromos” in their Collection. I will explain. These rare art pieces on exhibit in our Broad Street offices were created from artwork by E. Zampighi at the beginning of the twentieth century. They have been properly framed by a qualified conservator trained in conservation framing techniques. I will provide a diagram later of proper techniques to achieve good preservation of historic documents or artwork.

In the early nineteenth century, agricultural periodicals containing information about horticultural advancements and practices originated in the Northeast, soon followed by publications in other regions of the country. Most had short publication runs, but a few of these publications had national influence and widespread circulation.

Our ancient ancestors considered grapes, along with wine that was made from the grapes, essential for proper digestion and good health. Grapes were a prominent feature in ancient Greek and Roman mythology as shown in paintings on pottery vessels. Frescoes painted 5,000 years ago in Egyptian tombs show the harvest of vineyards and the process of winemaking. Archaeologists are providing evidence that grapes have been enjoyed by humans for pretty much the whole of human existence…

Introduction In 1897 the first horseless carriage, a four-cylinder gasoline-powered vehicle was...

A typical label sandwich. Source: Weber Packaging Definitions Anilox: A method used to provide a...

Why are labels important to the consumer? And what makes a good wine label?

While measuring, photographing, looking for distinguishing marks on the various barrels in the Wine History Project’s collection, I stumbled upon a barrel marked with TOKAY. Here are some interesting tidbits of history from what might be behind the life of our barrels.

This well-known tool has been made from almost everything from paper to stone. Our collection has six wonderful examples of various types of funnels once used in wineries or home winemaking. Read about the variety of funnels and the materials used in their construction and available “back in the day.”

Wine bottles with a balloon-shaped body are known as balloon bottles. Fragile and often covered with a weaving of straw or raffia, they also became known as wicker bottles.

How do winemakers extract wine from barrels? The two winery tools discussed in this article are the wine thief and the tastevin.

Examine three types of harvest tools found in The Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County collection.

From the late 1800s until the 1950s, grapes were sent to local markets mostly by wooden baskets, boxes or crates. A method was needed to legibly label crates and barrels. Here we look at tool to do just that.

A division in the wine industry became evident; some “chemists” rejected the grafting solution that was determined to solve the destruction. They persisted with the use of pesticides and chemicals for the vineyards. I’m going to discuss in this article tools that were utilized to dust or spray those pesticides and chemicals on vineyards.

This article continues on the same venue as the previous article written on “Chiv, Croze, or Howel,” in describing the hand tools used by coopers. The date range represented by these chamfers, knives, and shave tools in the Wine History Project’s collection are from the early 1800s through 1910.

This article focuses on the cooper, a maker or repairer of casks, and the cooperage tools used to make cuts at the ends of the barrels, a specific size of cask.

Spigots control the flow of liquid from a large container and have been in use since ancient Greeks and Romans installed them in their bathhouses. The Wine History Project’s collection includes twelve different objects actively utilized between 1860 and 1910.

Wine bottles get corked, with corks made of cork. This wasn’t always the case; but when it became important for better wine storage and delivery, the dilemma to be solved was how could one insert and fix a cork into a wine bottle easier?

During Prohibition, fresh-packed grapes was the business to be in to boost sales for the wineries and vineyards across California. The grapes needed to get to markets across the nation.

It was illegal to sell wine in bottles for centuries. There were so many different bottle types...

Gallon stills, bottles, malt syrup, corn sugar, corn syrup, hops, yeast, bottle cappers, and concentrated grapes were legally sold in hardware and grocery stores. Licensed doctors were permitted to prescribe distilled spirits, wine, and whiskey as treatments for ailments, with a limitation of one pint every ten days.

In the 1920s, the formation of associations and co-ops was widespread in America. Many voluntary citizen cooperatives banded together to solve the problems of crime and lobbying for legislation. Agricultural publishing organizations created membership groups that kept farmers informed and connected them with a larger community

Fruit Industries, Ltd. was a non-profit, co-operative agricultural association organized in 1929 with the merger of several winemaking concerns, including the California Wine Association, into a single organization in an effort to bring order to the then chaotic California grape industry.

The Wine History Project Collection contains several rare Prohibition and Post-Prohibition Era tools.

The bar-mounting corkscrew is a fascinating tool that had multiple upgrades with many patents in its evolvement. A general description would say that the clamps hold the bottle in place and the helix, in one up and down motion, extracts the cork from the bottle. They are screwed or clamped to the counter. Most early mounted corkscrews were designed to open beer bottles with short corks. Modern ones are made for longer wine corks.

Where once plants were a negative competition for the vines, many growers are now more aware of creating an ecosystem in their vineyards that is the foundation for a holistic approach. Because of the healthy ecosystem, it seems that bees are now encouraged to come and feed on the pollen. The discovery has been that bees encourage beneficial insects and discourage the need for chemicals and pesticides. This is a dramatic shift.

This tool, also known as a barrel dipstick or dipping rule, was used to measure barrel depth and calculate the container volume. It includes six rods in a leather-case that when joined together form a single 60-inch rod. Each individual ten-inch boxwood rod is capped with metal fittings that allow the pieces to be screwed together

Grape Crusher Date: Late 19th century Origin: United States Size: 18½ “ height x 11” depth x 31”...

In order to drink wine in the nineteenth century and during the reign of Louis XVIII (monarch of the House of Bourbon, King of France 1814 – 1824), one had to drink it on the spot in cabarets or wine shops. To drink wine at home, the option was to buy a barrel of wine from a merchant. A man named Louis Nicolas, created the concept of bottled wine that transformed the habits of consumption.

Vine Root Injector | C. 1890-1910 | 40” length. Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County....