Directly in the middle of the vast Central Valley is the San Joaquin Valley, a viticultural wonderland for growing and the production of raisins, or dried grapes. Today, on almost 100,000 acres in an area within a 60-mile radius of Fresno, raisin growers produce 100% of the U.S. raisins. Our postcard story is set here in Fresno — a major city and economic hub in the San Joaquin Valley, the largest city in the greater Central Valley, and “The Raisin Capital of the World.” Many of the following accounts of our postcard storytellers are borrowed from the 1891 published jewel, California Homes & Industries. Fresno Illustrated.

Arriving in California in 1852 from his home state of New York, Leland Stanford (1824–1893) was an attorney, storekeeper, Justice of the Peace, organizer of the Sacramento Library Association, industrialist, and philanthropist.
He established a major University, was a Republican Party politician, 8th Governor of California, one of the “Big Four” who built the transcontinental railroad, and U. S. Senator from 1885 until his death in 1893. He also founded three California wineries.

Since the 1850s, a myriad of irrigation canals, or ditches to the farmers, have been vital to agrarian pursuits in the many thousands of acres of diverse agricultural richness of California’s Great Central Valley — whether cotton fields, olive orchards, fruit trees, grains & rice, or vineyards.

Welcome to our first Wine Country Story of the New Year where we visit one of the most exciting promotional campaigns in the history of the California wine industry. It is called National Wine Week, and beautiful artistic Poster Stamps are the stars of the story.

Life’s trials do make us grieve and pine, Yet one transcends the rule —
When honest drinkers test honest wine In cellars deep and cool.
When from the spout it runs like gold Our pulses leap and rise.
We praise the vintage pure and old And crown it with a prize.

As you approach the upper end of Napa Valley, an alabaster-white monastery-like structure comes into view sitting atop a wooded knoll rising from the valley floor two miles south of Calistoga. This is Sterling Vineyards Winery, called the most spectacular winery in America when it was completed in 1973. It was the biggest new winegrowing venture in Napa County, with a six-million-dollar investment in the future of premium table wines.

“Pioneer California Winemaker, lavish host, astute businessman, celebrated judge of fine wines, Paul Masson made his name famous by producing champagnes and table wines which held their own anywhere. Gourmet, bon vivant, raconteur, connoisseur, with an ardent eye for a handsome woman, flamboyant at times and eccentric at others, thrifty in the Gallic tradition, he transplanted much of his native Burgundy to his adopted California … a great Californian, a great gentleman and a great wine grower. ” — John Melville.

Since the young days of Napa Valley wine country, St. Helena has been the bustling hub of Upper Valley. The many wineries of our historical lore began planting vineyards and building beautiful stone wineries around the 1880s. The phenomenon of picture postcards celebrating the wonders of the Valley didn’t come along until the turn of the century in the very early 1900s. In Calistoga, ten miles north of St. Helena, master photographer I. C. Adams
(1874–1960) had arrived in Calistoga as a young boy in 1882. A well-loved figure in Calistoga history, he was not only a successful photographer (1903–1950), but “a celebrated musician, historian, philosopher, poet, and more.” His real-photo postcards of the Geysers, Mt. St. Helena, surrounding vineyards and local wineries are wine country treasures. And in St. Helena, there was Joe Galewsky, photographer, publisher and purveyor of local postcards.

On February 20, 1915, after five years of preliminaries and the expenditure of $50,000,000, the gates of the Panama- Pacific International Exposition (P.P.I.E.) were opened for its nearly ten-month celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal and its boost to West Coast trade, and to showcase the City’s wholesome recovery from the 1906 earthquake. This magnificent fair was constructed on a 636-acre, two-and-a-half-mile waterfront site along the northern shore of S.F. Bay, between the Presidio at the Golden Gate and Fort Mason-Van Ness Avenue on the east,
the area now known as the Marina District. Two-hundred and fifty thousand revelers attended opening day. By the end of the fair in early December, nearly 19 million people had visited the P.P.I.E.

MOST PEOPLE DO NOT automatically connect winegrowing with Contra Costa County in the East Bay region of San Francisco Bay like they might do with Napa or Sonoma counties. But there is fine wine history here, and some lovely postcard views and stories to highlight and preserve it. Grapes and wine loomed large in the landscape beginning in the early 1850s. Interestingly, in 1856 Napa County recorded 33 acres in grape acreage. Contra Costa County had 110 acres; in 1860 seven wineries produced some 2300 gallons of wine. At the time of the 1912 postcard below, the vineyard acreage was 8175 acres, and by 1916, just before Prohibition, wine acreage had grown to 8895 acres. Sadly, the Dry years and urban growth set the total acres in the 1970s at 900 acres, and dropping.