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.
A poster stamp is not a postage stamp but a colorful advertising medium for almost anything imaginable: events, products, merchandisers, & etc. These little gummed mini-posters were meant to be affixed to letters or envelopes, or menus, or a number of other useful transports. Their heyday was in the first half of the 20th century, and they are prized by collectors today – pick your topic, there are poster stamps to admire and collect. Mostly, they are not as historically valuable as postcards which are so significant for their preservation of vintage scenes, whether it be towns or wineries, or any other dozens of subjects. But in the case of wine history and National Wine Week, these poster stamps are invaluable. And a great story.
National Wine Week, the first such wine-celebration-week in American history, was the brain-child of California’s Wine Advisory Board in 1939. The Golden Gate International Exposition was to be held on San Francisco’s Treasure Island in September, and “Wine Day” at the Expo would be a perfect kick-off for the campaign to celebrate a National Wine Week September 10–17 across the country. The Wine Advisory Board, created in 1938 to promote California wines and wine drinking – following their near extinction by Prohibition – worked hand-in-hand with the Wine Institute, founded immediately after Repeal in 1934 in San Francisco. Over the years, countless pamphlets, brochures, cooking-with-wine booklets, wine study courses, and other promotional items on the use of wine were produced and distributed. (Note: Throughout the article, all the poster stamps are shown in actual size.)

1939 – “Drink Wine With Dinner Tonight”
With a nationwide enthusiasm and support from the wine industry, the promotional campaign was hastily organized and set in motion. Advertising materials included one million National Wine Week “stickers” (poster stamps) to be used on hotel, restaurant, and railroad dining car menus, and on letters and envelopes of correspondence. The message was “Drink Wine with Dinner Tonight.” Retail stores across the country were prepared to adorn their display windows and showcases with 125,000 brilliantly colored banners promoting the same wine-friendly theme. Wine dealers in every major market center in America were urged to sponsor “Vintage Festival” luncheons during the week, with special invitations extended to public officials, civic leaders, and other dignitaries. Extensive advertising campaigns were carried in newspapers, magazines, and on the radio. The Wine Advisory Board had an astonishing budget of $2,000,000 to make this the week in which everyone would become “fully acquainted with the delightful and beneficial properties of wine.” Wine Week was dedicated to promoting wines – all wines – and a “complete advertising kit” would be provided from the Wine Advisory Board for the asking.

1940 – “Drink Wine With Your Dinner”
National Wine Week was an instant success. It would become an annual celebration, following the same general merchandising plan: its main emphasis being a national advertising blitz, in all media available – including “millions” of poster stamps. The 1940 stamp, described as a “four-color correspondence and menu sticker … with a colorful harvest scene showing wine and fruits and an abundance of good things to eat,” encouraged the nation to “Drink Wine with Your Dinner.”

1941 – “Enjoy Wine With Your Meals”
National Wine Week was an instant success. It would become an annual celebration, following the same general merchandising plan: its main emphasis being a national advertising blitz, in all media available – including “millions” of poster stamps. The 1940 stamp, described as a “four-color correspondence and menu sticker … with a colorful harvest scene showing wine and fruits and an abundance of good things to eat,” encouraged the nation to “Drink Wine with Your Dinner.”

1942 – “Have WINE With Dinner Tonight”
The fourth consecutive National Wine Week was “observed, but, due to the war, not celebrated” during the week of October 11–18, 1942; this would be the last to be held until the end of the war in 1945. This year’s colorful poster stamp – often a miniature of the official poster printed for the campaign – featured a mouth-watering dinner plate of food and two glasses of red wine, with the slogan “Have WINE with dinner tonight.” During these War Years, the Wine Advisory Board suggested to all wine retailers that they tie their wine advertising to the “Buy War Bonds” effort and other patriotic features like “Save Scrap Metal.”

1944 – Wine Advisory Board Ad During The War Years, Sunset Magazine
Although there were no Wine Week celebrations and poster stamps issued until war’s end, the Wine Advisory Board faithfully kept their “Drink Wine” campaign before the public. “We all need the company of good friends these days … the day’s tension seems to ease off when folks we’re fond of come to dinner.” I have collected many of these beautiful, colored vintage magazine ads with war-effort messages, e.g. “WINE changes war dishes into ‘food for kings’,” illustrated with a dish of Oxtail Stew with Victory Garden vegetables, and glasses of California Burgundy alongside. “We invite you to try these wholesome war dishes and to serve glasses of California wine along with them. For a new FREE booklet containing 75 interesting wartime recipes, write to the Wine Advisory Board …” — Sunset Magazine, 1944.

1945 – “To Mark The Return Of Good Living”
With the end of the war and the lifting of war-time restrictions on the wine industry, the Wine Advisory Board announced that the “Wine industry, showing its confidence” would reinstate National Wine Week, with the theme: “To Mark the Return of Good Living.” The 1945 stamp, an exact miniature replica of the NWW poster, has a bright claret-red background with large yellow-gold lettering boldly proclaiming National Wine Week – two glasses of wine accent the slogan banner. This “biggest Wine Week ever will carry the temperate message of wine into every corner of the nation.” The 1945 campaign would also publicize the launching of the wine and grape industry’s post-war programs of expansion and re-employment. It was proclaimed that “this coming Fall season will see the greatest wine advertising and merchandising campaigns in our history.” The return to peace brought additional celebration to the wine industry: now lifted were the war-time restrictions on new construction, price ceiling limits, wine tank cars, certain winery equipment, plus man power (all appropriated for the war effort), while the great Central Valley Thompson Seedless grape crop, used for war-time “raisins for the boys” could be again distilled into profit-making brandy. All wineries that could do so were urged to open their doors once more to visitors during National Wine Week and consider holding vintage celebrations in their communities.

1946 – “Enjoy Dinner With Wine”
The poster stamp for the 1946 National Wine Week, to be held October 12 to 19, is one of my favorites, mainly because of its muted antiquarian feel – in design and color. This year’s celebration would be the 6th annual, and the campaign to “Enjoy Dinner with Wine” hit full stride with its own Wine Industry Radio Program in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Other festivities included magnificent luncheons and dinners across the country, with almost two dozen held in California in every part of the state.

1947 – “Time To Serve Wine”
In 1947, National Wine Week was applauded as “the first full-scale celebration of wine making since prior to the war.” The promotion campaign had on board seventeen major U.S. railroad lines and the American President Lines; over fifty trade publications devoted their covers to a wine theme, and window displays were prominent in banks, department stores, newspaper offices, railroad ticket offices, hotels, restaurants, &c. The poster declaring “Time to Serve WINE” and a similar “sticker for mailing pieces” were available free from the Wine Advisory Board. A Fun Fact: For the many years I have collected and formed this complete set of National Wine Week poster stamps, and researched and studied their history and dates of publication (none are dated with a year), I have never seen one of the posters. I wonder their size? And if anyone has a collection of them?

1948 – “Time To Enjoy Wine”
“Time to Enjoy Wine” is the theme of the 1948 October 9 to 16 promotion week. A delectable display of sliced ham, rare roast of beef, fish (carve yourself), cheese, grapes, and nibblies, with appropriate bottles and glasses of wine and sherry are featured in full color on the poster stamp. During Wine Week wine was toasted and feted throughout the country; many of the talks and speeches at the wine dinners and luncheons were printed and distributed. “An outstanding success!”

1949 – “Enjoy The Bounty Of The Vine”
This grand marketing venture continued to grow. In 1949, the advertising poster and its mini-cousin, “Enjoy the Bounty of the Vine” featuring a stunning leafed purple grape cluster and a glass of red wine, was mailed to 11,000 leading wine retailers. The field staff arranged for window displays in over 400 department stores and fashion stores (is this a leaning towards women as the significant buyers of the evening’s dinner wine?). Hundreds of newspapers, national magazines and trade publications ran publicity features about grape and wine growing, wines and their uses, and wine cookery; radio and TV spots would feature the same. (Radio had always played a part in the publicity campaign, but this is the first mention of television ads). And, for the first time, there is a National Wine Week Queen: Pat Hall, “Hollywood movie starlet.” (Whom I couldn’t verify. Know her?)

1950 – “Join In The Annual Wine Festival”
For 1950, parades featuring wholesalers’ wine trucks and cars decorated with “Join in the Annual Wine Festival” banners, and “spectacular” consumer wine tastings scheduled in all the major cities and wine communities were the talk of the industry. So was a retailer wine-promotion contest sporting a prize of $8,500. The week of October 7 to 14 saw 25 million homes reached via newspaper ads alone, while the nation’s women’s magazines became a major target for the sales campaign. The poster stamp for this year is lovely – a glass of sherry has been added to the 1949 image, making an attractive composition, all prettily enclosed within a burgundy border.

1951 – “A Harvest Of Fine Wines”
Although the National Wine Week celebrations and campaigns would continue at least through the 1960s, seemingly 1951 is the last year to yield a poster stamp as a component part of the advertising materials. The 1951 stamp is one of the most artistically pleasing with its design and varied color scheme. It encompasses all the elements: luscious grape vines, clusters of ripe grapes, beckoning glasses of wine (red, white, sherry, port), with eye-catching, yet delicate lettering. A fine finale.
POSTSCRIPT: After 1951, the annual Wine Week promotion became a “California Wine” campaign and the Wine Advisory Board directed its attentions to nationally promoting the wines of the state. Fantastic color, full-page magazine ads continued the campaign to encourage the nation to “Taste California Wine Tonight – It’s National Wine Week.” “Time to Discover the Extra Pleasures of our California Wine.” “Send for your free ‘Wine Selector’ Booklet of California Wines.” Always Remember — “California Wines Spark Up Your Meals Two Ways – in your cooking & on your table.”
A HISTORICAL NOTE: “California Wine Queens for National Wine Week.” In the Wine Institute archives is a list of the Wine Queens who reigned over National Wine Week and its festivities during the 1950s and ‘60s. Every year at the California State Fair in Sacramento, the vintner members of the Wine Institute met, chose, and crowned a new, beautiful goodwill ambassador of California wines. For seven royal days the Vintage Queen appeared at Vintage Festivals and functions around the state, attended special dinners and proclaimed the excellence of California wines. And she posed for, it appears, endless publicity photos bringing attention to National Wine Week — the wine industry traded lovely poster stamps for eye-catching poster girls.
P.S. I have found four, only four, postcards featuring the National Wine Week Wine Queens (1955, 1961, ‘63, ‘66).
REFERENCES: Wine Institute Bulletin (1939–1960), The Wine Review (1939–1949), and Wines & Vines (1950–1957).
All quotes are from these outstanding California wine industry sources.