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.
The Land Divided – The World United, 1915 And The Main Exhibit Palaces, P.P.I.E., 1915
There were hundreds, probably thousands, of postcards issued before, during, and after the S. F. Expo covering, it seems, almost every inch of the 600+ acres of fairgrounds. This spectacular poster-like postcard with a sailing ship entering the Golden Gate at sunset following a trans-isthmus journey through the recently opened Panama Canal, while Ceres, surrounded by bountiful California grapes and fruits, welcomes the world to San Francisco.
Our primary destination at this wondrous Exposition — as we promenade along the avenues in stylish gowns or top- hats — is the California wine exhibit pavilions in the California State Building and in the Food Products Palace. The California Building, the largest state building at the fair, was a five-acre building complex in the California Mission style that featured a two-story central building, a walled garden, and a grand County exhibit hall. Here the California wine industry was well represented in the impressive exhibits from all the wine-producing counties of the State. Highlighted in the Pacific Wine & Spirit Review (P.W.S.R.) as a “most notable wine exhibit” in the hall was that of Italian Vineyard Company in the So. California district. (As wine historian Chas Sullivan stated, the monthly P.W.S.R., established in San Francisco in 1878 (now online), was “the most authoritative, widely read wine trade journal in its field; today its old pages are a key resource for material on the California wine industry.” I have relied heavily on its excellent coverage of the P.P.I.E. for this wine postcard story.)
Italian Vineyard Co. Spirit & Fortification Rooms – Fermenting Cellars, Guasti, c1912
The Southern California Cucamonga-Guasti wine story is the story of Italian-born Secundo Guasti (1859–1927) himself, who was largely responsible for the development of the area as an important winegrowing district in San Bernardino County. In 1900 he established the Italian Vineyard Company (IVC) in the near-desert land, planted some 1250 acres of vineyard, built a large wine plant and a small community he named Guasti. (Perhaps following the model set in 1881 by Andrea Sbarboro for his Italian Swiss Colony venture at Asti in Northern California.) By 1915, Guasti’s 4,000-acre vineyard was advertised as the world’s largest, and IVC prosperity continued throughout Prohibition, and well after. The company regularly employed over 200 men who knew winemaking from the vineyard to the winery equipped with “every modern device known for the production of pure wines.” These two historic IVC postcards, and one other that pictures the sprawling 4,000-acre vineyard, were issued by the company and printed with illustrated backs featuring the IVC picturesque logo, and reminding all that “the largest vineyard in America was planted to the finest varieties of wine grapes.” It is easy to picture that these three special cards were taken in number to the 1915 P.P.I.E. and given away as souvenirs from their exhibit booths.
Italian Vineyard Co. Grape Platform & Dump for Wagons And Railroad Cars, c1912.
The Italian Vineyard Co., with its own railroad station, laid some twenty miles of narrow gauge railroad tracks throughout the vineyard to transport via small rail cars the harvested grapes to the winery. This beautiful hand-colored card provides a look at the harvest scene with the rail cars at the winery grape platform and dumping station, a portion of the vineyard visible in the background. Amazing. At the 1915 P.P.I.E., in addition to its fine display noted above, the Italian Vineyard Company, as reported in the P.W.S.R., was selected as “one of the most elaborate exhibits” in the “more comprehensive viticultural exhibit of the best-known wine producers of California” in the Food Products Palace. Secundo Guasti and his wines also earned high honors in the Wine Judging with a Grand Prize for his Barbera and Angelica; Medal of Honor, Muscat; Gold Medal, Grignolino, Burgundy. This was the first time in any International Exposition, held in the U.S. or foreign country, that a Grand Prize was awarded to a Southern California Dry Wine, a distinctive achievement.
Exposition Wine Jury
The work of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition Wine Jury to consider over 300 California wines and brandies began in May 1915 and continued for two weeks. (There were also wines entered from a dozen other countries, in separate classes, to be judged.) The “cosmopolitan” jury of ten included notable leaders of the California wine scene Charles Carpy, Chairman; Frederick Bioletti, Sec.; Henry Lachman; and K. Nagasawa (head of Fountaingrove, but listed as representing Japan). The remaining judges were from New York, Wash, DC, Argentina, Portugal, Italy and Australia. The entries consisted of 100 White Wines, 83 Red Wines, 74 Sweet Wines, 16 Brandies, 9 Champagnes, 5 Natural Sparkling Burgundies, 1 Moselle and 14 Carbonated Wines. Before the jury began, all wine labels, caps and other identifiable marks were removed and the bottles given entry numbers. Very kindly, after the judging, before the results were made public, Chairman Chas Carpy “assured the California vintners that their wines had exceeded expectations; when the awards are announced California will make a fine showing.” The P.W.&S.R. printed the eagerly awaited results in the June 30th edition: “High Honors for California Wines and Brandies at the P.P.I.E.”
The Palace Of Food Products, P.P.I.E. 1915
The Expo featured eleven grand exhibit palaces, covering 110 acres of floor space, that represented the latest in technology, advancements, and learning – Agriculture, Education, Fine Arts, Food Products, Horticulture, Liberal Arts, Machinery, Manufactures, Mines & Metallurgy, Transportation, and Varied Industries. The major California wine industry exhibits were in the Palace of Food Products where wine and all of its wonders were shared with the world of visitors: “everywhere are clambering vines, multi-colored grapes, rare vintages, garlanded casks, wine temples and famous California wineries reproduced in fac-simile.
Wine Palace Of The California Viticultural Exhibition Assn., P.P.I.E. 1915
Called “one of the most original exhibits in the Food Products Palace” was this collective display installed by the California Viticultural Exhibition Assn in their Wine Palace, or Wine Temple. Following the theme of “Wine, Woman and Song,” inside the beautiful pergola-covered structure were eighteen individual winery booths, while surrounding the Wine Palace along the walls of the pavilion were engaging exhibits by fourteen additional wine companies. Just inside the 30′-tall entrance (notice the crowning Bacchus at the top) was an eye-catching collection of fifty glass jars, each holding one of California’s leading wine grape varieties, courtesy of the Oakville Viticultural Experiment Station. At the far end was the entrance to the “moving picture room with over 15,000 feet of film” telling the story of the State’s wine industry. As a final treat, there was the “tastily arranged” roof garden where world’s fair visitors could “enjoy wines of the exhibitors at their leisure and without cost.” This outstanding P.P.I.E. postcard, issued by the French-American Wine Co, shows the Wine Palace in all of its splendor.
French-American Wine Company, Rutherford, Napa Valley, c1910.
Pierre Bernard and Adrian Chaix had been making wine in Rutherford since 1884 when they began their French-American Wine Co. operation in Healdsburg in 1903. They acquired a brick building near downtown that was built a decade earlier as a cream of tartar plant and used by Georges de Latour who had recently established himself in Rutherford as a winemaker. Bernard & Chaix enlarged the plant and took into the corporation Paul & Jules Leroux and Armand DeHay, all former members of the Icarian Colony at Cloverdale. Under the supervision of DeHay, the two-million-gallon winery was recognized for its standard quality wines. The company sold the Healdsburg winery in 1910, and two years later founded their Ukiah winery, a large concrete structure that operated until Prohibition. This is a wonderful vintage postcard! The photo, taken by Turrill & Miller c1910, is just a fantastic view showing the French-American Winery with silo on the left, and Ewer-Valley View (soon to be de Latour’s Beaulieu) on the right; in the foreground runs the north-south county road between them and a piece of the Valley View vineyard is in view. French-American Winery fared well at the 1915 Expo wine judging and listed their coveted awards on the Wine Palace postcard above. Well done.
California Wine Association, Wahtoke Winery, Fresno Co, Near Reedley, c.1910
In 1901, seven miles from Reedley at the base of Mt Campbell in the San Joaquin Valley, the C.W.A. established a new wine facility named Wahtoke after an indigenous tribe of the area. Their original planting of 1,000 vineyard acres quickly grew to 3,000 acres, and a new 1.5 million-gallon capacity winery was ready for the 1905 harvest. The huge facility (the bumps in the far distance), one of the largest belonging to the Association, was often kept running day and night, an average of 500 tons crushed daily. The sprawling vineyard came to cover six square miles, the giant plant again expanded to an annual output of three million gallons and became a complete community of its own with cooperage and black smith facilities and housing for employees. [ – Peninou/GU, C.W.A., p.334-5] As would be expected of the giant wine enterprise at the 1915 Exposition, the California Wine Assn was a large presence in special attractions for the trade, such as the July week-long Viticultural Congress and “Wine Day” at the close, when the Association hosted an informative boat trip across the Bay to visit and tour Winehaven, the world-famous, massive C.W.A. wine plant.
California Wine Association, Wahtoke Vineyards, Near Reedley, 1915
Before Prohibition, the bustling Central Valley wine community of Wahtoke operated a Post Office from 1904–1916, and early on, to facilitate shipping, a branch line of the Santa Fe Railroad was laid from the expanding winery complex to nearby Reedley, an historically important California grape and wine center. This sepia Wahtoke postcard is part of a series of four issued by San Francisco postcard publisher Edward Mitchell, two showing Winehaven, two showing Wahtoke, probably the two most celebrated C.W.A. undertakings, and perfect for distributing at the great Fair of 1915. The sender of this card wrote Sept 1915, “…had a delightful week at the Fair.” The California Wine Association made a grand showing in the wine competition, a total of fifteen medals, including 4 Grand Prize, 3 Medal of Honor, 7 Gold, including their “Wahtoke Port” and “Wahtoke Sherry.”
Lomas Azules Vineyards & Ranch, Santa Clara Valley, 1912
This extremely rare 1912 postcard of Lomas Azules has preserved a genuine treasure of Santa Clara Valley wine lore. The 718-acre wine estate nestled on the foothills southeast of San Jose was founded in 1887 by William Wehner (1847–1928), a wealthy businessman and renowned Chicago entrepreneurial artist of large-scale panoramic paintings. He planted almost 200 acres in prime vineyards, and built a large winery and a grand, multi-storied mansion on his Lomas Azules (Blue Hills) estate. A larger winery was added in 1895, this one a 300,000-gallon stone beauty recognized for vintages of prize-winning wines. Wehner was a progressive winegrower and a respected leader in wine industry affairs, experimenting with cool fermentations of white wine, and planting prime varieties on resistant rootstock. In 1902 C. Schilling & Co., a San Francisco wine house and major stockholder in the winery, purchased the property. In 1915, the same year the winery won a Gold Medal for its Sweet Sauterne at the San Francisco P.P.I.E., a major portion of the property was sold, and winemaking at Lomas Azules came to a close. Subsequent owners included University of California and the Cribari and Bisceglia families. In 1989, the great winery, “surely the finest in California south of the Napa Valley,” quietly disappeared to make room for a housing development. William Wehner had reached retirement age before the Expo, but still served on the Wine Day Celebration Committee and the Schilling-Wehner Lomas Azules Sauterne won a Grand Prize.
Fresno County. P.P.I.E. Promotion Postcard, 1912
“I tan’t hold dis very long!”… Three years before Opening Day at the San Francisco Pan-Pacific International Expo, similar postcard invitations to the Golden State via Southern Pacific Railway offering Special Low Rates, were created to be mailed from any and every district of California. Thousands of free postcards were specifically printed for the different counties with the front image extolling their attractive industries or prosperous cities, with a printed booster message on the back.
Mattei Office Building, Mattei Wine Co., Fresno, c1921
Andrew Mattei commissioned this handsome high-rise office building in 1921. His Mattei Wine Co. occupied the 11th – floor corner office-suite. In 1887, Swiss-born Andrew Mattei (1855–1936) settled five miles southeast of Fresno, set out an 80-acre vineyard, and had his winery ready in 1893. The vineyard was ultimately enlarged to 1200 acres and the winery, with a capacity of three million gallons and a distillery with an annual output of over a quarter million gallons of brandy, became the largest privately owned facility in the Fresno area. During the 1915 P.P.I.E., Mattei, a veteran and much respected wineman, was an active committee member, a delegate to the Wine Congress, and installed a handsome booth in the Wine Palace for his Mattei Wine Co., which won awards for twenty-three different wines. Following Prohibition, Mattei reopened the plant and remained active in the industry until his death in 1936. During the 1940s, the Alta Wine Co acquired it. Later, the huge winery was sold to Guild Wineries (1962). The Mattei Office Building is still in service, the 7th tallest structure in Fresno.
Paul Masson Champagne Cellar – Clarification On Racks. 50,000 Bottles Handled Daily – San Jose, 1913
Pre-Prohibition Paul Masson Champagne Co. is the story of Burgundian Paul Masson (1859–1940), who arrived in Santa Clara Valley in 1878 as a young man to establish a hill-top vineyard, build his historic Mountain Winery and La Cresta estate, and make French-style Champagne of the finest quality. He succeeded in all endeavors, and became a leading figure in the California wine industry. At the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, his Paul Masson Champagne was awarded “Grand Prix. The First and Only Grand Prix ever awarded to any California Champagne.” The 28-man Jury included several distinguished French wine experts, which pleased the honored Masson greatly. For years he used the Grand Prix diploma image on all of his advertising. In 1913, Masson issued a series of three, now exceedingly rare, red-lettered postcards intended “to advertise extensively the importance of the California champagne industry.”(PWSR) Above, in the Masson Champagne Cellar, we see the nimble bottle riddler at the racks, protected from exploding Champagne bottles in his wire mesh hood and gloves. The other two postcards in the series are, “Paul Masson Champagne Cellar. Nearly a Million Bottles Undergoing Natural Fermentation” and “Paul Masson Grand Prix Champagne. The International Jury of Awards on Wine 1904…” The cards to be given out at the forthcoming 1915 San Francisco Expo (?)… where he won a Grand Prix for his very popular Oeil de Perdrix while his Sparkling Burgundy Champagne won a Medal of Honor.
Lachman & Jacobi – Exterior View of Petaluma Wine Cellars, 1915
The 1906 earthquake brought the river-front town of Petaluma – almost half-way between Santa Rosa on the north and San Francisco on the south – its first sizeable winery, and one of the Bay Area’s largest. When 19th century wine giant Lachman & Jacobi lost their 2.5 million-gallon wine depot in San Francisco, they built their new 4.5 million- gallon blending, aging, bottling and shipping cellars, with another 500,000-gallon-capacity facility for brandy, just north of the Petaluma Rail Depot. The complex, covering 10 acres, had eight separate buildings. The main structure contained 60,000-gallon wooden tanks and experimenting was done with eighteen reinforced glass-lined cement tanks with an average capacity of 30,000 gallons each. A water tank and expansive lawns and flower gardens decorated the immense wine plant. The facility would soon become a major asset of the California Wine Assn. This postcard of the main brick building and another showing an overview of the entire Petaluma plant were purchased together many years ago; both are scrawled on the back with the same pen, “Wine Exhibit P.P.I.E.” Wonderful historic treasures. We know these two postcards came from the L & J booth that, coincidentally, was selected as “one of the most elaborate exhibits” in the Wine Palace.
Sacramento Valley Winery Exhibit – Vestal Vintages. P.P.I.E. 1915
The city of Sacramento developed an important wine industry beginning in the early 1870s. Our story takes place in the early 1900s when noted C.W.A. wineman Edgar Sheehan leased the old Nevis Pioneer Winery across the street from the half-million-gallon California Winery – a handsome brick structure, one of the first important commercial wineries in Sacramento – to be home to his new wine business which he called Sacramento Valley Winery. Under his capable leadership, ‘Vestal Vintages’ was a respected, popular label of the firm that operated until Prohibition. At the 1915 Expo, Sacramento Valley Winery had an eye-catching, brightly colored display featuring ‘Vestal Vintages’ in the Wine Palace. This lovely, very scarce ‘Official P.P.I.E. Postcard’ was surely a well-received Exposition hand-out and souvenir, especially when Sacramento Valley Winery was awarded a Grand Prize for its Vestal Vintage Tokay.
View of the Exhibit Of Italian-Swiss Colony, Food Products Palace, P.P.I.E. 1915.
Three cherished sepia postcards gathered a long time ago represent an important chapter in the story of this much-loved California wine treasure. The I-S-Colony exhibit captured in the postcard was described as “exquisite,” “dainty,” “fascinating,” “rich,” “refined,” “rustic.” Hundreds of miniature Tipo bottles formed a fence along the center aisle; near the entrance was a writing desk equipped with postal cards for the visitors; and visible high on the back left wall is certainly a framed grape print from S.F. printer Edw. Bosqui’s celebrated chromolithographic masterpiece Grapes and Grapevines of California printed in 1877; and presented on the easel, right front, is an original painting by a famous Italian artist.
Italian-Swiss Colony At The P.P.I.E. 1915 – “Grandpa’s Present.”
This sepia postcard, with the oversize Tipo bottle image and the Italian Swiss Colony Tipo name added, was created from the original painting by Italian artist Eugenio Zampighi (1859-1944) displayed in the I.S.C. booth, and renowned for his rustic, peasant family scenes of everyday Italian life. The painting is called “Grandpa’s Present,” and if we look closely we can see that Grandpa has carved a small toy sheep for his little granddaughter. So perfect.
Italian-Swiss Colony At The P.P.I.E. 1915 – “Rustic Courtship.”
Artist Zampighi graciously supplied his “Rustic Courtship” painting for another outstanding I-S-C Expo souvenir postcard that has an added printed box on the back: “From the Exhibit of the ISC Food Products Palace P.P.I.E. 1915.” Since their 19th century founding by Andrea Sbarboro at Asti in northern Sonoma Co. in 1881, the Colony has prized and promoted their Italian spirit of warm hospitality. A beautiful California sunny day was set aside in the Fair schedule to entertain the Viticultural Congress delegates, a “large and notable gathering of winemen from around the world,” to a Day at Asti via a special excursion train. Following a tour of the vineyards and wine production facilities, an outdoor luncheon was served under the magnificent grape arbor at Sbarboro’s Pompeiian Villa on the edge of the vineyards, next to the scenic Russian River. Meanwhile, Italian Swiss Colony enjoyed several other notable triumphs at the Fair: thirty-five High Honors, including five Grand Prix, seven Medals of Honor, and fourteen Gold Medals. Cheers.
Of course, there were other exhibitors and prize winners that we didn’t have time to visit. But it was a fantastic, rewarding stay at the P.P.I.E. and its Wine Palace, giving us a grand tour of the wonders of our California wine world in 1915.
