Wine Institute donated its organizational archives and book collection to UC Davis. They complement the extensive wine collections already at the university and will help researchers understand how the California wine industry recovered from Prohibition and rose to the level of international prominence it enjoys today.
“We’re delighted to see our materials become part of the university’s rich collection on California wine and to make them broadly available to scholars, researchers, writers and wineries,” said Robert P. “Bobby” Koch, president and CEO of the institute.
“The three most significant organizational archives covering the rise of California wine since Prohibition are those from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, and Wine Institute,” said Axel Borg, the library’s wine subject specialist. “We had the government papers and the scientific research. Now we have the leading industry voice represented as well.”
The Wine Institute Records on the American Wine Industry — currently being cataloged by the library and available for public use by early summer — cover the 20th century after the repeal of Prohibition. They include:
- the collected works of Maupin, an 18th-century French viticulturist who made significant contributions to the understanding of grape growing
- a photography archive including more than 2,200 images of vineyards, wineries, grape varietals, winemaking, harvesting, events, promotion and more — mostly dating from the 1930s to 1960s
- winery survey data, county records and regional growing histories
- speeches by wine scholars, producers and writers
- wine lists and menus
- approximately 4,000 wine labels
- materials related to wine and popular culture, such as the screenplay for the 1959 film, This Earth Is Mine, set and filmed in the Napa Valley