Empire of Vines traces the development of wine culture as grape growing expanded from New York to the Midwest before gaining ascendancy in California-a progression that illustrates viticulture's centrality to the nineteenth-century American projects of national expansion and the formation of a national culture.Įmpire of Vines details the ways would-be gentleman farmers, ambitious speculators, horticulturalists, and writers of all kinds deployed the animating myths of American wine culture, including the classical myth of Bacchus, the cult of terroir, and the fantasy of pastoral republicanism.
Nonetheless, as author Erica Hannickel shows, this fantasy is deeply rooted in the history of grape cultivation in America. The lush, sun-drenched vineyards of California evoke a romantic, agrarian image of winemaking, though in reality the industry reflects American agribusiness at its most successful.
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