Pamphlet, Wine Tasting, 1946

This six-panel fold-out pamphlet accompanied “A Tasting of Wines for Summer and Wine Bowls,” an event of the New York Branch of The Wine and Food Society. This tasting, the organization’s 65th, was held at in the Hotel Pierre Ballroom in New York, on May 15, 1946. Founded in 1934, just after the Repeal of Prohibition, New York’s Wine and Food Society is the oldest, continuously operating gastronomic society in the country.

The pamphlet reveals a complex program with nine companies offering some 27 different beverages to taste. Starting with wines from Spain and Argentina, the tasting continued with a Chablis, a Sauterne, and a Haute Sauterne from Napa Valley’s Larkmead Winery. The next grouping featured a “Sweet Valley Ohio White Wine,” a “Meier’s Rhine Wine” and “Meier’s Sauterne,” both from the Lake Erie region. Three “wine bowls,” each containing brandy and some sort of sweet or sparkling wine, followed. Rounding out the program were another twelve summer wines, including a Riesling and Rosé from Beaulieu Vineyard in Napa, a 1941 Pinot Blanc from Wente Bros. in Livermore, several 1942-43 vintage wines from Sonoma’s Fountain Grove, and three undated vintages from Cresta Blanca, also in Livermore.

The pamphlet seems to have a celebratory undercurrent and perhaps there was a feeling of optimism among members of the Society as the event occurred less than a year after the end of World War II.

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