Roberta Hollander with Harry Serlis at wine tasting with Ben Rushin

at new york city's luxurious Delmonico Hotel was speaking with harry Searle is who is the President and general manager of the Wine Institute. What is the Wine Institute? The Wine Institute is the Trade association that represents all of the wine growers in the state of California.

And why are we at the Delmonico Today? We're here to celebrate the launching of national Wine festival month, which in turn is a recognition of the beginning of the vintage in California and the bounty of our vineyards. I understand that wine sales in the United States

are approximately a billion dollars a year. How much of that is represented by California wine? About three out of every four bottles consumed in this country are grown in California. And I hope that at this tasting of many of our wines today, you will all realize

why I understand that recently, you represented the California wine growers in the Netherlands at a really high level tasting. Would you tell us about it and about the reception and who was there just actually, just about 10 days ago in Amsterdam, our ambassador to the Netherlands

hosted the largest tasting of California Wines ever held on the continent of Europe. There were 42 wines representing 21 different California vintners from each wine growing district. Across the state, there were wines in every price and type class represented. The guest list was very impressive. Actually,

there were over 350 guests that attended who were visiting dignitaries, including the diplomatic corps, the high level people from government in the Netherlands. But the great greatest number of guests were really members of the dutch wine trade and members of the dutch media, you ask about

the reception, I take it you mean the reception our wines received, It was really outstanding. And in this particular case we're especially pleased because uh the results were such that a number of the wine importers present began making plans immediately to come to the States, come

to California to try to make some arrangements for the importation of some of our wines into the Netherlands. And in view of the EEC regulations which are clearly designed to exclude as nearly as possible the importation of wines such as ours, that's the most formidable task.

And they must think it's worthwhile. I read your speech called wine in America and you maintain rightly so that California wines are discriminated against in europe, simply stated in the common market wine importation from third countries. That is, countries not members of the european community are

clearly discriminated against. And uh admittedly so, the regulations are those which such things as having minimum prices countervailing duties. That's a phrase that simply means that in the event that uh in spite of the onerous high tax that's originally placed on our wine when it comes

in and need to secure a special permit. And a special quota. And one thing and another that even then, should it occur to them at any point that our wines might be making some little progress and therefore be competitively a matter of concern, they have the

right to levy still additional taxes or when they go way beyond that. And there are many problems about special labeling requirements. And one thing and another, all of which uh, is most difficult to understand if you think of world trade as a two way street and

you think that here, all that a foreign vintner from France or italy or Germany or spain needs to do is to come to us, find a customer and pay a duty of about six cents a bottle. And that is all. And from then on, he actually

is subject to fewer restrictions. Then our own vintners, our own vintners must prove the in advance to our federal government and our state government. Uh, the conditions under which the wines are made, sanitation. The fact that California wine can be made only from the juice of

sound ripe grapes, We may not add any sugar. Uh, the fact that our wines must be labeled strictly in accordance with uh predetermined regulations. These regulations don't apply to foreign wines. Uh, tremendously high percentage of the wines that come in from abroad do include sugar. The

production requirements are not enforced because there's no way to enforce them so that we are a happy hunting ground, so to speak. And in fact today we find ourselves in the unfortunate position of finding some vintners in some countries using us as a dumping ground. And

uh, there are fine houses of course in europe with high standards and fine wines and I'm not speaking of them, but we also know that there are literally thousands of bottles and that are coming in at ridiculous prices of unbelievably low quality that are improperly labeled

spain, for example, sends us wines called pinot chardonnay and zinfandel. And they offer such wines at 20 cents a bottle or less at the winery and they don't even grow the grapes uh, claim high quality and vintage and it's totally impossible. I guess one of the

reasons that this state could exist is that as somebody who wrote one of my wine books said America is not a wine drinking nation. The fact is that the traditionally, the, those countries who grow wine wherein wine has grown, I should say, you'll find that the

people living in those countries traditionally drink more wine Uh, in Italy and in France for example, the per capita consumption is something like 30 gallons per year per person in the United States. It's a little more than one gallon. However, it has been slowly but steadily

increasing and happily. Uh, the young adults of this country are not afraid of wine. They're not concerned by a bunch of taboos and old fashioned rules, quote and unquote that seem to have gotten in the way of wine enjoyment by their parents and their grandparents, for

example, we've all heard the old saw you drink red wine at room temperature. Well, it's hard to know whether you mean by room temperature, an unheated flat in London in january or uh, palm springs patio at 100 and 20 degrees in august. Uh, they're really not

the same thing. What was meant originally was that most people found their red wines uh pleasurable that as they came from the cellar. Whereas white wines, most people found them most pleasing when they were chilled. Americans are beginning to learn that those are guides, they're not

rules and that one should enjoy the wine that they like most the way they like it most. And if they really preferred in a tall glass with ice poured over it, that's, there's nothing wrong with that. Certainly one would take with their meals. They'd be well

advised I think to start out going along with these guidelines and then taking it from there. Perhaps it's a little like saying that most of us think in terms of, of apple pie for dessert and yet for many years in New England, there are great many

people who like it at breakfast and who's to say they're wrong. I should imagine that the amount of wine consumed in the United States, per capita is just growing yearly. Do you have a number? Well, yes, the per capita consumption of course is growing, but not

at an astounding rate. I can say this, that we have reached a new sales peak each year for the last six years uh, in 1971 uh, California uh consumption was 226 million gallons. That is the usage in this country of California wine, which was over 14%

ahead of the previous year. Uh the California consumption during the first six months of this year is again something more than 6% ahead of last year, six months so that we had to appear headed for the seventh record year. Let's do a little bit of history.

You know, we broadcast to eastern europe and I was really surprised to find out that well, the checks and the Hungarians contributed really a lot back in the last century to wine growing in the United States. They have, and it's perhaps very timely that you mentioned

it now. I meant told you that I just returned from europe. I spent a few days in Hungary only a few weeks ago visiting their wine country in a garden in the areas around Budapest and elsewhere tasting their wines and seeing their vineyards. Uh And it

is true that there was a Hungarian, for example, whose name was august on harass the, who has often been referred to as the father of California viticulture. He was a gentleman that long, long ago uh brought to this country some thousands of vines of different cuttings

from the european vineyards. And in doing so really began our first commercial vineyards. In fact, it was not too long after that, I should be able to check my date for you and, and tell you a little more specifically, I guess it was in about 18

56 a little more than 100 years, 120 years ago that he came back with some 13,000 cuttings from the vineyards of europe. Uh six different varieties of grapes. Uh Again, about five years after that, in about 1861, the state of California commissioned him to go to

Europe for the specific purpose of collecting choice wine variety cuttings from the vineyards of Europe that would thrive in California at that time. He brought back over 100,000 cuttings of 300 different varieties so that we might determine which of those would grow the best wines in

our soil and climate. I think as a footnote, it should be noted that after sending him there, the legislature of the state of California failed to reimburse him for has trouble. So I suppose we still owe a small debt to our friends in Hungary and there's

a Czechoslovak by the name of Korbel who I guess helped along in the 19th century also, that's the name of one. Well, that's one of the, one of our early vintners in the north counties of California and that family did have a winery and uh, and

vineyards and the, although the family no longer owns it, it continues to this day producing wines under the direction and ownership of second generation americans from europe. Another family. However, how do you go about in this very fast moving country instilling a taste for wine in

people? Well, our job is really one of attempting to inform, to assist people such as yourself uh in providing the facts about wine, answering questions that are brought to us. But perhaps one of our most important functions is to work closely with the university and with

the scientists in our wineries to coordinate the effort to grow ever better grapes and to make ever better wine. Uh As far as our work with the public is concerned, we conduct wine tastings such as we're having here today. Uh and it might be interesting for

you to know that part of this great growth is wine interest here we mentioned a moment ago is uh certainly attributable to the interest of the young adults here. As a result of that interest, we have been conducting a series of wine tastings across the United

States for young adult groups and these are what we call blind comparative tastings. That is the member of the group and representative of our institute together, go to a wine shop someplace near the site where the tasting is to be held and they select the wines

to be tasted. Uh As a rule, there would be six or eight wines, usually three or four Californians and three or four european wines of similar characteristics. The big difference being that the foreign wines selected are always selected at twice the price. If we have an

average price of the bottles of California wine of a dollar and a quarter. We find that the the average of the Europeans would be 2 50 or 2 60. Uh The purpose of this of course is so no one can ever say, well you deliberately went

out and picked in fury of wines. Well, as long as they're telling our public they're worth twice the price. We assume that it's fair. These wines are then under the supervision of the representative of the group that's going to where the tasting will be held are

all poured into mark glasses with numbers before the doors are open and the guests are asked to come in and each of the guests are invited to taste these six or eight wines and they're all given a slip wherein they are asked to note their preferences

in descending order of preference. And the slips are all collected and each of the individuals is asked to retain one copy for himself so that he can later compare it with the the consensus. And then after the collection, all of the results are tabulated by the

representative of the group and our person and they're then announced. And then all of the wines are identified. And then an open tasting of all the bottles are brought out and people can go back and and have the fun of seeing what they thought before. They

read the label and what they thought after they read the label. Incidentally, I haven't asked, but I were sufficiently proud for me to tell you that at this point that we've had over 200 tastings this year and over 10,000 young adults participating and the preference is

running more than 5-1 California over the foreign counterpart at twice the price. You really have a tough job. And that's one way to do it because Americans have this mystical feeling about especially french wines that if it's french it's gotta be good and what do I

know? And if the labels in french it's gotta be better than if it's in english and we all we all know foreign movies are better than american movies. I think we've we've probably all have heard the story about the american who went to paris and insisted

that the way to bring him a bottle of California wine. And and when the waiter asked him why in God's name, he wanted California wine when he was in paris, he said because his father had always told of an imported wine was better as perhaps something

not as well known as the very famous quote, well, robert louis Stevenson quite some years ago and visiting the vineyards in the valley of the moon in California made a memorable statement that you people here are growing some of the loveliest wines in the world. But

you call them domestic and that's enough to stop anyone. We have to thank you, Mr sterling's for educating the public in regard to wines in general, and California wines in specific. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.