New Jersey wine

The production of wine in New Jersey has increased significantly in the last thirty years with the opening of new wineries. Beginning in 1981, the state legislature relaxed Prohibition-era restrictions and crafted new laws to facilitate the growth of the industry and provide new opportunities for winery licenses. Today, New Jersey wineries are crafting wines that have earned recognition for their quality from critics, industry leaders, and in national and international competitions. , New Jersey currently has 51 licensed and operating wineries with several more prospective wineries in various stages of development.New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. " New Jersey ABC list of wineries, breweries, and distilleries" (5 February 2013). Retrieved 10 August 2013.New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. " New Jersey ABC license update" (16 April 2013). Retrieved 10 August 2013.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture's 2012 Census of Agriculture, the state's wineries and vineyards dedicated 1,082 acres to the cultivation of grapes.National Agricultural Statistics Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture. 2007 Census of Agriculture, State Level Data: New Jerse
Table 31. Specified Fruits and Nuts by Acres: 2012 and 2007
Retrieved 18 March 2019. New Jersey wineries are growing ''Vitis vinifera'', ''Vitis labrusca'', or French hybrid wine grapes, and producing or offering for sale over eighty types of wines. In 2010, 1.72 million gallons (approximately 716,000 cases) of wine were produced by New Jersey wineries; making it the seventh largest wine-producing state in the United States.With 1.72 million gallons in 2010, New Jersey was ranked seventh behind (1) California (492 million gallons), (2) New York (36 million gallons), (3) Washington (28.5 million gallons), (4) Oregon (3.95 million gallons), (5) Kentucky and (6) Florida. A considerable portion of New Jersey wine sales are non-grape fruit wine, particularly apple, blueberry, raspberry, and cranberry wines. These fruits are associated with New Jersey and can be purchased from many nearby farms throughout the Garden State. New Jersey's 51 wineries generate between US$30,000,000-$40,000,000 of revenue annually.

Wealthy New Jersey landowners began to produce wines during the colonial period. In 1767, two men, Edward Antill and William Alexander, Lord Stirling received recognition for their successful efforts to cultivate grapes and produce wine on their plantations from the Royal Society of Arts in London. The Society had challenged colonists in Britain's North American colonies to cultivate grapes and produce "those Sorts of Wines now consumed in Great Britain." While the cultivation of grapes and fruit trees supported a flourishing wine industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the effects of Prohibition (1919-1933) and a legacy of restrictive laws constraining the industry's recovery subsequent to its repeal, practically devastated the industry. For fifty years after the repeal of Prohibition, New Jersey was limited by law to a ratio of one winery license for every 1,000,000 state residents, which by 1980 effectively allowed for only seven wineries. The growth of the state's winery industry has been bolstered by the repeal, starting in 1981, with the New Jersey Farm Winery Act, of many Prohibition-era laws and allowed many small growers to open new wineries.

History

Viticulture in the New Jersey colony and early America

In 1758, the Royal Society of Arts (formally, the "Society instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce") sought to incentivize agricultural innovation and cultivation in the North American colonies by offering a "premium"—or cash award—of 100 British pounds (£100) for the planting of vineyards and the production of "five tuns of red or white wine of acceptable quality."One tun equals 252 gallons. The initial award was unclaimed by 1762, and the Society augmented the bounty to £200 if the goal were reached by a colonial farmer by 1770 adding that at least five hundred vines should be planted and the wine produced equal "those Sorts of Wines now consumed in Great Britain."

In 1767, two men had been recognized by the society for their undertakings. William Alexander (1726-1783), the self-styled "Earl of Stirling," informed the society in 1767 that he had planted 2,100 vines at his estate in Basking Ridge, in central New Jersey's Somerset County. Sterling had reported that his plantings were
"chiefly Burgundy, Orleans, Black, White and Red Frontiniac, Muscadine, Portugals and Tokays." Edward Antill (1701-1770) who inherited his father's estate and operated a large brewery at Raritan Landing across the Raritan River in Piscataway Township from the city of New Brunswick, advised the society that he had a vineyard of 800 vines of Madeira, Burgundy and grapes as well as a few "Sweet-water Grape vines, and of the best sort of the Native Vines of America by way of tryal." Antill had remarked in a 1765 letter that he had been "thought by some Gentlemen as well as by Farmers, very whimsical in attempting a Vineyard." and had planted his vines "on the south side of a hill facing a public road so that his experiment could be advertised to the skeptics."

The society had discussed offering the £200 to both men for their achievements. However, the Society raised concerns about the legitimacy of Alexander's claim to a title of nobility. On 2 December 1767, the Society offered the cash award to Antill, and three weeks later offered Lord Stirling a gold medal "for having planted 2100 vines in North America in pursuance of the Views of the Society." Shortly after his death, Antill published an 80-page tract entitled ''An Essay on the cultivation of the Vine, and the making and preserving of Wine, suited to the different Climates in North-America'' (1771) and this account influenced scholarship well into the nineteenth century.

The developments of Antill and Lord Sterling did not translate into a long-term success or establish the industry in the state. Within a few years after their deaths, Antill in 1770, and Lord Sterling in 1783, their prize-winning vineyards were neglected and gone. In the colonial period and early nineteenth-century, the prevailing market in the New Jersey was for Jersey cider and distilled spirits. During the 1840s, in Newark, producers were creating sparkling apple cider and marketing it as "champagne"—so much so that Scottish traveller Alexander Mackay asserted that he learned that most "imported champagne" in America came in fact from Newark. Pinney (1989), p
383-384
While Mackay thought that it was "excellent as a summer drink" he quipped that, "many is the American connoisseur of champagne who has his taste cultivated on Newark cider."

A flourishing industry (1860–1920)

In the mid-19th century, New Jersey was once again recognized for its suitability for growing grapes. In 1859, an agricultural society was organized in Egg Harbor City and tested over forty different grape varietals for local cultivation. Varietals of ''Vitis aestivalis'' and ''Vitis labrusca'' were selected, including Concord, Catawba, Norton, and several others. The early industry was started through new German immigrants and by 1865 ''Gardener's Monthly'' claimed that these Germans were making wine "as good as any in the world." Prominent vintners from the Egg Harbor City area during this period, who specialized in dry red wines primarily from Norton grapes, included Charles Saalmann and Julius Hincke. Renault Winery, located in the Egg Harbor City in the southern region of the state, was established in 1864 by French immigrant Louis Nicolas Renault. In its early years, Renault Winery was known for its American version of "champagne". This was New Jersey's first commercial winemaking operation and remains one of the oldest continuously operating wineries in the United States.

Philadelphia land developer Charles K. Landis (1833–1900) purchased of land in 1861 in Cumberland County near Millville, New Jersey