From Garden to Table - - Murder led to 1st Woman Winery Owner in Napa Valley

Hannah Weinberger / Photo from the St. Helena Public Library

The Wine Enthusiast tells us that Napa’s modern wine industry began in the 1960s, but viticulture and winemaking were integral to the economy before Prohibition. Women had worked growing grapes and making wine for centuries before Hannah Weinberger earned the distinction of becoming California’s first female winemaker during the 1880s.

Weinberger’s husband, John, was shot dead in March 1882. As a result, she assumed control of his winery and filled his role as director of the Bank of St. Helena. In 1889, she crossed the Atlantic to appear at the World’s Fair in Paris as the only California female vintner to win a silver medal in the wine competitions...

Little is known about Weinberger’s early life. She was from Ohio, listed as Hannah Rabbe from Cincinnati, and she married John Christian Weinberger in 1871. This is according to Mariam Hansen of the St. Helena Historical Society, who created a timeline of her life in 2016.

The Weinberger property grew to 35 acres before John was “murdered by a disgruntled employee who had been making unwanted advances to daughter Minnie,” Hansen says. An 1889 ledger from Wines and Vines of California, noted Hannah Weinberger, along with 17 other women, on their list of cellar masters and vineyardists.

Fom Garden to Table - Women make Wine in the USA

19C Women as Wine Manufacturers & Grape Growers.

About Ancient Wine Goddesses & 19C US Women Growing Grapes & Making Wine

 Wayward Tendrils Quarterly (Vol 18, No. 2, April 2008)

Dr.  Liz Thach explains that usually left out of the history books are the ancient stories of the goddesses of wine – most who came into being centuries before Bacchus & Dionysus.

Modern technology & carbon-dating prove that wine from cultivated grapes was being made in what is now the modern-day nation of Georgia, in the Caucasus Mountains around 6,000 B.C. There are also reports of wine remains in Armenia, Turkey, Iraq, Iran & China which claim to be older than those found in Georgia. Regardless of the birthplace of wine, it is commonly agreed that because women were involved in the gathering of berries, grapes, & other crops that it was most likely a woman who picked some grapes & placed them in a pottery container in a cool dark corner were it fermented.

From Persia, there is an ancient legend documented in the Epic of Gilgamish that supports a woman discovering wine. She was a member of the harem in the palace of King Jamshid, & she suffered from severe migraine headaches. One day the king found that a jar containing his favorite grapes had a strange smell & was foaming. Alarmed he ordered that it be set aside as unsafe to eat. When the woman heard of this, she decided to drink from the container in an effort to end her life with the poison inside. Instead she found the taste of the beverage very delightful. Furthermore, it cured her headache & put her in a joyful mood. When she told King Jamshid, he tasted the “wine” as well & then ordered that more should be made & shared with the whole court.

In the Sumerian Empire in what is modern-day Iraq, the most ancient goddess of wine is 1st mentioned. Her name was Gestin & she was being worshiped as early as 3000 BC. Gestin, which translates as wine, vine, &/or grape, is also mentioned in the ancient Indus manuscript, the Rig Veda. Experts believe that it is quite reasonable that the first gods of wine were women, because the oldest deities were female agriculture goddesses of the earth & fertility. 

Later, in 1500 BC, we find mention of another wine goddess, Paget, in the same part of the world. The clay tablets refer to her as working in the vineyard & helping to make wine. Then around 300 to 400 BC as wine became more prominent in Sumeria, a new wine goddess, Siduri, is described as living near the city of Ur. She is reported as welcoming the hero in the Epic of Gilgamish to a garden with the tree of life which is hung with ruby red fruit with tendrils. Siduri is referred to as the Maker of Wine.

Across the deserts in Egypt the wine goddess Renen-utet is mentioned on hieroglyphic tablets as blessing the wine as early as 1300 BC. She usually had a small shrine near the wine press & often her figure would appear on the spout where the grape juice flowed into the receiving tank. She is sometimes joined by Ernutet, the Egyptian goddess of plenty, in blessing the grape harvest.

What is intriguing about these early wine goddesses is how little is known about them today, whereas the male Gods Dionysus & Bacchus have much more coverage in the literature. The earliest records of Dionysus, the Greek wine god, show he appeared around 500BC in the Greek Islands, whereas Gestin dates from 3000 BC. However, the tales of Dionysus, as a child god who was born of a mortal woman & a god can be traced back 9000 years, but  do not include wine. Dionysus as a wine god came later. Indeed, another legend says that Dionysus came from the lands near Sumeria to the islands of Greece.  Bacchus, the Roman name for Dionysus, became known in the literature around 200 BC as the Greek Empire was fading. Other wine gods included Osiris from Egypt & I-Ti from China.

Why did most of these ancient connections between women & wine become lost in the history of time? Is it because the culture changed towards a more masculine image, which gave rise to the male wine gods? Is this why in the period of the Roman Empire, women were banned from drinking wine? Indeed, a husband who caught his wife drinking wine could legally kill her on the spot.

...Today in wine-drinking countries, women are the primary purchasers of wine. The connection between women & wine has always been there. See: The Ancient Connection between Women & Wine.  Wayward Tendrils Quarterly (Vol 18, No. 2, April 2008)

Centuries later in 1863, Virginia Panny wrote about American women wine workers. Many persons are becoming interested in the culture of the grape; & some are spending time & money in experimenting. Longworth of Cincinnati has realized a fortune from his operations. Relle Britain says: “In Longworth's cellars are 700,000 bottles of wine. Mr. L. informed her that we have in this country at least 5,000 varieties of the grape, & his vineyards yield from 600 to 700 gallons to the acre." 

The color of wine depends on the color of the grapes from which it is made. In several of the States, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, & Alabama, vineyards are flourishing, & many new ones are being planted out. The variety of soil & surface in our country is such that there is every probability of success. As yet, only two kinds have been much grown. 

No doubt a large number of women will, in the course of a few years, be employed in the cultivation of the vine & the manufacture of wine. One can soon learn, with a few instructions in each season, the proper culture of the vine. 

A great deal of the work in the vineyards of France & Switzerland is done by women. Women do better that men, because their fingers are smaller & more nimble. 

The want of intelligent culture has been the greatest barrier in the introduction of graperies into our country; but such is the number of  foreigners now among us that have a practical knowledge of the business, we need fear no want of workmen. Many, too, have not been willing to invest capital in an uncertain enterprise. 

Wine manufacturers in Orange county, N. Y., write: “We have not employed women to any great extent in our business. There are some branches of the business in which women might be suitably & profitably employed, where those branches are extensively carried on. The bottling process, including cleaning of bottles, filling, putting on foil, labels, &c., could be done by women as well as men. Women could pick the grapes, & cull out the green & poor berries, & prepare them for the press. They are employed for this purpose in Europe. The reasons why we have not employed women in these branches are, we bottle not more than one sixth of our wine; we manufacture principally for church communion & medicinal purposes, & the principal demand for those purposes is by the gallon-consequently we send it out mostly in casks. (Some wine growers bottle all.) The men, whom we necessarily employ by the year or month in the cultivation of the ground, vines, &c., are of course employed in the season of the vintage, bottling, &c.; & in hurried times, such as the time of picking the grapes, we get such additional help as is easiest obtained, generally boys & girls, with sometimes women. Women are in such demand here for household labor, that, unless sought for at the proper time, March & the 1st of April, & hired for the year, it would be almost impossible to obtain them. The wages generally paid are from $5 to $7 per month, mostly $5 & $6.” 

Another grape grower writes, in answer to a circular: “I do not employ female help in my business, except for a few weeks during the time of tying up the vines & in gathering the fruit, for which I pay 50 cents per day, without board. Women might be employed to quite an extent in this business, which is increasing in the country to a wonderful degree." 

The Employments of Women: A Cyclopaedia of Woman's Work by Virginia Panny Published Boston, MA. by Walker, Wise & Company. 1863

A Few References:

Barnet, R.D. (1980). “A Winged Goddess of Wine on an Electrum Plaque,”Anatolian Studies, Vol. 30, Special Number in Honour of the    Seventieth Birthday of Professor O. R. Gurney, pp. 169-178

Hackin, J. (1932). Asiatic Mythology. London: George G. Harrap & Co.

Johnson, H. (1989). The Story of Wine. UK: Octopus Publishing Group.

McGovern, P.E. (2003). Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viticulture. NJ: Princeton University Press.

Ushanas, E.R. (1997) The Indus Script & the Rg-Veda. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass

Younger, W. (1966) Gods, Men & Wine. Ohio: The Wine & Food Society Limited.

From Garden to Table - Home-Made Hops & Molasses Beer

John Greenwood (American artist, 1727-1792) Sea Captains Carousing, 1758.  Detail

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines Cordials & Liqueurs 1909 by Helen S. Wright

MOLASSES BEER
One ounce hops, one gallon water. Boil for ten minutes, strain, add one pound molasses, and when lukewarm, add one spoonful yeast. Ferment.

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines is a cookbook for those who want to make their own wines & liqueurs from available ingredients, including fruits, flowers, vegetables, & shrubs from local gardens, farms, & orchards. It includes ingredients & instructions for making & fermenting spirits, from wine & ale to sherry, brandy, cordials, & even beer. 

Colonial Era Cookbooks

1615, New Booke of Cookerie, John Murrell (London) 

1798, American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (Hartford, CT)

1803, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter (New York, NY)

1807, A New System of Domestic Cookery, Maria Eliza Rundell (Boston, MA)

1808, New England Cookery, Lucy Emerson (Montpelier, VT)

Helpful Secondary Sources

America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking/Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Colonial Kitchens, Their Furnishings, and Their Gardens/Frances Phipps Hawthorn; 1972

Early American Beverages/John Hull Brown   Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co 1996 

Early American Herb Recipes/Alice Cooke Brown  ABC-CLIO  Westport, United States

Food in Colonial and Federal America/Sandra L. Oliver

Home Life in Colonial Days/Alice Morse Earle (Chapter VII: Meat and Drink) New York : Macmillan Co., ©1926.

A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America/James E. McWilliams New York : Columbia University Press, 2005.

Geo Washington (1732-1799) - Profit & Loss - A 1915 View

George Washington as Farmer by Junius Brutus Stearns. 1851

George Washington: Farmer (1915) by Paul Leland Haworth (1876-1936) 

Profit & Loss

... comparatively little of his fortune, which amounted at his death to perhaps three-quarters of a million dollars, was made by the sale of products from his farm. Few farmers have grown rich in that way. Washington's wealth was due in part to inheritance & a fortunate marriage, but most of all to the increment on land. Part of this land he received as a reward for military services, but much of it he was shrewd enough to buy at a low rate & hold until it became more valuable.

This much, however, is plain--a farmer can handle much less money than a salaried man & yet live infinitely better, for his rent, much of his food & many other things cost him nothing.

In Washington's case the problem is further complicated by a number of circumstances. As a result of his marriage he had some money upon bond. For his military services in the French war he received large grants of land & the payment during the Revolution of his personal expenses, & as President he had a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.

The depreciation of the paper currency during the Revolution proved disastrous to him in several ways. When the war broke out much of the money he had obtained by marriage was loaned out on bond, or, as we would say to-day, on mortgage. "I am now receiving," he soon wrote, "a shilling in the pound in discharge of Bonds which ought to have been paid me, & would have been realized before I left Virginia, but for my indulgences to the debtors." In 1778 he said that six or seven thousand pounds that he had in bonds upon interest had been paid in depreciated paper, so that the real value was now reduced to as many hundreds. Some of the paper money that came into his hands he invested in government securities, & at least ten thousand pounds of these in Virginia money were ultimately funded by the federal government for six thousand two hundred & forty-six dollars in three & six per cent. bonds.

And yet, by examining Washington's accounts, one is able to estimate in a rough way the returns he received from his estate, landed & otherwise. We find that in ten months of 1759 he took in £1,839; from January 1, 1760, to January 10, 1761, about £2,535; in 1772, £3,213; from August 3, 1775, to August 30, 1776, £2,119; in 1786, £2,025; in 1791, about £2,025. Included in some of these entries, particularly the earlier ones, are payments of interest & principal on his wife's share of the Custis estate. Of the later ones, that for 1786--a bad farming year--includes rentals on more than a score of parcels of land amounting to £282.15, £25 rental on his fishery, payments for flour, stud fees, etc.


A much better idea of the financial returns from his home estate can be obtained from his actual balances of gain & loss. One of these, namely for 1798, which was a poor year, was as follows:

BALANCE OF GAIN AND LOSS, 1798

DR. GAINED                           CR. LOST

Dogue Run Farm  397.11.2         Mansion House .. 466.18. 2-1/2

Union Farm .... 529.10.11-1/2    Muddy Hole Farm   60. 1. 3-1/2

River Farm .... 234. 4.11        Spinning .......  51. 2. 0

Smith's Shop ..  34.12.09-1/2    Hire of Head

Distillery ....  83.13. 1          overseer ..... 140. 0. 0

Jacks .........  56.1

Traveler ......   9.17

  (stud horse)

Shoemaker .....  28.17. 1

Fishery ....... 165.12. 0-1/4     By clear gain on

Dairy .........  30.12. 3          the Estate.....£898.16. 4-1/4

But Washington failed to include in his receipts many items, such as the use of a fine mansion for himself & family, the use of horses & vehicles, & the added value of slaves & live stock by natural increase.

Washington died possessed of property worth about three-quarters of a million, although he began life glad to earn a doubloon a day surveying. The main sources of this wealth have already been indicated, but when all allowance is made in these respects, the fact remains that he was compelled to make a living & to keep expenses paid during the forty years in which the fortune was accumulating, & the main source he drew from was his farms. Not much of that living came from the Custis estate, for, as we have seen, a large part of the money thus acquired was lost. During his eight years as Commander-in-Chief he had his expenses--no more. Of the eight years of his presidency much the same can be said, for all authorities agree that he expended all of his salary in maintaining his position & some say that he spent more. Yet at the end of his life we find him with much more land than he had in 1760, with valuable stocks & bonds, a house & furniture infinitely superior to the eight-room house he first owned, two houses in the Federal City that had cost him about $15,000, several times as many negroes, & live stock estimated by himself at $15,653 & by his manager at upward of twice that sum.

Such being the case--and as no one has ever ventured even to hint that he made money corruptly out of his official position--the conclusion is irresistible that he was a good business man & that he made farming pay, particularly when he was at home.

It is true that only three months before his death he wrote: "The expense at which I live, & the unproductiveness of my estate, will not allow me to lessen my income while I remain in my present situation. On the contrary, were it not for occasional supplies of money in payment for lands sold within the last four or five years, to the amount of upwards of fifty thousand dollars, I should not be able to support the former without involving myself in debt & difficulties," This must be taken, however, to apply to a single period of heavy expense when foreign complications & other causes rendered farming unprofitable, rather than to his whole career. Furthermore, his landed investments from which he could draw no returns were so heavy that he had approached the condition of being land poor & it was only proper that he should cut loose from some of them.

From Garden to Table - Home-Made Lemon Wine

John Greenwood (American artist, 1727-1792) Sea Captains Carousing, 1758.  Detail

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines Cordials & Liqueurs 1909 by Helen S. Wright

LEMON WINE
Take six large lemons, pare off the rind, and squeeze out the juice; steep the rind in the juice, and put to it one quart of brandy. Let it stand in an earthen pot close stopped three days, then squeeze six more, and mix with two quarts of water, and as much sugar as will sweeten the whole. Boil the water, lemons, and sugar together, letting it stand till it is cool; then add one quart of white wine, and the other lemon and brandy, and mix them together, and run it through a flannel bag into some vessel. Let it stand three months and bottle it off; cork your bottles very well, and keep it cool. It will be fit to drink in a month or six weeks.

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines is a cookbook for those who want to make their own wines & liqueurs from available ingredients, including fruits, flowers, vegetables, & shrubs from local gardens, farms, & orchards. It includes ingredients & instructions for making & fermenting spirits, from wine & ale to sherry, brandy, cordials, & even beer. 

Colonial Era Cookbooks

1615, New Booke of Cookerie, John Murrell (London) 

1798, American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (Hartford, CT)

1803, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter (New York, NY)

1807, A New System of Domestic Cookery, Maria Eliza Rundell (Boston, MA)

1808, New England Cookery, Lucy Emerson (Montpelier, VT)

Helpful Secondary Sources

America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking/Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Colonial Kitchens, Their Furnishings, and Their Gardens/Frances Phipps Hawthorn; 1972

Early American Beverages/John Hull Brown   Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co 1996 

Early American Herb Recipes/Alice Cooke Brown  ABC-CLIO  Westport, United States

Food in Colonial and Federal America/Sandra L. Oliver

Home Life in Colonial Days/Alice Morse Earle (Chapter VII: Meat and Drink) New York : Macmillan Co., ©1926.

A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America/James E. McWilliams New York : Columbia University Press, 2005.