Korbel present for many U.S. history events

Following the swearing in of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, the two participated in a century-old tradition – a congressional luncheon.

The bicentennial of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln influenced the theme. The luncheon served a seafood stew, roasted American game birds – pheasant and duck – molasses sweet potatoes and apple cinnamon sponge cake for dessert. The foods had Lincoln-era frontier charm.

The first course was served on replica china from the Lincoln presidency, selected by Mary Todd Lincoln. The wines served were very American: Napa Valley’s Duckhorn Wine and Korbel California Champagne.   

Originally, the Korbel brothers had been in the lumber business along California’s Sonoma County and Russian River area.

The three brothers, Antone, Josef and leader Francis used the cleared Russian River land to plant grapevines. The winery, built in 1886, and brandy tower (1889), still exist as a museum and a reminder of perhaps the ultimate example of 19th-century wine history in America. Today, Korbel Cellars is adjacent to the museum. This is also home to Korbel brandy where more than 750,000 cases are made annually.                                        

This story has Chicago ties. Wine was big business in the 1890s when rail travel and supply came easy. Francis Korbel made good brandy and tasty wine for many, swank New York City hotels. But Korbel’s big break came in Chicago with his wine and brandy being featured at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. The many Germans who saw the world’s fair in Chicago became Korbel’s best brandy customers.

Even today, Wisconsin with its large German population, still buys the most Korbel brandy of any state. The battleship Wisconsin was christened in 1899 with a bottle of Korbel Viking Champagne. The ever-
popular Korbel Brut came after Prohibition and that drier style still is made today.

In 1954 the Korbels sold the winery to the Heck family and Adolf Heck Sr. ran the American Wine Company in St. Louis after the repeal of Prohibition. Heck owned and produced Cook’s Imperial Champagne, which had a longer sales history and even more popularity than Korbel.

Cook’s Champagne started in 1859, 75 years before Heck owned it. Isaac Cook was the owner of the then Missouri Wine Company of St. Louis. His popular Cook’s Imperial Champagne became the rage of its day. Cook County is named for him.

After the Civil War, champagne became the ideal wine and food pairing. This craving grew in a large way because of how champagne was made between the 1870s and World War I with a lot of red wine in the blend.                                                                                                                        The blend after WWI became more like today’s style. The wine got drier, lighter in color and crisper with the addition of more chardonnay.