The wine bootlegger
The Volstead Act, the enforcement mechanism for national Prohibition, banned the manufacture, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. It did not ban consumption of alcohol, and it allowed households to make wine and cider for personal use. Ciders were produced in the apple-growing regions under this loophole and wines, particularly from California, were eagerly sought by east coast and Midwestern bootleggers, to grace the tables of their customer’s restaurants. California wines were not held in high regard by wine lovers of the day, so when they appeared in the eastern markets they bore French or Italian labels.
The California wines were blended with wine smuggled from Canada, which gave them some better flavor and aroma, though the bulk of the blend was the cheaper California wine. As with other beverages, the wine was bottled as if it were the real thing, and the blended mix would be labeled as if it were the product of European wineries of fine repute. Under the Volstead Act, up to 200 gallons of wine was allowed per household per year, and since grape juice could ferment to up to 12% alcohol in less than two months, wines became an inexpensive and profitable product line for the bootleggers.
The Volstead Act also allowed for private manufacture of ciders, with the same limit of 200 gallons, and cider manufactured legally was transported and sold illegally by the bootleggers. Formerly legitimate American wineries and cider houses managed to survive prohibition by continuing to press the fruit and selling the unfermented juices to customers, who took them home to ferment in their basements, in perfect accord with the law. Until, that is, the bootlegger took possession of the finished product, for which the wine and cider makers were paid, just as if they were an employee of the bootlegger, as many of them were.