Prohibition began on January 16, 1920. This Posting will explain that the Post Office did indeed have some interesting packages during prohibition.
Interestingly during prohibition, Wineries continued making wine with creative wine making practices. One acceptable method of wine making was in conjunction with Church.
The Catholic Church needed Wine for the Religious activity of Communion. Beaulieu Vineyard, was popular; they claimed they were, “The House of Alter Wine.” The other way in which a winery could stay in business during prohibition was supporting wine making practices for people at home.
The deal was to mail the home wine maker a kit containing the materials to make the wine. Under a loophole in The Volstead Act, the head of house hold could make up to two hundred gallons of wine a year. So, Wineries would mail grape juice and concentrate under names like Forbidden Fruit, Vine-Glo and Moonmist to homes via the Post Office.
Now this would be taking place in 1915. Wine making technology was not very sophisticated. The instructions sometimes would read as a warning, “Do not place container in room temperature over 60 degrees or contents may ferment.” It is important to realize the types of grapes were used had to be hardy since the shipping was often across country. Today wines are made with grapes grown for their subtle or complex quality of wine on the palate. Alicante Bouschet and Alicante Ganzin were thus used back then but were considered bad at the very least. I imagine that they were very much like the Concord Grape used today in grape juice Concentrate.
As part of the wine making practices during prohibition the juice or grapes were shipped in the mail. This would probably mean complications during shipping. Some leakage and even soaked cardboard was an ordinary appearance at the Post Office. So this stuff was shipping; and so in time, also dried if spilled or broken. Oh how the Post Office must have hated the mail articles containing whine. Well, I have always been a little afraid of smells. But I think I know the smell they had when a household ordered a wine making kit.
Some Pretty major changes took place in the Napa Valley after prohibition which wouldn’t have been due to the pressures of the Post Office. It makes sense the wineries could use delicate grapes and thus a more complex wine on location after prohibition. However the Post Office didn’t complain or cause the political tides ending prohibition; that was because of the voters who wanted to drink.
And, so the interesting era ended after fourteen years where the Post Office managed things on the basis of an occasional smell. The ending of prohibition meant that wine could be shipped more appropriately. If even the occasional bottle were to leak or break the product could never have such a devastating affect as a distinctive smell since the quality of the product is much improved. There is a natural inclination for improvements yet this is probably one practice which goes into history as interesting for the Post Office and did not have any negative effect.
45 PERCENT 