Prohibition, what prohibition?

The Marchetti & Togliatti families emigrated from Northern Italy in order to earn their fortune in Utah’s silver rush of the late 1800’s — read the full story in Marchetti & Togliatti V State of Utah. With sufficient funds procured from running a boarding house and general store, the families headed to California and established Home Ranch and vineyard in Uvas Creek, near Morgan Hill.

Within a decade the family’s future was jeopardized by the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. This enabled legislation, known as the Volstead Act, to enforce the federal ban of alcoholic beverages.

In order to protect their stockpile of aged barrels of wine they shipped it to Tijuana, Mexico, into the cellar of Vick’s Place. Grape juice production, however, was not impacted, and I suspect that is how the ranch continued operating.

Grape juice was not restricted by Prohibition, even though if it was allowed to sit for sixty days it would ferment and turn to wine with a twelve percent alcohol content. Many folks took advantage of this as grape juice output quadrupled during the Prohibition era.

Prohibition in the United States, Wikipedia

MEXICO: Death of Aunt Jane.
The dusty air of Tijuana echoed last week with the sharp sound of hammer blows. The bartenders of three of the biggest saloons in town — Vick’s Place, the Midnight Follies, the Blue Fox — were nailing up the shutters. For Tijuana, which in Spanish means Aunt Jane, death seemed drawing near. One of the most colorful results of U.S. Prohibition was the growth of a chain of drinking and gambling resorts stretching all the 1,600 miles of the Mexican border.

Time Magazine, November 13, 1933