Home Ohio Memory Collection Om1847_2414204_014

Reference URL

Add tags

Comment

Save to favorites

To link to the entire object, paste this link in email, IM or document

To embed the entire object, paste this HTML in website

To link to this page, paste this link in email, IM or document

To embed this page, paste this HTML in website

Lonz Winery Letters Soliciting Buyers of Lonz Grape Juice

you wish to report:

Your comment:

Your Name:

Submit

Cancel

...

Title	Lonz Winery Letters Soliciting Buyers of Lonz Grape Juice
Subject	Civil Liberties Business and Labor Prohibition Alcoholic beverages Wine industry Beverage industry
Place	Middle Bass (Ohio) Ottawa County (Ohio)
Description	These two letters, written by George Lonz of Lonz Winery in Middle Bass, Ohio, encourage consumers to purchase Lonz Winery's grape juice. Although Lonz writes about his family's experience in wine-making, he focuses on marketing grape juice due to Prohibition. During Prohibition, during which the federal government banned the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, Lonz Winery survived by selling grape juice. Lonz often included instructions for making the grape juice into wine until Prohibition was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment. Each letter is one page and measures 8.5" x 11" (21.59 x 27.94 cm). Lonz Winery was established by Peter Lonz (1857-1955) in 1884. His son George Lonz merged the Lonz and Golden Eagle Wine Cellars (established in 1866 by Andrew Wehrle) into one business in 1926. George attended Ohio Northern University, studied chemistry and botany, and graduated in 1910. He used his scientific skills to experiment with grapes and wines, and tested his own products in a lab behind the winery. George Lonz purchased the wineries during Prohibition and on the eve of the Great Depression. He remained solvent during these years by 100,000 gallons of grape juice per year. Some of his product was eventually sold to a Chicago firm which made it into champagne. The New Deal and the repeal of Prohibition brought new prosperity, and from 1934-1944, he rebuilt the old Wehrle Winery and added a boathouse and basin to the complex. During this time Lonz became one of the few American champagne makers. Through the 1960s, Lonz Winery continued to prosper on the strength of its high quality wines and as a popular tourist attraction. Lonz constructed a pleasure boat marina behind the winery in 1968. George Lonz died in 1969, without heirs and before finding a buyer for the winery. For a time, profits from the winery were given to charity. In 1979, Meier's Wine Cellars, Inc., a division of Paramount Distilleries, Inc., in Cleveland, Ohio, purchased the Lonz Winery. Meier revitalized the winery by replanting the vineyards and restoring the buildings.
Creator	Lonz Winery
Date of Original	1924; 1927
Collection	Lonz Winery Collection
Source	Unpublished material (archives/manuscripts) MS 150
Submitting Institution	Center for Archival Collections--Bowling Green State University
Type	Text; 1924;1927
Format	manuscripts

Title	Om1847_2414204_014
Rights	For rights and reproduction requests, go to the Ohio Historical Society's Audiovisual and Graphic Reproduction Services page at http://www.ohiohistory.org/resource/audiovis/photodup.html; Online access is provided for research purposes only. For rights and reproduction requests or more information, go to http://www.ohiohistory.org/images/information
File Name	Om1847_2414204_014.tif
Image Height	3214
Image Width	2506
File Size	2504.037 KB

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home Ohio Memory Collection Om1847_2414204_014

Lonz Winery Letters Soliciting Buyers of Lonz Grape Juice

Object Description

Description

Tags

Comments

Lonz Winery Letters Soliciting Buyers of Lonz Grape Juice

Lonz Winery Letters Soliciting Buyers of Lonz Grape Juice

	All
	Pages Enter page numbers or page ranges separated by commas. For example: 1,3,5-12