During my recent visit to Napa Valley, I got to chatting with a friendly local, showing off my Insta stories like the social media butterfly I am (not 😂). He got an early peek at my Ghost Wineries post and then dropped a nugget of local lore on me. ‘`Do you know about the black chickens?” he asked. Naturally, I thought he was talking about, you know, chickens that are black. But nope, he had a juicier tale to tell.
During Prohibition, hundreds of wineries went kaput. The clever ones, however, pivoted to growing peaches, plums, and nuts and the like. Some even continued their wine business on the sly. So how did they pull off this grape caper? Imagine this shopping list: “I’d like half a dozen peaches, some walnuts, a few plums, and six black chickens.” Surprise! The black chickens were actually bottles of wine. Talk about farm-to-table service with a twist! I can’t imagine my home country, England, surviving Prohibition. We’d be lost without our Pints and Pimm’s! One of the most famous tales comes from the early 1900s. Picture this: “Hey Aldo, when you swing by on Friday, bring me some walnuts, fruits, veggies, a couple dozen eggs, and a ‘Black Chicken’.” Yep, Aldo Biale, famous wine maker’s secret code for a jug of Zin was “Black Chicken,” designed to fly under the radar of the prohibition police.
These days, Black Chicken Zinfandel is 100% legit. I definitely need to snag a bottle of this legendary vino and toast to the clever bootleggers of yesteryear. Cheers to history in a glass! 🥂
