What a President Pours

Wine and politics have often blended in awkward ways

- Elin McCoy

President Rutherford B. Hayes had embraced the temperance movement in his election bid, but at his first White House event in 1877, his advisers begged him to avert a diplomatic disaster and serve wine. The dinner was for Grand Duke Alexis, the Russian czar’s son who’d enjoyed Champagne while hunting with Buffalo Bill Cody on a previous U.S. visit.

Theodore Roosevelt, however, was all too willing to accept free Champagne from Moët & Chandon for a state dinner in 1902 honoring Prince Henry of Prussia and to launch the imperial yacht. The prince’s brother, the kaiser, had supplied a German sparkling wine and was not pleased.

Politics and wine can make for clumsy pairings, as detailed by the lavishly illustrated and strictly bipartisan Wine and the White House: A History. Written by Frederick Ryan Jr., chairman of the White House Historical Association, the book delves widely, though not deeply, into how presidents have chosen to highlight ceremonies, foster diplomacy, and heavily promote the American wine industry long before the world viewed the U.S. as a serious producer.