Until the mid-1970s, most American wine was far from fine. Instead, it was fortified and sweet, and came from grape varieties prized less for their taste than for their ability to ferment fast. Even in big cities, a bottle of domestically made Chardonnay or Merlot was hard to come by?and most Americans thought wine like that was for the wealthy anyway, not for them. Then a series of game-changing events and a group of plucky entrepreneurs transformed...