Wagner, Philip

(1904–96), Baltimore newspaper editor, viticulturist, winemaker, and author of books on vines and wine. Beginning as a home winemaker during prohibition, Wagner published American Wines and How to Make Them (1933). Interested in improving the basis of eastern American winemaking, Wagner began to import and test french hybrid vines in 1939 and to distribute them from the nursery and vineyard he founded, Boordy Vineyard, in Maryland. His A Wine-Grower’s Guide (1945) was the first work to publicize French hybrids in the US; in the same year he opened a winery at Boordy Vineyard and produced the first French hybrid wine on record in the US. Wagner’s success with his wines, his activity in supplying French hybrids from his nursery, and the persuasiveness of his writing in favour of a better selection of vine varieties entitle him to be regarded as the man who changed the course of winemaking in the eastern US. The clarity, grace, and authority of his books gave him an influence far beyond the sphere of Boordy Vineyard.