New Jersey wine

New Jersey wine refers to wine made from grapes grown in the state of New Jersey. Its viticulture industry has significantly grown since 1981 when the state legislature relaxed Prohibition-era restrictions and enacted new laws to provide further opportunities for winery licenses. Today, New Jersey wineries are crafting wines that have earned recognition for their quality from critics, industry leaders, and in national and international competitions. As of 2018, New Jersey is resident of four designated American Viticultural Areas (AVA); Central Delaware Valley AVA, Warren Hills AVA, Outer Coastal Plain AVA and Cape May Peninsula AVA. New Jersey currently has 51 licensed and operating wineries with several more prospective wineries in various stages of development. According to the United States Department of Agriculture's 2012 Census of Agriculture, the state's wineries and vineyards dedicated 1,082 acres to the cultivation of grapes. New Jersey wineries are growing Vitis vinifera, Vitis labrusca, or French hybrid wine grapes, and producing or offering for sale over eighty types of wines. In 2010, 1.72 million gallons (approximately 716,000 cases) of wine were produced by New Jersey wineries; making it the seventh largest wine-producing state in the United States. A considerable portion of New Jersey wine sales are non-grape fruit wine, particularly apple, blueberry, raspberry, and cranberry wines. These fruits are associated with New Jersey and can be purchased from many nearby farms throughout the Garden State. New Jersey's 51 wineries generate between US$30,000,000-$40,000,000 of revenue annually.

Wealthy New Jersey landowners began to produce wines during the colonial period. In 1767, two men, Edward Antill and William Alexander, Lord Stirling received recognition for their successful efforts to cultivate grapes and produce wine on their plantations from the Royal Society of Arts in London. The Society had challenged colonists in Britain's North American colonies to cultivate grapes and produce "those Sorts of Wines now consumed in Great Britain." While the cultivation of grapes and fruit trees supported a flourishing wine industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the effects of Prohibition (1919-1933) and a legacy of restrictive laws constraining the industry's recovery subsequent to its repeal, practically devastated the industry. For fifty years after the repeal of Prohibition, New Jersey was limited by law to a ratio of one winery license for every 1,000,000 state residents, which by 1980 effectively allowed for only seven wineries. The growth of the state's winery industry has been bolstered by the repeal, starting in 1981, with the New Jersey Farm Winery Act, of many Prohibition-era laws and allowed many small growers to open new wineries.