What is a man who has just married a temperance wife to do with five hundred gallons of “superior wine”? That was John Bidwell’s dilemma and here is his solution.

Bidwell had never been a drinking man, and once he meet Annie E. Kennedy he swore off alcoholic beverages forever. But on Rancho Chico he had been growing wine grapes for several years and he had a good supply of wine on hand. According to George Moses Gray:

When the General first set out his grapes he planted 300 acres of wine grapes. They were in full bearing, and he had hired a wine expert and had a wine cellar nearly full of wine, some of it three years old. He found out that his wine man had a good many friends, especially when he was working in the wine cellar, and he found out that these friends could not walk straight when they started for home.

George Moses Gray: his reminiscences of the life of General John Bidwell. Chico: ANCRR, 1999, p. 29.

Bidwell had all the vines pulled out and replaced them with table and raisin grapevines. As noted above, he shipped the wine to San Francisco to be used for “medicinal uses” at a hospital run by the Missionary Society. This society was formed by several Protestant churches to serve the poor of the City.

What did Bidwell prefer to wine or any other beverage? He wrote to Annie on New Year’s Day, 1868, “I shall drink to your health today with my favorite beverage, cold water.” As far as he was concerned, cold clear water from Chico Creek was the best drink in the world.