Vintage poster promoting rosé wine from California, in pink, red, and peach tones. The 1960s saw a shift in American consumers from dessert wines to table wines and in California, this meant the North Coast growers' importance grew while the Central Coast waned.
Amado Gonzalez (1913 - 2007) was born in Guadalajara, immigrated with his family to San Francisco in 1927, and graduated from Mission High School. Inspired by the Mexican Muralism Movement, he started his studies at the California School of Fine Arts under Lucien Labaudt and assisted Ray Boynton on the PWAP-backed Coit Tower murals. He gained success working as a designer and illustrator in advertising. One of his major campaigns was a series of advertisements for the Bank of America in the late 1950s. Other accounts included Standard Oil of California, Crown-Zellerbach, Californians, Inc., American President Lines, and Pacific Telephone. An accomplished artist, he was commissioned by the Wine Advisory Board to illustrate a series of posters promoting California wine.
The Wine Advisory Board, established under the Department of Agriculture in 1938, operates under the California Marketing Act of 1936, defining wine as an agricultural product, and is funded by assessments of wineries based on their volume of sales. In 1975, the board voted for its own dissolution after it was unwilling to comply with new demands from the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture upon renewal of its marketing order.
"Important Show at Art Gallery." Reno Gazette-Journal. pg. 5. 11 Apr. 1960.
Sullivan, Charles L.. A Companion to California Wine: An Encyclopedia of Wine and Winemaking from the Mission Period to the Present. "Wine Advisory Board." United States: University of California Press, 1998.