https://www.archives.gov/press/press-kits/spirited-republic/images.html
The National Archive or officially, The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), is “the nation’s record keeper”. Basically any communication created by the government goes to NARA after it is not used by the government anymore.
As a wine writer you may think that the NARA doesn’t have anything to do with wine but of course it does. The government buys alcohol, it regulates alcohol, it prohibited alcohol and of course it enforced that prohibition.
Recent and ongoing are the discussions surrounding tariffs. If you want to write a history of tariffs in the wine business the NARA would be one source. I did a quick search and here is from Ronald Reagan a “Letter to the Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Ways and Means Transmitting Reports Concerning Trade Barriers on Wine” from 1985. The search on NARA took me to the Reagan Library.
Do you want to know more about wine in Ghana in 2011? The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service prepared a GAIN (Global Agricultural Information Network) Report.
How about a detailed “Report on the investigation of a conspiracy by Lester Case and others to operate a still in Butteville, OR” from February 1929?
Or how about this detailed illustration of a still?
There is so much material in the National Archive and my feeling is you don’t have to write a history book. Perhaps take some inspiration from the Lester Case report and write a thriller about a bootlegger.
It is simple to create an account on NARA. You can even help other writers by contributing to the archive. You can become a Citizen Archivist and contribute to the knowledge base that is available for all to use. Maybe your interest is in another field and it is likely the government has had a hand in it…and if it has, it is in the National Archive.
Many items are online but many items are only available at the physical location of the National Archive (for which you have to make an appointment). Before you go though you should do the National Archives: Research Orientation so you can get your Researcher Card.
Also you might be wondering (like I did) what the difference is between the Library of Congress and the NARA. Here is the answer
Drinknowledge 
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