It is no big surprise that at the four State Dinners he has hosted so far that President Joe Biden hasn’t served Delaware wine. While it has been the tradition since former President Gerald Ford’s term to offer only American wines at the dinners, Delaware just isn’t known for its vino.

“Presidents often serve a wine from their home state,” said Frederick J. Ryan Jr., author of the newly released coffee table book Wine and the White House: A History.

“Delaware has fewer wineries than any state in the country. Every state has wineries. But Delaware only has five. And so his choices are more limited,” Ryan said.

But there may be hope that at the next State Dinner set for April 10 with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, Biden will offer a wine from Delaware or one linked to the First State.

That’s because, as Ryan explained to Secrets, the wines served at State Dinners are often picked because there is a tie to the visitor’s country. And in Japan, the sweet “Delaware” grape is a popular pick for wine made on the island nation. It is also the favorite of many American wineries, notably those in New York.

He pointed to Biden’s first State Dinner, held on Dec. 1, 2022, to honor French President Emmanuel Macron, as a prime example of using wine to showcase their friendship. “They served three wines, all of which were American, but all of which had a French connection,” Ryan said of the 2018 Newton chardonnay, 2019 Anakota cabernet, and Roederer rose.

Ryan’s book, published by the White House Historical Association, is more than just “a history.” It combines his two passions, presidents and wine, in a tour de force of America’s wine culture.

He told us that the second edition, being released Feb. 16, was updated to include Biden, who he dubbed the “Master of the Toast” because he’s given so many over his career.

Like some recent presidents, Biden is a teetotaler who toasts with sparkling water or juice. Former Presidents Donald Trump and George W. Bush were also non-alcoholic toasters.

The main chapters feature presidents, a sampling of State Dinner menus dating to 1887, and a catalog of wines served at the White House.

But it also includes little-known and unusual stories about first families and wine. He told of former first lady Michelle Obama visiting the small RdV Vineyards in Virginia. She liked their Rendezvous red so much it was served at a 2016 State Dinner.

Ryan also revealed who changed the White House dinner toasts from the end to the beginning of the meal. Former President Jimmy Carter, he wrote, “jumped the gun” at a 1979 State Dinner honoring Mexico’s president, to give the toast even before the wine was served. Said Carter, “When the toasts come first you don’t have to sit through the dinner worrying about the speech you have to give afterward.”

The book includes tips from the White House wine experts, notably Daniel Shanks, hired by the Clintons and who served four presidents. Shanks recommended, for example, serving whites at 50-52 degrees and reds at 60-62 degrees.

For Ryan, the former CEO of the Washington Post and Politico and an aide to former President Ronald Reagan, the book was a labor of love. It’s one he’s likely to continue, in part because all proceeds from the $65 book are poured into the White House Historical Association.

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While the book was his idea he said it wasn’t planned to weigh as much as a magnum of Napa cab. “It’s like 475 pages long. It wasn’t intended to be that long,” he said, adding, “I just kept finding things. Thomas Jefferson’s records. Then I met this guy in France, and he’s got a letter from Thomas Jefferson sitting on his desk asking to have wine for George Washington. So I put that in there. And then everyone cooperated, the White House, the presidential libraries, a number of wineries around the world. So I just kept getting more and more material.”

And it doesn’t end there. On Feb. 29, the Association will release a new issue of its White House History Quarterly magazine in which Ryan writes about the complications brought by the era of Prohibition. Among them was the difficulties former President Woodrow Wilson had with the normally simple task of moving his wine collection out of the White House.