Of the original thirteen colonies, Virginia has the longest winemaking history

In 1769 the Virginia Legislature passed the "Act for the Encouragement of the Making of Wine" in hopes of trying to develop a native wine industry. However, the Revolution and bad luck in the vineyard halted the experiments. Also in the eighteenth century German settlers produced wine near what is now known as the Rapidan River Winery in Orange County.

In 1773 Phillip Mazzei came to Virginia with 10 Tuscan winegrowers to start a winemaking colony. They were originally supposed to settle in Augusta County, however, Thomas Jefferson persuaded Mazzei to settle on property adjoining Monticello. Jefferson had met Mazzei on a visit to Paris at the insistence of Ben Franklin. Jefferson bought Mazzei's 300 acres of Augusta county land and gave him 300 at the site of today's Jefferson Vineyards in return. He named the property "Colle". Mazzei was very impressed with the winemaking potential of the region and said so in a letter to George Washington. He assisted Jefferson in growing experimental vineyards at Monticello and Colle. Unfortunately, the vineyards at Monticello were killed by fungi and phylloxera and the vineyards at Colle were destroyed by horses and the British during the Revolutionary War.

In the nineteenth century a Virginian discovered the Norton grape variety and winemaking prospered. Horton Vineyards in Orange County now produce wine from the grape. In Charlottesville the Monticello Wine Company produced "Virginia Claret" from the Norton grape. The wine was in wide demand until Prohibition in the 1920s.

The American War Between the States saw the Federal Army destroy what few antebellum vineyards existed and the focus on agriculture during reconstruction was not on the wine making industry. In the late nineteenth century the French-American hybrid grape varieties were developed. These were cross-bred between American labrusca and muscadine species and the European vinifera. This was an attempt to combine the resistance to phylloxera of the native species with the finesse of vinifera wines. Some of the hybrids include Seyval Blanc, Vidal Blanc, Chambouran and Marechal Foch.

Prohibition and alcoholic beverage regulation in the 1920s and 1930s discouraged winemaking in Virginia and the emphasis on American wine was clearly Californian.

In 1973 Piedmont Vineyards planted the first commercial post-Prohibition vineyard. They made wine from the grapes in 1978. The Vinifera Winegrowers Association was founded in The Plains, Virginia in 1973. The purpose of this organization was to help educate growers outside California on growing European vinifera varieties with new technology and information. In 1984, Gabrielle Rausse, who helped establish the contemporary Italian-owned Barboursville Vineyards, planted vinifera grape varieties on Colle which is now owned by Jefferson Vineyards. In 1985 the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation recreated the original northeast Monitcello vineyard.

In 1980 the Virginia Legislature passed the Virginia Farm Wineries Act to create tax incentives for small family wineries and growers. Virginia Polytechnic Institute funded positions for a permanent state viticulturist and enologist. The university also funded a wine lab, an experimental vineyard and research station.

Also in 1984 a Wine Marketing Office was established to increase public awareness of the growing industry. The Virginia Legislature formed the Virginia Winegrower’s Advisory Board in 1985 to help in the marketing and research of Virginia wine. Awards are given for restaurants and retailers who actively promote and sell Virginia wine. Road signs with grape clusters point the way to the nearest vineyard and winery. The Governor’s Cup Award is given each year in recognition of the best currently available Virginia wine.

Designated on January 23, 1984, the Monticello viticultural area was named in honor of the beloved home of the first great American wine connoisseur, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson's Monticello was the site of the first European style viticultural efforts in the New World.

In 1774, 37 investors formed The Wine Company. Among these ambitious investors were His Excellency Earl Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Thomas Adams and George Mason. Their goal was to establish a European style of viticulture in Virginia. Thomas Adams was given the task of enlisting the services of Dr. Filippo Mazzei of Tuscany who arrived in Virginia with a dozen vignerons and 10,000 vine cuttings from Champagne, Burgundy, Nice, Tuscany, Naples and Sicily as well as from Spain and Portugal. The land originally selected for this new venture was totally unacceptable to Mazzei because the parcels were scattered and the distance between them too great. In his search for more suitable land, Mazzei traveled to Augusta County with Thomas Adams. During their journey, the gentlemen stopped at Monticello for a visit. Thomas Jeffarson was intrigued by this young Italian and took Mazzei on a tour of the grounds at Monticello. Upon their return to the house, Adams commented, "I see by your expression that you've taken him away from me. I knew you would do that." lefferson in reply said, "Let's have breakfast first, then we'll see what we can do." Eventually Mazzei settled into his new home atop Monticello Mountain on land provided him by Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson writes: "The Italian Mazzei, who came here to make wine fixed on these South West mountains, having a SE aspect, and abundance of lean and meager spots of stony and red soil, without sand, resembling extremely the Cote of Burgundy from Chambertin to Montrachet where the famous wines of Burgundy are made. I am inclined to believe he is right in preferring the South Eastern face of this ridge of mountains. It is the first ridge, from the sea, begins on the north side of the James River and extends northeastward, thro' the state..."

Mazzei's viticultural activity was promising until being cut short by collision with a momentous event: The American Revolution. "Two years into the project, the term of employment for most of the vignerons had either expired or they had enlisted in the Continental Army. Eventually, even Mazzei himself became unavailable, being sent to Europe as a financial agent for the State of Virginia. During his absence, his home was leased to a Hessian general, who had been captured at Trenton and was incarcerated locally, under thc eighteenth century rules, on his own parole. Sadly the general's horses trampled down the vineyards and "in one week destroyed the whole labour of three or four years." according to a recollection of Jefferson. This terminated the experiment, which would have hopefully proven the possibility of quality viticulture in Virginia.

Jefferson had a very high opinion of Mazzei's judgment. It is reported that he gave Mazzei thc original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Fifty or so years later, Mazzei's intuitive knowledge regarding vineyard site selection was to be validated.

In 1835, Dr. Norton of Richmond propagated a domestic grape, which eventually bore his name. The Norton grape was the foundation of Virginia Claret. The Monticello Wine Company in Charlottesville, in the very shadow of Monticello Mountain and Mazzei's chosen sites, became nationally and internationally famous. Their wines won a gold medal in Vienna in 1873 and a silver medal in Paris in 1878 (with the gold awarded to a newly emerging producer Chateau Petrus).

The 1900 census reported a total of 240,864 grapevines, but this number increased drastically during the next twenty years. By 1930 grape production had become practically negligible, with only 5,016 vines being reported in that year.

Soon after Prohibition was repealed in 1934, Mr. Benard Chamberlain attempted to revive cultivation of the vine via the Monticello Grape Growers Co-operative Association. The original sites preferred by Mazzei, Jefferson and the old Monticello Wine Company were to be replanted. Regretfully, this project was never completed.

In 1976, the year of the American Bicentennial, the Zonin Family of Gambellara, Italy acquired thc venerable Barboursville Plantation, seat of Jefferson's friend, former Governor and U.S. Senator James Barbour. The intention was the renewed pursuit of high quality wine production in Virginia. Barboursville Vineyard's first commercial vintage made its appearance into the market in 1979. A historic dream was realized...

Virginia is now the nation’s sixth largest fine wine producer and continues to win regional, national and international awards in competitions. In 1993 a Virginia wine won the "Best Wine East of the Rockies" award in a national competition. In April 1993 when former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev visited Monitcello a Virginia wine was selected for his dinner by professionals in a blind tasting.

http://www.drinkeatandbemerry.com/history.html

Old Sturbridge Village set in the mid 1800s, and Plimoth Plantation

Living in Massachusetts may not put one in the center of a huge wine-producing area (although there are certainly Wineries in Massachusetts!) but it is smack-dab in the center of many colonial American sites. There is Old Sturbridge Village set in the mid 1800s, and Plimoth Plantation set further back. How did wine figure in the lives of these settlers?

Wine was considered a necessary part of these cultures, perhaps most importantly for health reasons. Water was often very unsafe to drink, and other liquids were expensive and hard to come by. Wine is easy - you simply take some grapes, squash them up, and let them sit.

The museum at Old Sturbridge Village has an entire building dedicated to the glassworks of New England in the 1700s and 1800s, and many shelves demonstrate the variety of effort put into creating bottles, flasks and glasses for wine.

In the general store, barrels in back contain bulk items for purchase. While some contain items such as flower and meal, there is a barrel marked Madeira, a fortified wine which could last years without special storage. This would certainly help the settlers get through those long, cold New England winters!

Wineries were attempted in most states in the US at the time, but a lack of understanding about phylloxera , a root louse that affects European vines, meant that these attempts were mostly doomed. Still, local grapes grew well, and wines made from these became more popular. Other alcoholic beverages made at the time included apple cider and beer.

As shipping to and from the colonies improved, more and more European wine was brought in to meet the needs of the wine drinkers. At the same time, farmers in the states worked on refining their grape growing techniques here.

When did the wine industry start using glass bottles, and how did they settle on their current size of 750ml? For the answer to these questions, you have to go back in time - back thousands of years to when wine was first cultivated and enjoyed.

Back in the days of Mesopotamia and Egyptian winemaking, the winemakers saved their wares in amphorae - clay flasks. These were stamped with the vineyard's name, the vintage of the wine, type of wine, and so on. This went on for thousands of years, through the Grecian days of wine trade, until the Romans grew to power.

The Romans, amongst other things, developed glass blowing. Glass was quickly found to be a good medium for storing wine - it did not affect the wine's flavor, you ccould easily see what wine was inside the bottle, and so on. The trouble was with the method of manufacture. Glass at the time was hand blown, and bottles therefore varied wildly in size. Consumers never knew exactly how much wine they were getting.

For a while, wine was illegal to sell in bottles because of these problems. Instead, consumers would bring in their own containers, and a measured amount of wine would be put into that container. Think of it as buying meat at a meat counter - you watch it get weighed and measured, and then you take it home in your own bag.

Time went on, and colored glass and various sizes and shapes were experimented with. Bottles originally were onion shaped, as this was easy to blow, but it was found that a longer, flatter shape was better for storing wine on its side, which helped it age properly and keep the cork wet. Bottles ended up being around 700ml to 800ml as an easy to carry size that was also able to be made easily.

In the 1800s the industry found ways of making standard sized bottles, and regions began to settle on what they found was the ideal bottle size for their wines. Some chose 700ml, others 750ml, and so on. The maximum "standard" bottle size was around 800ml, although magnums and other special sizes did exist.

Up until around 1945, wines from Burgundy and Champagne often came in 800ml bottles, with various other similar sizes used for other regions and countries. Beaujolais was known for its 500ml "pot".

In 1979 the US set a requirement that all bottles be exactly 750ml as part of the push to become Metric. That is almost exactly the same amount of alcohol as an "American Fifth". Around the same time the European Union also asked winemakers to settle on one size to help with standardization. Many countries have adopt the 750ml size, so the winemakers could ship to the US with ease.

Resources and Links

http://www.barboursvillewine.com/

http://www.drinkeatandbemerry.com/history.html

http://www.drinkeatandbemerry.com/

The Wine Gourmet -- the newest in Roanoke area http://www.winegourmet.biz

http://www.history-of-wine.com/

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