My initial post on Barboursville Vineyards was subtitled "The marriage of Italian expertise, international varieties, and the Monticello terroir. This was not the first time that this trifecta has been attempted. Rather, it was first explored by Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. I explore the historical context herein.
Barboursville was founded by Gianni Zonin -- of the 7-generation, Northern Italian winemaking family of the same name -- who acquired the 18th-century Barbour Family estate and planted it to Cabernet Franc and Merlot in 1976. In 1990 Gianni brought Luca Paschina from his Piemonte home to be the General Manager-Winemaker at the estate with the mandate to "renew those vineyards and restore them to the path of producing the fine wines of great stature which Jefferson and he (ed.: Gianni) envisioned ..." I will explore Jefferson's concept of wines of great stature and comment on Barboursville's attainment of that elevated ideal.
The First Instance of the "Jefferson Trifecta"
The first Italian to pursue making quality wines within this framework was Philip Mazzei, a Tuscan-born doctor who, when he first came up on the American radar, was operating a successful firm in London which imported Champagne, Burgundy wines, and oil and cheese from Italy. Mazzei was an engaging sort of fellow and two of his friends at that time were Ben Franklin and Thomas Adams. Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers, was, at that time, the agent in England for the colony of Pennsylvania. Adams, also a Founding Father, and the second President of the US, was, at that time, a Virginia merchant.
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| Philip Mazzei |
Based on discussions with his American friends, Mazzei, by 1971, decided to launch an initiative focused on importing Mediterranean plants and farmers into Virginia. After some delay he was able to secure the permission of the Grand Duke of Tuscany to take plants and workers out of the duchy. The first phase of Mazzei's plan fell into place with his arrival in Virginia in November 1773 along with 10 Tuscan vine farmers.
Mazzei's plans called for the acquisition of land in the open western highlands but on the way to inspect prospective sites in Shenandoah Valley -- accompanied by Adams -- they stopped to visit Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. That meeting resulted in a change in plans. Jefferson, according to Thomas Pinney (A History of Wine in America), was "always on the lookout for interesting company and for agricultural improvements, both of which Mazzei could provide."
Jefferson offered Mazzei 2000 acres near Monticello to seed his wine venture; an offer which he promptly accepted. He settled his workers on the land, built a house thereon (called Colle), and brought in six additional vine farmers (as well as seeds and cuttings) in the summer of 1774. Further, Mazzei raised a total of £2000 (£50/subscriber) to fund the operation of a company focused on the production of wine, oil, silk, and citrus-type plants.
Mazzei began his vinifera venture with 1500 vines planted in late June of 1775. According to Jefferson, that initial vineyard had a southwest exposure and was sited on a stony red soil "resembling extremely the Cote of Burgundy from Chambertin to Montrachet ..." Approximately half of the vines were successfully rooted. Mazzei never produced a vinifera vintage in Virginia.
There had long been a debate in Virginia as to whether native grapes or vitis vinifera had the best chance of success in the colony, a debate which Mazzei leant into by planting both types on his estate. His workers had identified 200 or so wild grape varieties in the woods surrounding the estate and he had examined over 38 varieties himself, making wines from these grapes in both 1775 and 1776. Each worker was given a cask of the completed wine which they subsequently sold to Virginians at 50 shillings per bottle.
Mazzei planted an additional 2000 native vines in the spring of 1776 but by 1778 only 87 of the vines were still viable. The Revolutionary War led to the abandonment of this venture with Mazzei returning to Europe in 1779 to serve as the Virginia agent.
"Wines of Great Stature" -- as Envisioned by Jefferson
Gianni Zonin charged his GM-Winemaker Luca Paschina to produce wines of the stature envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. But what were those wines? The literature seems to indicate that that depended on whether he was buying the wine or promoting it.
According to Pinney, "Jefferson was, both in private and public, the great patron and promoter of American wine for Americans." In private he was an inveterate viticultural experimenter and in public "the spokesman for the national importance of establishing wine as the drink of temperate yeomen." Jefferson planted vines at Monticello on and off between 1771 and 1882 and his close-up view of the Mazzei experiments convinced him that native vines were best positioned to undergird a domestic wine industry.
Jefferson was very effusive in his praise of the Scuppernong grape, a variety of Muscadine grown in North Carolina (Subsequent research has shown that this beverage would have been more akin to a cordial than a wine.).
Jefferson's correspondence show him heaping praise on an 1809 Alexander* wine made from grapes grown in the vineyard of Major John Adlum. His friends, according to Jefferson, could not distinguish between the Alexander and a Chambertin from his collection. Jefferson was so enamored of the Alexander that he requested cuttings from Adlum's vineyard in 1810. The cuttings did not handle the trip well.
Jefferson was approached by a Frenchman named Jean David in 1815 regarding a scheme for growing grapes in Virginia. Jefferson advised him to focus on native grapes for the venture. The discourse enticed Jefferson to take another stab at growing grapes and he made a second request to Major Adlum for grape cuttings. In his letter to Adlum Jefferson states: "I am so convinced that our first success will be from a native grape, that I will try no other." Discussuions with David petered out and Jefferson was once again frustrated in his desire to place Monticello at the forefront of a domestic wine industry.
But Jefferson's personal holdings were not similarly limited. Before journeying to France in 1784, Jefferson consumed Madeira and Port but extensive travel through the wine regions of France and Northern Italy, as well as living in Paris, had an effect on the wines that he favored going forward. According to monticello.org, Jefferson "chose to drink and serve the fine lighter wines of France and Italy and ... with the exception of a 'sufficient' quantity of Scuppernong, all the wines on hand in the Monticello cellar at the time of Jefferson's death came from southern France."
With white grapes to include, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Vermentino, and Viognier, and reds to include Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Nebbiolo, Barboursville Vineyard is definitely producing wines of the stature envisioned by Jefferson (based on his later-life drinking and purchasing habits and his cellar contents) and by Gianni Zonin (due to the good repute of Barboursville Vineyards and the quality of its wines).
*The Alexander grape was a spontaneous hybrid of vinifera and labrusca vine from which the first commercial wines in America were made. The grape was discovered around 1740 by James Alexander in an area where William Penn's gardener had planted vinifera cuttings in 1683. It is probable that Penn's imported European vines had entered into the formation of America's first wine grape by pollinating a native vine (Pinney).
