Barboursville's Elegant Octagon Wine:
The Culmination of Thomas Jefferson's Dream
Thomas Jefferson: “Wine being among the earliest luxuries in which we indulge ourselves, it is desirable it should be made here.”
It only took two hundred years for Thomas Jefferson’s dream of producing a quality, Bordeaux-like wine in the American colonies to take root, thanks to—not France—but Italy. In 1773 Italian horticulturalist and surgeon Philip Mazzei set sail for America, soon establishing the Virginia Wine Co. with Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other leading lights of Virginia as investors. He planted vineyards adjacent to Jefferson’s property and also planted Jefferson’s own vineyards with vitis vinifera cuttings from Europe.
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