SOMMELIER IN CHIEF

Jefferson did as much for wine in America as he did for food. Besotted with the allure of European wines, he became the fledgling nation’s foremost expert and introduced a culture that thrives today

BY STEVEN GRUBBS

“... Habit having rendered the light and flavorful wines a necessary of life with me.”

—THOMAS JEFFERSON, WHILE PLACING AN ORDER FOR MONTEPULCIANO WINE IN 1816

Jefferson wrote in 1816 that wine is “a necessary of life with me.” In 1988 his vineyards produced their first vintage, a blended white

THOMAS JEFFERSON counts as America’s first great wine aficionado. No one else of Jefferson’s day traveled or tasted and collected wine with such gusto, and he became a unique voice to spark wine culture in a country where there had been virtually none.

Some 250 years after Jefferson’s earliest recorded experiences with wine, the U.S. is the world’s fourth largest producer—following France, Italy and Spain—and its finest wines compete ably with the best of Europe. But in Jefferson’s time, wine in young America was at a perpetual disadvantage, hampered by nature, logistics and culture.

Early settlers had been excited to find grapevines growing wild in the forests of the East Coast, but their attempts at winemaking brought only frustration, since those feral grapes didn’t taste or yield wine like the grapes they had known in their European homelands. They quickly abandoned the wine habit and moved on to spirits, cider and beer.

By Jefferson’s time, any wines available were usually fortified styles from Portugal and Spain, wines that—because of their increased alcoholic strength from the addition of brandy during ­winemaking—could dependably survive the voyage of a month or more on a hot and turbulent ship. Most other wines would arrive in a diminished state, if not completely spoiled. Jefferson would reflect in 1817 that the national palate had been “artificially created by our long restraint under the English government to the strong wines of Portugal and Spain.”

Jefferson’s introduction to wine probably came from either his legal mentor George Wythe or Virginia Royal Governor Francis Fauquier. Jefferson attended dinners at the Governor’s Palace, which boasted perhaps the finest cellar of its day, including French Burgundies and bottles of Hock—a prized white from Germany’s Rhine River area. While drinking in Virginia taverns, Jefferson likely also encountered claret, which—in Europe, at least—would have referred to a light red wine, traditionally hailing from the Bordeaux region of France. Those tavern clarets, however, were probably adulterated with other wine to sweeten them and to mask their poor quality and the damage inflicted by shipping.

Even early in his career, Jefferson craved more. As a 26-year-old lawyer, he started building a full wine cellar at his new estate, Monticello, but the only wine it contained was 15 bottles of Portuguese Madeira and four bottles of vaguely defined “Lisbon wine,” as well as 83 bottles of rum. Clearly, there was room to grow. By 1774, Jefferson’s curiosity inspired an interest in wine production. A mutual friend introduced him to a Tuscan named Philip Mazzei who was looking to grow grapes in the hills near Monticello. Jefferson became partners with Mazzei and provided him with 193 acres to Monticello’s south. Mazzei later purchased some 700 more acres and founded a neighboring estate, which he dubbed Colle, the Italian word for hill. Mazzei believed Virginia to have perfect conditions for viticulture, but his burgeoning vines—likely stock he had brought over from ­Europe—were quickly killed by frost. The Revolutionary War stalled any secondary efforts when Mazzei volunteered for the war effort. Later, the horses of captured British officers trampled and, according to Jefferson, “in one week destroyed the whole labour of three or four years.”

In 1807, Jefferson established two larger vineyards at Monticello of both native American species and vines imported from Europe, but the latter proved difficult to grow and eventually withered and died. Although there’s no evidence that he produced any wine at Monticello, Jefferson remained an ­outspoken proponent of Virginia’s winemaking potential throughout his life, saying, “It is desirable that it should be made here and we have every soil, aspect, and climate of the best wine countries.” From 1775 to 1783, the Revolutionary War slowed Jefferson’s wine education. Shipping difficulties made wine scarce and led to huge price increases. Jefferson paid the high prices, but his purchases dropped considerably. While governor in Richmond, Jefferson narrowly escaped Benedict Arnold’s invasion and lost his entire cellar to the Redcoats’ plunder. Later that year—June 4, 1781—Monticello was also overrun, but this time his cellar was spared.

A broadening of Jefferson’s wine palate did not really occur until his appointment as Minister to France in 1784. The five years he would spend in that country transformed Jefferson from passionate enthusiast to America’s foremost expert on wine.

In Paris, Jefferson joined Benjamin Franklin, who had been living there since 1776 and was accustomed to the French style of dining and wine consumption, amassing a cellar of over 1,100 bottles of Burgundy, Bordeaux, sherry and Champagne. John Adams and his family arrived in Paris within the same week, and dining with Franklin and the Adamses became a routine. Within two weeks of his arrival, Jefferson began stocking a Parisian cellar of his own, buying 276 bottles; soon his collection grew to include his first large purchases of very fine Bordeaux. Within the year, Jefferson’s slave James Hemings—whom Jefferson later freed and hired as chef at Monticello—apprenticed to learn the art of French cuisine, and soon Jefferson was ­hosting ­dinners too.

Gabriele Rausse, a Virginia winemaker and Monticello’s direc­tor of gardens and grounds

On Feb. 28, 1787, after 2 ½ years working, dining and drinking in Paris, Jefferson embarked on what amounted to a wine-centered Grand Tour. In his own carriage, he traveled first to Champagne then down to the heart of Burgundy, continuing through the Rhone Valley to the Provençal coast. He moved into northern Italy, visiting Piedmont and the area around Milan, eventually returning to France using the Italian side of the Riviera, then crossing back through Provence to the vineyard-covered hills of Languedoc-­Roussillon on France’s sunny southeastern coast. He then went west across the southern part of the country and visited the finest châteaux of Bordeaux before returning to Paris via the Loire Valley.

Throughout his trip he would take extensive, detailed notes of where he stopped, what he ate and drank, and whether the wines impressed him. Those notes exist now as a very rare snapshot of the world of fine wine at the end of the 18th century. Jefferson, the perpetual student, would “take seat in my carriage where, as much at ease as if in my study, I read, write, or observe.”

In many cases, the wines Jefferson ­championed—like rich whites from the vineyard called Goutte d’Or in the Burgundy village of Meursault—seem to have carried a seamless luster ever since and are still prized today. In other cases, the wines Jefferson enjoyed remain as obscure to Americans now as they were in his day. Some still persist mostly as local favorites in their area—like those of St. George d’Orques near the city of Montpelier—but others were lost to the march of progress, like the dry whites of Pontac from Blanquefort, outside the city of Bordeaux, which fell victim to urban sprawl.

In other cases still, Jefferson experienced wines in wildly different forms than they exist today. Visiting the Piedmont region of Italy, he sampled lightly fizzy, sweet wines from the Nebbiolo grape, mostly hailing from the now famous towns of Barolo and Barbaresco. Today the grape produces muscular dry reds that are arguably the greatest in all of Italy. In the Champagne region, he encountered both sparkling and still styles, greatly preferring the now forgotten still version, saying, “The sparkling are little drank in France but are alone known and drank in foreign countries.” Later, when ordering Champagne for his cellar or when recommending wines for his friends, he was always careful to specify the non­sparkling variety.

Jefferson emerged from this trip with firm favorites—in Burgundy, Chambertin reds and Meursault whites; in Bordeaux, top growths like Château Haut-Brion and the Sauternes of Château d’Yquem; in the Rhône, the white version of Hermitage. He absorbed valuable wisdom on which wines survived travel best and how to protect them in shipping, both from physical damage and from adulteration by unscrupulous handlers.

WHEN JEFFERSON RETURNED TO America at the end of 1789 and soon became President Washington’s Secretary of State, he became unofficial wine adviser to the President and other prominent friends, counseling them on what to buy, where to get it and exactly how to have it shipped.

During his own two terms as President, Jefferson poured and discussed wines nightly for visiting members of both parties. He kept a cellar elaborately stocked with his favorites, like still Champagne, Chambertin and Chateau d’Yquem, purchasing over 20,000 bottles in eight years. A French chef prepared dinners, but Jefferson—in the English ­manner—served beer and cider with the meals. The wines were poured after dinner as a social lubricant to assist political discussion. By Jefferson’s admission, the nightly practice was “turning the White House into a general tavern.”

Jefferson left the presidency and its $25,000 salary in 1809 and, already in debt, had to try to embrace frugality. Reds from southeast France replaced top-growth Bordeaux, and inexpensive Clairette de Limoux replaced Meursault. He turned to aiding American wine culture, pushing to ease import tariffs that—since they made wine a luxury good—drove the masses toward whiskey. He also encouraged Americans to craft wines of their own, becoming a friend and champion of pioneer vintners like Maryland’s John Adlum, whose wine he described as “exactly resembling the red Burgundy of Chambertin.”

Jefferson’s wine was stored in the cellar and brought to the dining room by way of a pair of dumbwaiters. His 1807 notes (below) on Monticello’s vineyards

Jefferson’s vision for winemaking at Monticello would finally be realized in 1985, when the foundation handling his estate planted European grapes, this time using modern methods that ameliorated vine-­destroying threats like black rot and pests. In 1988, Monticello produced its first vintage, some 300 bottles, a blend made from several European white varieties.

And as with the vines at Monticello, it would take another 200 years for an American wine culture to thrive. Today, Virginia ranks as the fifth largest wine-­producing state in the nation, a community that has exploded from six producers in 1979 to over 250. Perhaps more ­important—because of better-suited growing ­techniques—the wine quality has soared too. The state’s winemakers credit Jefferson as the paver of their way. “Every time I had a question I couldn’t answer, I would look back to what Jefferson had said about it,” Gabriele Rausse said of solving farming problems in a 2014 interview with The Daily Climate website. Rausse is considered the modern father of Virginia winemaking, and he now directs the vineyards at Monticello. “His answer, for me, was perfect,” he added.

Grubbs is sommelier and wine director of Empire State South in Atlanta and Five & Ten in Athens, Ga.