Thomas Jefferson, the United States’s third president, was a man of many accomplishments: architect, ambassador, author of the Declaration of Independence.
But one coveted title eluded him: winemaker.
More than 200 years later, Marilyn Lasserre, a 31-year-old vintner from Dax in France’s Bordeaux region, is helping to bring Jefferson’s dream to fruition and put his native state of Virginia on the wine map.
Jefferson (1743-1826) was the leading American wine authority of his day, gaining much of his vast knowledge during his four years in Paris as Minister to France for the newly minted United States.
A noted horticulturist, Jefferson failed, however, in his numerous attempts to grow grapes and produce wine at his beloved Virginia estate of Monticello.
In 1774, Jefferson had an Italian winemaker, Philip Mazzei, plant Virginia grapes and vine cuttings from Europe at Monticello. They were wiped out by an unseasonal May freeze and further grape-growing efforts also met with disaster.
”The vine is the parent of misery,” Jefferson wrote in a 1787 letter to his law tutor and wine mentor George Wythe.
Lasserre is following in Mazzei’s footsteps and those of other European winemakers who have crossed the Atlantic and helped spur tremendous recent growth in Virginia’s wine industry.
A noted Italian winemaker, Gabriele Rausse, has succeeded where Jefferson failed and has been producing quality wine for years at Monticello as part of an effort to restore the vineyards at the former president’s estate.
Virginia may not be known internationally for its wine but it ranks fifth in terms of the number of wineries in the United States, trailing only four other states: California, Oregon, Washington and New York.
There are more than 120 wineries in Virginia, up from just six in 1979, and more than 250 vineyards. California has nearly 2 000 wineries.
Lasserre, who has worked in vineyards in Australia, South Africa and Spain besides her native France, is growing grapes and making wine at the Potomac Point Winery in Stafford, 65km south of Washington.
Cindi Causey, who owns the Potomac Point Winery with her husband, Skip, acknowledges the debt to Jefferson.
”He was one of our founding fathers in grapes so to speak,” she said.
”Virginia’s actually pretty exciting as far as wine goes,” added Causey. ”Virginia as a state overall is starting to look at the quality of its grapes. The quality’s improving.”
Lasserre believes that past efforts to make good wine in Virginia have been doomed by poor choices in the varieties of grapes.
”To improve the quality of the wine you have to adapt the grapes to the region,” she said. ”If the wines of Virginia aren’t as well known as those of California it’s because the wrong varieties were planted in the wrong places.
”For example, you still find a lot of Cabernet Sauvignon here which to my mind is a poor fit with the region because it’s a late harvest grape which is unable to mature before the temperature drops at the end of the summer.”
Potomac Point, which bottled its first wine in 2006, is using grapes from other Virginia vineyards while its own crop of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Manseng and Viognier grapes matures.
”We started out at 4 500 cases last year,” said Causey. ”We’re moving up to 6 500 this year. By 2011 we plan to be at about 10 000 cases.”
”Virginia is capable of producing good wine in conditions which are not immediately apparent because of the climate,” said Lasserre. ”It’s entirely possible.
”The biggest problems here are the humidity — temperatures which are too hot in the summer and too cold in the spring — and different kinds of insects and animals,” she said during a tour of the Potomac Point vineyards.
”One example is the Japanese beetle,” she said, holding up a grape leaf pockmarked with holes caused by the insects. ”We don’t have these in Europe. They eat the leaves and there are not enough left to nourish the grapes.”
Lasserre is convinced nonetheless that she can overcome the challenges which defeated Jefferson and help make his 200-year-old prediction come true.
”We could, in the United States, make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good,” then-president Jefferson wrote in an 1808 letter to a friend in France. – AFP
