Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson Thomas

The American politician Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was in Shadwell in the U.S. state Virginia Born the son of a tobacco planter. As one of the champions of a free America, he formulated the first draft of the Declaration of Independence of the United States . In the period 1785 to 1789 he was U.S. ambassador in Paris, and visited in the years 1787 and 1788 many wine regions in France and Italy to study viticulture. About the Bordeaux wines he brought detailed descriptions and rated the best wineries, including Château Carbonnieux (Graves) and Château-Grillet (Rhone). His ranking was in the Bordeaux Classification of 1855 involved in the decision. His friend and first U.S. president, George Washington (1732-1799), he sent 30 bottles of the 1787 visit Château d'Yquem .

In 1801 he became the third U.S. president and held after his re-election in 1805, the highest U.S. until 1809. During this time he lay down an extensive wine cellar with mainly French cult wines such as Château Latour and Château Lafite-Rothschild at. From Zweiterem scored a bottle of the vintage 1787 from his possession at a Auctions in December 1985 at Christie's a fancy price. The possession of the German Hardy Hardy Rodenstock bottle was located by a whopping 105 000 pounds (then about $ 175,000) to the American publisher and wine collector Malcolm Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) at auction.

Jefferson had worked all his life and respect for agriculture already in 1770 on his estate Monticello in Virginia with over 30 years of intense wine. He also had a moral motive, for he was convinced that they could hold only by appropriate wine culture and wine sufficient quantities Americans to consume more alcohol. He wrote: "No nation is drunken where wine is cheap. This is the only antidote to the deadly poison of whiskey. " This was supported by a law in 1791. All alcoholic beverages are subject to a consumption tax, was excluded from wine made only in America. He experimented with imported cuttings from Europe and appointed as overseer Anthony Giannini (1747-1824), an Italian from Tuscany. This was shared with Philip Philip Mazzei (1730-1816) immigrated to America, who along with his neighbor and friend of Jefferson planted the first vineyards in Virginia.

But all attempts failed with European cuttings, they were all of the Phylloxera destroyed. Later, Thomas Jefferson tried the peculiarities of American vines to accept. He now tried a number of local American vines and encouraged her to many others. In a letter he reported in 1783 on one young wine from the species Vitis vulpina . In another letter he expressed in 1817 about one out of Scuppernong wine produced very positive. With John John Adlum (1759-1836), of the sort Catawba in Ohio cultivated first, he had received correspondence encourage contact and from that in 1823 a wine vinified from it. His dream of making the United States as a top wine-growing nation fulfilled, but not during his life.