Virginia: A History Through Wine-Colored Glasses
Virginia has a fascinating history. The stories of what happened in or around a place make a trip far more interesting, and that they add another great layer to a winery visit. History does have the inconvenience of carrying so much information that it can be hard to sort out what’s really interesting – as is increasingly the case with all sorts of information. The BS Guide has done the sorting for you, and links up stories with nearby wineries. Whether a relaxing glass of wine works better for memory than a classroom school desk remains up to the visitor’s opinion. Of course, a few pages will only take one so far, and there are unending resources for anyone motivated to do further story searching, from thousands of history books, roadside historical markers, to write-ups of ongoing archaeological research. Here’s an overview which will take you less than time than drinking a bottle of wine. You can also see an indexed catalogue of the stories at Virginia’s Stories — History, Land and Wine.
Native American Virginia
For our visitors from Europe, or from China, India, or many other places, it’s easy to think of American history as, well… short. Yet though there wasn’t much history being written down before European explorers began arriving in 1492, at least in North America, there was plenty going on. Archaeologists are adding to our understanding of pre-Columbian history all the time. Today’s Virginia was relatively heavily populated by Native Americans before Columbus arrived, thanks to plentiful food sources. At the time of contact, three main tribes dominated the territory now known as Virginia: the Powhatan, the Monacan, and the Cherokee. They spoke three different languages – Algonquian (the Powhatan), Siouan (the Monacan) and Iroquoian (the Cherokee) – and lived mostly along the banks of the coastal waterways, in woodlands and mountain valleys. Their territories were fairly distinct, with the Powhatan mainly on coastal areas, the Monacan in the Piedmont, and the Cherokee in the southwest. Newly arrived diseases and conflict with the English settlers drastically reduced the population of these tribes in Virginia during the 17th century, and the 1730 Treaty of Albany ended any formal Native American settlement east of the mountains. Yet some of their history can be appreciated today by visitors.
The first grouping, the Algonquian-speaking peoples, occupied the Coastal Plain north of the Chowan drainage basin. Algonquian was spoken primarily in the Tidewater region. This was the most densely populated region of Virginia at the time of European arrival. People depended upon agriculture (maize, beans, and squash) and lived in over 150 identified permanent or semi-permanent villages located on the banks of the major streams. Each village had from two to 50 houses. Some of these villages were palisaded. When the first settlers arrived in Virginia in 1607, settling first Jamestown and not long after Williamsburg, many of the Algonquian-speaking groups had been recently unified in a confederation (sometimes called “Empire” or “Kingdom”, although the structure was very different than European kingdoms) under the main chief who history calls Powhatan. Powhatan more properly refers to the tribe which achieved dominance within this Algonquian-speaking area, with the English giving the same name to the tribe’s chief, whose name otherwise was Wahunsunacawh. The encounters of the colonists, led by John Smith, with the Indians – including the romanticized intervention of the chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, are well-known and even became the subject of a Walt Disney movie. A better place than the Disney movie to see what a Powhatan village looked like is at Jamestown, south of the York River, and can be happily combined with a visit to Williamsburg Winery, one of Virginia’s best. Two historically more important sites can be found north of the York River, relatively close to several wineries on the Northern Neck Wine trail in King William County. One is Uttamusack, the primary temple site of the Powhatans. Uttamusack counted three, 60-foot long temples and no doubt numerous other structures. The temples were destroyed in the Anglo-Powhatan wars, and the site has been long neglected. Just in 2017, Dominion Energy agreed to purchase the site of Uttamusack and donate it to the Pamunkey tribe, as part of the mitigation required for federal approval of a new transmission line across the James. It is hoped that the site will become marked and accessible before long, and so that a throwback to the most important coastal Native American tribe of 16th and 17th century Virginia can become part of enjoying a Northern Neck winery tour. Caret Cellars, Jacey, Good Luck, and the Dog and Oyster are all within 30 minutes of Uttamusack on the Northern Neck, while New Kent, Saude Creek and Gauthier are even closer albeit on the other side of the York River (and so not in the Northern Neck per se). The second site, some 20-30 miles south of Uttamusack, is Werowocomocco, thought to be the site where Powhatan as chief received tribute from the various groups under his leadership, or as close to a “capital” as the Powhatan had. Werowocomocco became part of the National Park Service in 2016, and is being explored by archaeologists.
Virginia’s Piedmont was, during the early 17th century, occupied mainly by Sioux language speakers. The Monacan were the largest tribe, themselves members of the Catawba Sioux grouping. The presence of these people can be seen in artifacts exhibited at the Museum of Culpeper History (the town of Culpeper, a farm town and gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains, is near Mountain Run and Old House vineyards, and is also passed through from Washington on the way to the vineyards of the Monticello area), and further south at the Monacan Indian Nation Ancestral Museum. The museum, in Amherst, is on the land the Monacan have reportedly inhabited for more than 10,000 years. It can be combined with a visit to nearby wineries Ankida Ridge, Rebec, or Lazy Days. The presence of the Monacan and their ancestors can also be observed indirectly through their hunting and burial practices. The Monacan, much like other Sioux speaking people whose territories lay much further west, made the buffalo hunt a big part of their culture. The idea of buffalo in Virginia may sound odd when driving through the expanding Washington DC suburbs, or when taking off from Dulles Airport, but buffalo were found in what is today Loudoun County – prime wine territory — as late as the 1730s. No need however to worry about one crossing the runway in front of your plane today, alas. The Sioux speakers burned the forests to create pastures which attracted the buffalo, and so were actively changing the original Piedmont landscape well before the Europeans (and Americans) started doing the same, through farming and putting up housing developments. Equally little appreciated, but more visible when recognized, were Monacan burial practices, for the Monacan were influenced by the largest cultural movement of pre-Columbian North America, the Mound Builders. The Mound Builder culture built tens if not hundreds of thousands of burial and/or ceremonial mounds – in some cases the same size as the great and better-known pyramids of Central or South America – dating as far back as 4,000 years ago and continuing over several millennia, to at least 1500 AD. The biggest concentration of these mounds is found in the Mississippi River Valley and its tributaries, notably that of the Ohio River, which has led to the name “Mississippian” being given to the culture. The area influenced by these practices did spread farther east, and several mound sites have been identified in central and western Virginia. The most visible examples of these Native American gravesites are the large earthen mounds of Ely Mound and Carter Robinson Mound in Lee County, regrettably a bit far from wineries. But other mounds were constructed further north in Virginia, in the watersheds of the James and Shenandoah rivers, and near Charlottesville. While archaeology has not established whether mounds were still being expanded during the colonial period, they were certainly being visited and honored by either the builders or their descendant tribes in the late 18th century. Thomas Jefferson reported that as a child, he saw a group of Native Americans go six miles out of their way to visit a mound near Charlottesville.
The third large grouping of Native Americans in Virginia, the Cherokee, were apparently established near Occoneechee State Park, just on the Virginia side of today’s North Carolina state line. This state park can be visited in conjunction with the interestingly named Two Witches winery. The Cherokee were part of the larger Iroquois grouping. While the Cherokee themselves were more concentrated in today’s North Carolina, a trace of another Iroquois band can be found further north. The mountains seem to have been at times a corridor of movement between the Cherokee and the much more numerous Iroquois tribes of the north. This corridor was used in the early 1700s by the Tuscarora, another Iroquois tribe. The Tuscarora had been the most powerful tribe in what is today North Carolina, but were driven out of their homeland in fighting with the English settlers and other tribes. Between 1715 and 1722 they made their way from North Carolina to central New York to join the Iroquois Confederacy there, passing through today’s Loudoun County on their way. Tuscarora Creek, which rises near Dry Mills Vineyard, passes through Leesburg on its way to the Potomac.
Colonial Virginia and the Founding Fathers
Through the 17th and 18th centuries, Virginia became the most populous of the thirteen English colonies in North America. After a shaky first few years at the initial settlement at Jamestown, the English established a colonial capital at Williamsburg and then began a long expansion. Memories of the early years of the colony are well-preserved – and widely visited – at Jamestown and Williamsburg. Though not an area with a great many wineries, it does have one of Virginia’s best, the Williamsburg Winery, which can be happily visited with these two early colonial sites. With the planting of tobacco and the establishment of a large European market for the crop, the economy of the colony grew strongly. Large plantations were developed, setting a very different pattern for Virginia (and for the other southern colonies which followed suit) than for the northern English colonies which were characterized by small towns and family farms. Cheap labor became essential to the economy, leading to a large-scale influx of indentured servants, and later African slave labor. Following the English Civil War in the mid-1600s, the King granted very large tracts of lands as “proprietorships” to supporters; all of the land between the Potomac and the Rappahanock (all of today’s northern Virginia) was in the Northern Neck Land Grant. This immense area was inherited in the 1680s by Thomas Culpeper, and in 1719 by Thomas Fairfax, who left his name in many parts of the region. Fairfax was the only member of the English nobility to ever reside in the colonies (his estate was on the site of what is now Fort Belvoir). Many of the original English owners of lands in the area received their ownerships via grants from Fairfax. Examples of some of these large Virginia plantations can be seen today at Charles City (Berkeley, Edgewood, Shirley and Belle Air) near several wineries (Upper Shirley, New Kent, Saude Creek, Gauthier), Fredericksburg (Kenmore Plantation and Chatham Manor) near Eden Try, Hartwood and Wilderness Run wineries, and in the heart of Loudoun County wine country at Leesburg (Oatlands). Of course there are well-known examples of plantations closer to Washington albeit not so near wineries, most prominently George Washington’s Mount Vernon and George Mason’s Gunston Hall.
For the first century of the colony’s existence, settlement was essentially limited to coastal areas and waterways. In the early 1700s, the colonial population had grown, and the Native American groups in the area weakened, creating major pressure to remove the tribes and make new lands safe for settlers. The 1730 Treaty of Albany was a landmark in this process, and in the 1720s and 1730s, western settlement began in earnest. The European groups who came into these western lands – Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English Quakers — were much less well-off than the now-established English planters. These groups were the first to settle on what today comprises the bulk of Virginia’s wine country. Early Virginia Quaker sites can be visited in conjunction with wineries in Loudoun County, especially at Waterford ( The Reserve at Waterford, Terra Nebulo, Corcoran Vineyards).
Virginia played a major role in the break of the colonies from England, and the Revolutionary War. Virginians Patrick Henry, George Mason and Thomas Jefferson were prominent in dissent and laying the conceptual groundwork for independence. The culminating battle of the Revolutionary War was at Yorktown, where in 1781 George Washington’s army forced the surrender of Lord Cornwallis’ troops. While not in the center of Virginia’s grape-growing regions, the site of the battle of Yorktown can be visited happily in conjunction with a trip to Williamsburg Winery.
Several of America’s Founding Fathers, including four of the first five Presidents, were from Virginia. Thomas Jefferson, the main author of the Declaration of Independence and the Third President of the United States (among a great many other accomplishments), is also intimately tied to the history of wine in Virginia. He had a famous collection of wines, especially after his term as American Ambassador to France, and pursued winemaking at his estate at Monticello. Monticello, outside the city of Charlottesville, gives it name to the oldest and one of the largest wine appellations in the state, while Jefferson Vineyards sits on the lands where his grapes were planted. The magnificent house and gardens, designed by Jefferson, is now a World Heritage Site and also deservedly one of Virginia’s top tourist attractions. While Jefferson’s experiments with wine growing in the early 1800s receive the lion’s share of publicity about the origins of wine in Virginia and America as a whole, he did not in fact produce any wine. As one can read about at Philip Carter winery, a Northern Neck plantation owner, Robert “King” Carter, beat him to the planting in Virginia and made a commercial go of it for a while. Jefferson nonetheless is one of the most important and fascinating figures in American and Virginia history, and one can marvelously combine a visit to his Monticello home or a number of related Jefferson sites around Charlottesville with tastings at some forty wineries. Aside from Jefferson Vineyards itself, Jefferson is central to the presentation of another top Virginia winery, Barboursville Vineyards. The Barboursville estate, some 20 minutes north of Charlottesville, is named after its original owner James Barbour, an early Governor of Virginia; Jefferson was a close friend of Barbour’s and designed his country house for him, including an Octagon-shaped dining room. The winery occupies Barbour’s estate, and their flagship wine, “Octagon”, reflects Jefferson’s architectural design for the mansion. Jefferson’s “second home,” Poplar Forest in Bedford County (south of Charlottesville, near Lynchburg) is not close to any wineries, but does host in November an annual Thomas Jefferson wine festival.
Virginia was also the home of the equally famous George Washington, the first President and “father of our Country”. While no wineries are nearby to Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, his early career as a surveyor is reflected in the name of a village in Rappahannock County which he surveyed, Little Washington. This town hosts three wineries (Little Washington, Gadino and Quievremont), and is close to several more (Gray Ghost, Narmada). Probably more importantly to many, it hosts the most famous restaurant in Northern Virginia, Patrick O’Connell’s Inn at Little Washington. The Inn, among its 2,400 wine choices, offers bottles from some forty Virginia wineries – not bad considering there were fewer wineries than that in the entire state when the Inn was launched.
Founding Father James Madison, “the Father of the Constitution” who is widely credited as the main crafter of the balance of powers in the constitution, and who was the fourth President of the United States, is another Virginian. His term as Secretary of State to Jefferson also saw the doubling of the size of the United States, with the Louisiana Purchase from France. His home estate at Montpelier, in the town of Orange, is well worth a visit. It sits near to many wineries, notably Early Mountain to its west, and Horton and Barboursville to its east. James Monroe, who succeeded Madison as the fifth President, had one home near Charlottesville (Ashlawn) where he was a neighbor of Jefferson’s Monticello, and which can be seen along with any of the forty-plus Monticello Trail wineries. From 1823 to 1831 Monroe lived in Loudoun County. His home there, Oak Hill, was designed by Jefferson, and is in Aldie, just north of Quatro Goombas winery (it is unfortunately private, and so cannot be visited but only seen from Route 15).
The Civil War
Northern Virginia, home now to half of the state’s wineries, was also the scene of much of the fighting during the Civil War: a conflict which ended with over 600,000 dead – nearly half the amount of casualties from all the country’s wars put together. A great deal of the history of the Civil War can be seen in and around Washington DC, and in and around Northern Virginia’s wineries. The site of the major Battle of Bull Run, also called the Battle of Manassas (the Union forces called it the Battle of Bull Run, the Confederates called it the Battle of Manassas, and still today the separate names are used — and if that is not confusing enough there not one but two battles, in different years) is only thirty minutes from the capital (except at rush hour when it is twice as far – on a good day); Bull Run Winery is virtually next door to the battlefield, and exhibits a number of Civil War artifacts. The battlefield, like many other Civil War sites, is superbly preserved and well-worth a visit. The less well-known Battle of Brandy Station, the “largest cavalry battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere”, is near Old House Vineyard and Gray Ghost Winery. The latter winery also displays a lot of Civil War memorabilia. A great many sites in the region featured at different times in the run-up to the landmark Battle of Gettysburg. The best known confederate “guerilla” company, Mosby’s Rangers, was started in northern Virginia and conducted raids throughout the area, while Waterford in Loudoun County hosted the only southern-based Union army unit, the Independent Loudoun Valley Rangers. Many of the historical markers to be found in Fauquier and Loudoun Counties, in between the vineyards, will reference various episodes of the war, and several of these are referenced in the sections on individual wineries in this guide.
Economic Development and The Rise of The Wineries
Virginia has always been a primarily agricultural state. Its plantations thrived in the country’s first century, but over time declined in relative importance nationally as industrialization took hold – mostly in the northern states. Northern Virginia saw a number of early attempts at economic expansion, notably in attempting to compete for access to the growing agricultural lands of the Ohio basin. These early attempts can be seen today around Washington in the C&O (Chesapeake & Ohio) Canal, alongside the Potomac River, and its competitor, the W&OD (Washington & Old Dominion) railroad. The canal remains today what it was, albeit devoid of barge traffic, while the railroad’s right-of-way has become Northern Virginia’s most popular bicycle trail — the W&OD trail. The old terminal of the railroad – which halted construction when it ran out of capital before it ever reached Ohio – is in the village of Bluemont, home of Bluemont Vineyard. Tiny Bluemont coincidentally was also the northern end of America’s first toll road, the Snickersville Turnpike.
The spirit of the state’s colonial and early post-Independence plantation life can still be found in Virginia’s horse and hunt country. Beyond the rapid suburban development west of Dulles airport, the Hunt Country is studded with horse farms bordered by stone fences, plantations with elegant manses, picturesque villages, country inns, and fine restaurants. Middleburg is considered the capital of hunt country (Thoroughbred Heritage is published here), and has several very fine – and very expensive — homes and farms. It also boasts many nearby wineries, which can be visited along with a luxurious bath in the spirit of horse and hunt. These include Boxwood, which is itself one of the oldest horse farms, Greenhill, Cana, and Chrysalis.
More recently, since the end of World War II and the decades-long expansion of the Federal Government, suburbia has been marching relentlessly through the farms and fields of Northern Virginia. A thinly populated, still largely agricultural area has become completely transformed by waves of housing development. Most people driving along Interstate 66, into the nation’s capital, will have no idea that this highway is less than 35 years old. This push west of the suburbs continues today, and can be readily seen from several wineries. County Governments and residents in Northern Virginia continue to argue how much, and how, development should be discouraged or encouraged. Loudoun County, now for some two decades at the frontier of the suburbs, adopted in the early 2000s an interesting development policy to address this issue, a policy in which wineries feature prominently. This policy in essence divided the county into two geographical zones (technically three, with a transition zone in the middle): an eastern zone where development would be facilitated (which has, among other things, led to the creation of so many data centers, especially around Ashburn, that supposedly 15% of the world’s internet traffic flows through Loudoun); and a western zone where development would be tightly restricted. Given that this policy would likely create major disparities in land values, County authorities also sought to encourage value-added agricultural activities in the “not-to-be-developed” western part of the County – with wineries at the top of the list. In 2000 there were fewer than 15 wineries in the County; today there are over 70. An interesting way to address economic development.
Wineries, in general, have grown to become a major engine of Virginia’s economy, and the fastest growing segment of agriculture. State and County governments have sought to encourage this, in part through publicity and information dissemination, while Virginia Tech has become a center for research into winemaking technology. In 1990, there were fewer than two dozen wineries in the state. In 2020, the number is well over 300, which would be a phenomenal growth rate in any business. And over 2 million visitors a year come to Virginia wineries – about as many that visit the Taj Mahal, or the Great Pyramid at Giza. The story of the modern rise of the Virginia wine industry is well-told in a book by Richard Leahy, Beyond Jefferson’s Vines. This is to date the best book on Virginia wines. The industry has also benefitted from the continued growth in wine consumption in the US, especially in urban areas like Washington, and the parallel growth in interest in high quality, distinctive wine, and the local production/ consumption movement. Its growth has also tied into the strong growth of tourism in Virginia. Many winemakers have chosen particularly scenic settings, and/or good grape-growing sites have coincided with spectacular scenery. Some winery business models use this linkage explicitly, publicizing their locations as perfect for not only getaways but events such as weddings – the Virginia wedding industry is also booming in tandem (and as a word of warning, one can run into wedding-occupied venues, which makes it hard to taste wine quietly).
This is a tiny taste of the state’s fascinating (and tasteful…) history. Enjoy it and discover more!