by Alexander Green
A few nights ago, my brother Carter invited me to a reception at the R.R. Smith Center in Staunton to hear author James Gabler speak on my favorite American, Thomas Jefferson, and one of his great passions: wine.
Jefferson is best known as the nation's third president, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the founder of the University of Virginia. But he was much more, a true renaissance man, fascinated by the whole range of human experience.
When wine entered his galaxy of interests - as it did on a trip to France in 1784 - he began acquiring a depth of knowledge and appreciation of wines that no American of his time would rival.
He called wine "a necessity of life." Yet his interest went far beyond drinking it. Jefferson investigated grape varieties, soil, climate, fermentation, storage, shipment and every other facet of viticulture. He exchanged hundreds of letters with horticulturalists, scientists and wine dealers. He planted vineyards at Monticello and experimented with grape growing in his Paris garden on the Champs-Elysees.
Jefferson loathed what he called "ardent spirits" and believed whiskey was a pox on American families. He insisted that wine promoted good health and predicted that America, some day, would make wines every bit as good as those of France.
He was right on both counts. Two hundred years later, it is well documented that moderate wine consumption increases "good" cholesterol and may help prevent heart disease and certain forms of cancer.
And the Paris Wine Tasting of May 24, 1976 shook the world. That was the day French judges did a blind tasting of top-quality chardonnays and cabernet sauvignons from France and California and rated the California wines best in both categories.
The United States is now one of the world's leading wine-producing, wine-consuming and wine-exporting countries. All fifty states have commercial wineries. Jefferson's own Virginia bristles with more than eighty.
(In fact, I heartily recommend spending a fall afternoon at the King Family Vineyard near Charlottesville. Set at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it offers not only majestic views and some of the state's best wines but everything from picnic grounds to polo matches.)
Jefferson was hardly alone among the Founding Fathers in his love of wine:
* Benjamin Franklin, a notorious ladies man and bon vivant, had a cellar of over 1,100 bottles.
* George Washington had a preference for Madeira and spoke of "that hilarity which a glass of good Claret seldom fails to produce."
* John Adams was another enthusiastic wine drinker. His letters show he ordered 500 bottles of French wine just before receiving word that he had been appointed America's first minister to England.
* And when James Monroe was elected to the presidency in 1817, Jefferson spent all but five lines of his congratulatory letter discussing recommendations for the new President's wine cellar.
Jefferson understood the importance of wine and entertaining. His account books reveal that during his eight years as President he purchased over 20,000 bottles from Europe. Indeed, he spent $7,597 on wine in his first term alone, a substantial sum given that his annual presidential salary - including expenses - was $25,000.
Jefferson's fondness for wine did not diminish in retirement. Records from Monticello show that in the two-year period beginning in January 1822, Jefferson and his guests consumed more than 1,200 bottles.
Although Jefferson drank wine daily, there is no evidence that he was ever accused of intoxication during his lifetime. (Although the scandal sheets accused him of plenty else.) By all accounts, he was a temperate drinker.
Jefferson was a champion of native grape varieties - more than 200 species grew wild in the woods around his home. But, due to the ravages of nature and his long absences, his vineyards at Monticello were a constant disappointment. Yet he never gave up on his wine experiments. In a letter to a friend he explained, "tho' an old man, I am but a young gardener."
No one had a more profound impact on the future of American viticulture than Jefferson. But he was no wine snob. Nor did he buy wine as an investment. He drank wine for pleasure. And he liked sharing his pleasure with others.
As a leader of the American Revolution, Jefferson helped bring freedom to his countrymen. In his tireless promotion of the benefits and enjoyment of wine, he was determined to bring them something else: civility, sophistication and refinement.
Wine is the product of thousands of years of agricultural and cultural experimentation. It is older than recorded history, emerging from the early mists of civilization. Ancient Greek poets lavished praise on local wines. The Pharaohs' tombs in Egypt are filled with depictions of men and women drinking and carrying wine. Archaeological digs reveal wine-drinking in the Mediterranean as far back as 6,000 BC. And it was enjoyed in China a thousand years earlier.
Winemaking is old, in part, because it is simple. Ripe grapes are picked, crushed and the juice is stored in an airtight container. Tiny one-celled organisms (yeasts) that exist naturally within the grapes gradually convert the sugar in the juice into alcohol, a process called fermentation. This simplification downplays the knowledge and skill a great winemaker brings to the process. But when conditions are right, there is no arguing the outcome: liquid art.
Galileo said wine is "sunlight, held together by water." Robert Louis Stevenson called it "bottled poetry." Omar Khayyam wondered what vintners buy that is one half so precious as the stuff they sell. And legend has it that when Dom Perignon experienced his first sip of champagne he shouted, "Come quickly! I am tasting the stars!"
Fine wine is made for discriminating tastes. And it improves with age. (The older you get, the more you like it.)
A bottle of wine is made for sharing. The same can hardly be said of a bottle of beer. (And, unless you're Keith Richards, a bottle of liquor isn't meant for polishing off in a single evening.)
You don't have to be an expert to appreciate wine, any more than you need to master music theory to enjoy Beethoven's Ninth. It is simply one part of the good life.
The right wine can make any get together a special occasion. It can turn a good meal into a symphony. It makes every table more elegant, each day more civilized. It promotes relaxation, contentment and the free flow of ideas.
Jefferson understood that wine could be as powerful an expression of culture as literature, painting or music - and that drinking good wine with good food in the presence of good friends is one of life's most civilized pleasures.
It isn't necessary to find a fabulous vintage or buy some exorbitant bottle. As the British wine writer Oz Clarke observed:
"To pontificate, to let opinions rule your appreciation of wine and to be unable to feel, as the candles gutter and the moon rises on a warm summer night, that the wine on the table, however unsung and lacking in renown, is, for that short moment, perfection itself, is to miss the whole heart of wine - and of life too."
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