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Article: Wine Industry
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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WINE INDUSTRY
WINE INDUSTRY.
In the early nineteenth century Nicholas Longworth, an optimistic and eccentric settler of Cincinnati, raised eyebrows when he planted grapes on his farmlands in southwestern Ohio. On occasion, easterners had tried making wine but had disliked the taste; Longworth's wine, however, seemed palatable. Like many wine makers in the nineteenth century, including Thomas Jefferson, Longworth championed wine as a beverage of temperance, arguing that it was more civilized than distilled spirits. But the wine industry faced formidable challenges. For most of the nineteenth century, wine making was a small-scale, agrarian undertaking concentrated in eastern states. ...