Francis Ford Coppola’s eponymous wine company not long ago purchased the former Geyser Peak Winery in Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley. (Geyser Peak wines still exist. Its U.S. corporate owner recently sold the company to an Australian corporation. The new owner moved the tasting room to a different location.) Coppola renamed the winery Virginia Dare after the first American Baby.
More correctly, Virginia Dare was the first person born of English parents on American soil. She was born August 18, 1587 in the newly-established Roanoke Colony. Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to Sir Walter Raleigh to develop a colony in the New World. The expedition Sir Walter organized landed on an island near the coast of present-day North Carolina. The new settlement struggled. Governor John White, Virginia Dare’s grandfather, set sail shortly after her birth to bring back supplies from England. War with Spain and the Spanish Armada kept any ships away from Roanoke Colony until 1590. When White finally returned, there was no trace of the colony or its 115 residents.
Fast forward to 1835. Garrett & Company was founded in the area and began selling wine made from the native Scuppernong grape. They branded the wine “Virginia Dare.” The company no longer produces wine, but adopted “Virginia Dare” as its corporate name and relocated to Brooklyn. Coppola has their blessing to use the name.
Several wineries still produce Scuppernong wine in the region. North Carolina’s 130 wineries produce more than a million gallons of wine annually. (California makes 800 million gallons.)
The state of Missouri’s 122 winemakers also produce more than a million gallons of wine each year. In the mid-nineteenth century, German immigrants began growing grapes in the Missouri River area just west of St. Louis. Augusta, Missouri was the first to receive an AVA designation. An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a designated wine grape-growing region in the United States distinguishable by geographic features. The Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau oversees the designations.
Seven California districts and one in Oregon also filed applications with the Bureau when the regulation began in 1980. The ATT gave its first AVA designation on June 20, 1980 to the fifteen square miles surrounding Augusta, citing the unique soil, climate and long history as one of America’s oldest and foremost grape and wine districts.
Napa Valley received the second AVA on February 27, 1981. There are currently 235 AVAs in 25 states.
Just tried some Missouri produced wine about three weeks ago when we were in Branson, MO. The Norton grapes were reminiscent of Cabernet Sauvignon or maybe some Zins, depending on the vintner. I liked the Chambourcin as a good Pinot Noir substitute. I was favorably impressed with the variety of wines produced. While generally on the slightly sweet side, they were, for the most part, good dinner or apertif wines, unlike those of Wisconsin that are much too sweet for my palette.