Rockbridge Vineyard

Shakespeare once wrote, “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou.” Had he come along a few centuries later than he lived, he might have been referring to a jug of Virginia wine. Today, according to the Virginia Wine Marketing Office, the Old Dominion ranks fifth in the nation in the production of Vinifera grapes. Over 230,000 cases of Virginia-made wine sold in 2004.

The colonists who established Jamestown as the first permanent English settlement in the New World in 1607 thought that the native grapes which grew in great profusion along the river banks would provide the means for them to begin large-scale wine production. They envisioned the colony exporting wine to England and displacing the French, German and Portuguese wines being consumed in large quantities in the Mother Country. The first batch of wine produced in 1608 was disappointing. The wild scuppernong grapes produced a wine with an unpleasant taste – one account called the smell that of a wet dog! After a number of years of experimentation with the native grapes, the colonists tried growing grape vines imported from France, but the French vines were ill suited to Virginia’s climate and pests. The Virginia legislature offered prizes for the grower able to produce several hundred gallons of wine from the delicate French vines, to no avail. Ironically, the payment of the prize was to be in Virginia’s most successful cash crop – tobacco. Virginia growers increasingly turned away from the frustrations of growing Vinifera grapes for the profitable cultivation of tobacco.

Thomas Jefferson, perhaps 18^th Century Virginia’s greatest wine connoisseur, tried to produce wine at Monticello for 30 years, with little success. He experimented with native grapes and also sponsored efforts by an Italian to grow hybrid native grapes. Over 200 varieties were planted when the Revolutionary War interrupted the work. The vineyards were destroyed during the war.

Jefferson, nevertheless, believed that ultimately native grapes would produce a drinkable wine. Virginia farmers though continued to grow wheat, tobacco, cotton and corn and little effort was made to grow wine grapes.

In the 1800’s, Virginians began experimenting with American hybrid grapes, which were a cross between the native grapes and the European varieties imported in the 1600s. The Catawba, Delaware, Concord and Norton varieties, among others, emerged as legitimate wine grapes with a distinctly American heritage. Native American vines rescued the French wine industry when blight almost eradicated the French vines in the 1860s and ‘70s. Hardy American rootstock was grafted to French Vinifera vines and the industry was saved. Because of this, we are able to grow French grapes today in this country.

But just as Virginia growers were gaining a foothold, the Civil War, and later Prohibition, dealt the fledging wine industry a series of body blows. The Wine Marketing Office says that by 1950, there were only 15 acres of commercial vineyard in the Commonwealth.

By the 1960s, with wine consumption in the USA on the increase, Virginia farmers began to take an interest in hybrid grape cultivation. Agricultural experts discouraged the planting of European grape varieties, so French and American hybrids were the preferred stock. But Virginia farmers are a determined lot, and continued to experiment with particular varieties of European grapes that could thrive in Virginia’s climate and soils. In the late 1970s, Barboursville Vineyards, near Charlottesville, succeeded in growing European grapes commercially, and the modern Virginia wine industry was born.

Rockbridge Vineyard is regarded as one of the finest small wineries in the Commonwealth, and is the fruition of Shepherd Rouse's dream to make fine wine in his native state of Virginia.

As a boy in 1963 in his hometown of Williamsburg, Rouse found a round green glass bottle seal with the date 1718 embossed on it. The archaeological expert in residence at Colonial Williamsburg at the time, Ivor Noel Hume identified it as the second oldest dated wine bottle seal yet unearthed in Virginia. Rouse donated it for the Colonial Williamsburg collection. Ten years later on a spring semester abroad in Germany as a Washington and Lee University geology student, Rouse was intrigued by wine. Three years later, back in Germany on a Fulbright scholarship, he decided to learn how to make wine, and then to produce it in Virginia.

In 1978 Rouse moved to California and served an extended apprenticeship that included earning a Masters degree in Enology at the University of California at Davis and work at Schramsberg, Chateau St. Jean and Carneros Creek Wineries. He returned to Virginia in 1986 and began to learn the ropes here as winemaker at Montdomaine Cellars (his 1990 Cabernet Sauvignon won the 1993 Virginia Governor's Cup), before starting his own winery.

In 1988 Rouse purchased a farm in northern Rockbridge county, in the Shenandoah Valley at higher elevation than most Virginia vineyards and planted five acres of grapes. He has complemented his own planting with grapes grown by other top-quality growers at selected locations in Virginia. From this palette, Rouse is able to produce a full spectrum of wines to match a broad range of individual tastes. By processing each wine minimally and employing traditional, small batch methods, the full intensity and tenor of each wine is captured in Rouse's winemaking.

His interest in Native American culture and Geology has led to the creation of two of Rockbridge's most popular wines. Tuscarora White and Tuscarora Red are named after the Tuscarora branch of the Iroquis Federation and the hard sandstone formation which forms the prominent ridges of the western Valley of Virginia. V d'Or, Rockbridge's cyro-concentrated Vidal ice wine rivals the best dessert wines from France, Germany and California. Other French-hybrid wines have local interest names: St. Mary's Blanc, a dry, barrel-fermented Vidal Blanc, is named after the lovely waterfall in the St. Mary's wilderness area, a favorite hiking spot 7 miles from the winery; Lexington and Concord was chosen for the name of Rockbridge's sweet Concord wine - Lexington is 18 miles distant. A semi-dry rose’ made from Concord, Seyval and Vidal is named after a famous bullfrog "Jeremiah", frogs being another of Rouse's favorite childhood pursuits. Rockbridge Vineyard is now producing a wine called Extra Virginia Claret, which is made from the Norton grape. The Monticello Wine Co. made wine from the Norton grape in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and it was called Virginia Claret.

Rockbridge Vineyard is open year-round for tours and tasting. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sundays and Mondays, noon to 5 p.m. To get to the vineyard, take exit 205 off I-81 at Raphine, Va. Go west on Rt. 606. The winery is one mile on the right.