Nicholas Longworth (1783-1863), a lawyer, banker, real estate agent, patron of the arts, horticultural expert and vintner, was one of the first commercial wine producers in the USA. On the basis of his services to viticulture, he was called the "father of American grape culture", the "father of American wine" and "the Western Bacchus". The successful self-made man became one of the richest men in the United States by the middle of the 19th century. In 1823, he tried unsuccessfully to plant European vines on the banks of the Ohio River, but they were all destroyed by phylloxera. The cause was not known at the time. In 1825, he received cuttings of the hybrid variety Catawba from the surveyor John Adlum (1759-1836) and planted them on a large scale on his lands near Cincinnati on the Ohio River in the state of Ohio. In 1842, 480 hectares were already planted with it. Longworth produced the first American sparkling wine "Sparkling Catawba" from it. Catawba wine was even exported to Europe at this time and was well received here. He had his Catawba wine and other wines exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851.
In 1828, the vine breeder Nicholas Herbemont (1771-1839) gave Longworth several cuttings of the Jacquez variety in a cigar box (hence Cigar Box Grape). The Ohio River was then called the "Rhine of America". In 1859, just before the American Civil War, the Ohio River had one third of America's vineyards and produced twice as much wine as California. The Civil War (1861-1865), vine diseases and Longworth's death ended these first great successes. But the foundation for successful viticulture in the USA was laid. Longworth was a convinced abolitionist (opponent of slavery) and an opponent of the emerging Prohibition movement, whose supporters reviled him as a member of the "wine-drinking aristocracy". He also made a name for himself as a patron of the arts and philanthropist. Above wine cellars, he built a four-storey residential building with 56 flats for the needy. He distributed bread to the poor, whom he called "the devil's poor". He collected art and was president of the National Portrait and Historical Gallery founded in Cincinnati in 1851. The US writer Henry Longfellow (1807-1882) praised him in one of his famous ballads in 1854. And the breeder Hermann Jaeger (1844-1895) named a variety created in 1880 in his honour as Longworth.
Source: WIKIPEDIA
Nicholas Longworth: unknown - picturehistory, public domain, link
Banks of Ohio: from Book Images, No restrictions, Link
