A TOAST TO OUR COUNTRY’S 250TH ANNIVERSARY, WITH AMERICA’S ORIGINAL WINE GRAPE, NORTON

Joel Butler MW 4.23 7.3 2026

On the eve of the Fourth of July 2026, under less than an ideal celebratory atmosphere given current circumstances, I think it appropriate to remember not only the original, daring and dangerous actions that led to the country’s Declaration of Independence, what many today might even have called a a batshit-crazy suicidal decision, but also the fact that our Founding Fathers (probably Mothers, too) were for the most part not teetotalers, and enjoyed good wine, beer and no doubt home-grown whisky, too.

Which brings me to this focused look at the one truly unique American grape whose discovery and importance came about in the years after the Revolution by a tenacious, if troubled Dr Daniel Norborne Norton, who likely was inspired in some fashion by the enthusiasm of a few founding fathers (and hangers-on?) who showed a strong interest in making fine American wines. If only they could discover the right variety(s) to do so.

Read on to learn more about this remarkable variety, its history, and why it is uniquely ‘American’, and for a time, in the later 19^th Century, 500 or more wineries produced it. As my friend, Winesmith winemaker Clark Smith told me after tasting his delicious 2018 Norton, Yolo Country CA¸ “Dr. Norton was a 19th century breeder (1820’s+) who crossed a wild Virginia Vitis aestivalis with an unknown parent to produce one of the most respected and widely produced reds in the U.S., with over 500 wineries offering examples, now mainly Virginia and Missouri. America’s own native variety! “

But it never made it to California, which is a shame, Smith says, because “[Clarksburg’s] long, warm summers are perfect for developing full ripe flavors and softening its considerable acidity. Its deep purple color, rich blueberry flavor and dense yet incredibly soft tannins have great curb appeal.” Alas California’s first wine growers were persuaded by the easy -growing appeal of another, imported variety, Zinfandel, which ultimately adopted California as its ‘native’ variety. But that’s a story for another report!

Norton’s slow but steady revival today, 150 years after its heyday in the period around our centennial celebrations in 1876, particularly in the main founding state of Virginia where it likely originated, is something to be celebrated. For those who live east of the Rockies where access to several Norton producers is easier, go out, buy some Norton, raise a glass to the good Doctor’s memory, and enjoy it with whatever you are grilling.

Much of this report reflects visits to vineyards in Virginia in 2024-25, FYI.

Painting of Daniel Norborne Norton, 1791-1842, buried at Shockoe Hill Cemetery, Richmond VA. (Courtesy Findagrave.com, photo of painting added by Jeffrey Burden)

A huge amount of growth in wineries (300+) and a qualitative leap finally supports the faith which Thomas Jefferson and a few lesser known men before him in the 17th Century held; that Virginia could be a ‘New World’ wine paradise.

The faith that early colonists put in growing grapes for wine, from 1619 and Jamestown onwards at the behest of the Crown was noble yet hindered by the hurdles afflicting the imported vines; mildews, pests (2,4,& 6 legged) and their lack of resistance to the phylloxera insect which co-habited with the local Vitis and was not affected by it. Early colonists had found various different native grape vine species, which were not susceptible to phylloxera’s predations, as were the European varieties colonists brought with them or which later were imported.

Secondly, these early colonists also found native tobacco plants, easier to cultivate, reliable and increasingly profitable as smoking became more popular in Europe and the Colonies.

Moreover, the colonists generally didn’t like the taste of the native Labrusca species of grapevines’ wines. Their high acidity, tart and odd ‘foxy’ [really, more of a perfumed, musky, candied fruit character] flavors were intolerable. By 1771, Thomas Jefferson with the help of his friend, Tuscan Filippo Mazzei (whose family later helped bankroll the nascent US military and government and whose descendants continue to make fine Chianti Classico at Castello di Fonterutoli), planted European varieties at his estates near Charlottesville, including Monticello.

As he noted in a letter to his friend John Dortie in 1781,

“Wine being among the earliest luxuries in which we indulge ourselves, it is desirable it should be made here and we have every soil, aspect and climate of the best wine countries, and I have myself drank wines made in this state (VA) and in Maryland, of the quality of the best Burgundy.” (Richard G. Leahy: Beyond Jefferson’s Wine, pg XI, 2012)

Sadly, Jefferson never tasted wine from his vines, as the fruit never ripened, or was ruined due to mildews, rot, and likely phylloxera, for which the European vines had no resistance.

Or, as newer research noted in Leahy’s book suggests, based upon notes from Jefferson’s farm manager, Antonio Giannini, that the vines are ‘improving marvelously’ but that no wine was made ‘because each year the grapes are taken before they are ripe, which is very harmful to the vines’. This implies that Jefferson didn’t well enough protect against the incursion of the local animals, especially birds but also l deer and racoons who loved to eat the sugar rich, imported grapes, far tastier than the local wild grapes from Vitis labrusca.

All of this is just an introduction to Dr. Norton’s Grape. As Jenny McCloud of Chrysalis Vineyards in Middleburg, VA, the largest producer of Norton in the state and as I call her [affectionately] the ‘Empress of Norton’ says, it is THE REAL AMERICAN GRAPE!®”. Two centuries in the making, then two centuries more to finally once again achieve recognition and appreciation last noted before Prohibition.

Only a few years after Jefferson basically threw in the towel regarding producing wine from European Vinifera grapes (1808), a young man, Daniel Norborne Norton, recently graduated as an MD from the University of Pennsylvania. Distraught after losing his [1st] wife and young child, but also possessed of a fine farm near Monroe, VA and an intense interest in horticulture, he assuaged his loneliness and disinterest in medicine by deciding to see if he could find, or create, a grape of local nature that could make fine wine resistant to the maladies endemic to Virginia’s climate and terroir.

It took him roughly a decade to accomplish the task. In his garden, sometime in 1821 he noticed a low-lying cluster of black grapes, small in size, thick-skinned, deeply colored, and resembling neither wild Vitis Labrusca nor European Vinifera. Intrigued by this plant, he thought back on previous attempts at hybridization experiments. One, in particular. He had ‘emasculated’ a self-fertilizing Labrusca variety called ‘Bland’, and then touched the stigmata that were left with the blossoms of a vinifera plant, possibly Pinot Meunier, a cousin of Pinot Noir.

I am indebted to Todd Kliman for much of this commentary. His book, The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of American Wine 2010) is not only excellent history, it is a great story, well-told and strongly recommended.

Because he had not protected the emasculated flower cluster with a bag, he had accidentally left it “open to the possibility of further impregnation…Rogue Aestivalis pollen, floating in the breeze at Magnolia Farm from one of several native varieties, penetrated the emasculated Bland and pollinated it.” (Todd Kliman,The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the untold story of American Wine, Clarkson Potter , 2010)

Believing he was on to something, Norton planted cuttings, then made small batches of wine, basically a working hypothesis, a ‘proof of concept’ as we say today. His new ‘wine’, with red juice like a ‘Teinturier’ variety, was deep colored, tasty, with little foxiness, firm acidity but not much harsh tannins.

Norton sought affirmation shortly after by sending some of his grape cuttings to the foremost nursery of the day in New York, Prince Nursery. Within a few years, 1830, Prince Nursery honored Dr Norton by calling his new variety V. Nortoni, noting its capabilities. As Kliman writes:

(Norton) did not yet know that with this improbably act of creation he had succeeded in doing what nobody had been able to do in more than to hundred years of trying, not the colonists at Jamestown, not Jefferson—produce a wine on native ground that would not succumb to disease and was, above all, worth drinking. He did not yet know that he had cracked the code.” (Kliman, pg.23)

Norton himself died in 1842, living long enough to see his fruit successfully propagated by Prince Nursery to farmers across the growing country, including the western frontier of Missouri, where it found a strong toehold in and around Hermann, MO west of St Louis. along the Missouri River, founded by immigrant Germans. The vines planted by those early immigrants on the hillsides that reminded these new Americans of their old Weinlands Even today, Stone Hill Winery, Missouri’s oldest (1847) and most awarded winery, makes fine Norton (and is where Dennis Horton got the cuttings to do the first modern replanting of Norton in Virgina..

View of Stone Hill vineyard near the Missouri River (courtesy https://stonehillwinery.com/our-vineyards/)

Norton succeeded strongly. In 1873, a Norton produced there took home a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition at Vienna. This was its heyday, also a period of immense creativity, invention and intellectual ferment in the US, as Kliman also notes. In Literature, science, even the forerunner in music of what would become Jazz, Norton and its adherents were creating a great American wine, just as those writers like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and others were creating a uniquely American new literature, music and art.

At around the same time, there arose some confusion among some grape breeders and researchers that another variety, Cynthiana and Norton were the same. As was noted then in a recent study,

“Two highly acclaimed viticulturalists and winemakers in the mid-1800s, George Husmann and Frederick Muench, pointed to the differences between Norton and Cynthiana wines. Husmann stated that Cynthiana “Makes an excellent dark red wine, with not as much astringency but even a more delicate aroma.”3 Based on the previous context of this statement, Husmann was comparing Cynthiana to Norton. According to Muench, “The Cynthiana grapevine is in appearance very much like the former (Norton); makes however a wine of a lighter color, which is sweet, of fine flavor and excellent.… In the future it will stand next to the Virginia seedling.” (4. Muench, F.: School for American Grape Culture (1859). Translated by Elizabeth Cutter (1865). Conrad Witter, St. Louis.)

Yes, the two varieties shared some similarities, but the most current research, using DNA, ampelography, sensory evaluation etc, has revealed they are NOT the same variety. Winegrower and ampelographer Lucie Morton’s research confirms that Cynthiana and Norton are distinct grape varieties, challenging a long-held belief in the Eastern U.S. wine industry. Using historical records, ampelography, and DNA sequencing, Morton traces Cynthiana’s origins to Ohio, not Arkansas, and highlights its differences from Norton in taste, growth, and resilience.

Moreover, a recent study written up in the March 2026 edition of Winebusinessmonthly.com conclusively demonstrated that the two varieties make clearly different wines. (Norton and Cynthiana: The Proof is in the Wine, Dean Volenberg and Stephan Sommer)

While Norton continued to be produced in Virginia, Missouri’s production was greater and more famed. At one point in the second half of the 19th Century, Missouri was the number one state for wine production, much of it Norton, even before California. Norton’s fame and quality grew significantly, being produced in its heyday, 1870-1914, by over 500 wineries offering examples at one point.

Like elsewhere in America, Prohibition put a stop to the revival of wine growing in Missouri and Virginia. All that knowledge and momentum was lost. Only in the late 1980’s and through the efforts of Dennis Horton to bring cuttings of the variety back to Virginia was Norton ‘re-patriated’ to its home turf.

Today, the champion of Virginia’s own Norton is Jenny McCloud owner of Chrysalis Vineyards in Middleburg. While she also produces a wide variety of vinifera wines, many from Iberian and SW French varieties like Tempranillo, Fer Servadou, Albariño Petit Manseng and Tinta Cao, along with Petit Verdot and Viognier, it is her more than 40 acres of Norton that she is most proud of, and from which she sells fruit to other Norton producers besides making a half a dozen versions herself.

Aerial view of Chrysalis Vineyards near Middleburg, VA (Courtesy Chrysalisvineyards.com)

She has been at it for over 25 years and has learned through experience what it takes to bring out its best. Her current winemaker, Jake Blodinger, now is responsible for bringing her experience to greater heights. At the risk of overwhelming her hospitality, Chrysalis happens to be one of the closest wineries to Washington D.C; if you live in the area this weekend (presumably) would be a good time to visit, taste and raise a glass to our country, and to Dr Norton’s memory

What makes Norton unique and special? Blodinger last year said: “It doesn’t get impacted by the disease pressure. Bugs kind of ignore it, all the pests and deer love it. Right about the end of October, they’re on top of it…but it doesn’t get powdery or downy [mildew], it doesn’t get black rot the same way. I mean, it gets black rot, but it just keeps growing and ripening.” {EPISODE #2 ALL ABOUT NORTON/JENNIFER McCLOUD FOUNDER CHRYSALIS VINEYARDS; Fine Wine Confidential Podcast}

Netting the vines is therefore critical to not losing the crop to the birds (see photo below at Chrysalis, early September 2025, long before harvest!)

McCloud, in the same podcast, notes that Norton is the most disease resistant bunch grape in the world. “And so that in and of itself was one of the most significant elements in growing this grape to me, because of its low environmental impact, from a sense of growing something that wants to grow here.”

But it is not an easy grape to grow, which perhaps is why only a few score of producers out of 300 in Virginia take the trouble (so far!). It produces much less juice per ton, than most vinifera grapes. As one producer noted, “A small sack of very little juice and a bunch of seeds”. While it tolerates rain well, one reason why for many years it was planted in low-lying, less ideal heavier soils, it is much better when planted in poorer soils on sunnier sites.

It has a much higher malic acid (green apple, sharp) ratio to the more citrusy, softer tartaric acidity, yet generally has high pH. Hence it can be too tart for some and too ‘sweet’ or grapy for others. Which is why good growers, as McCloud notes, strive to have an open canopy to let lots of sunlight in and for air flow, and pick later in the season. Some producers including McCloud have found that blending in a little Cabernet or Merlot helps to provide more structure and focus, along with flavors more typical of the vinifera wines people are accustomed to.

In the winery, one needs to pay close attention to fermentation temperatures as Rob Cox of Paradise Springs Winery told me. He ferments quite warm at 30° C (86° F.). He noted in a Fine Wine Confidential pod cast recently why he believes fermenting Norton at higher temperature is better.

“ For one, just physically it helps break down the intercellular pulp within the grape to help juice this up. I think aromatically some of the aromas that people will clarify as maybe foxy, gamey, or Norton-y that can be off-putting to some consumers, that hotter fermentation can help blow some off. You’re still going to get that inherent Norton nose, like that sweet tart nose, those like real sinewy red fruit aromas on it, but these are just some of my approaches having made it for almost 20 years now.” (Fine Wine Confidential Episode#13)

This seems an approachothers have adopted, too, especially for those Nortons meant for aging more than 5 or 6 years.

But one can make the wine with carbonic maceration as in Beaujolais for a fruitier rounder wine that one can drink sooner, which has the advantage of softening the malic acid tartness, providing more velvety tannins and providing a juicier texture, as Jenni McCloud does for one of her Nortons. (See tasting notes below to gain a better sense for what to expect of the variety, taste-wise.)

Overall as author Todd Kliman said about Norton, it is time to finally consider Norton and it characteristics not just as a unique, if peculiar grape, but also as a wine of terroir. McCloud certainly does; she has many plots on her property where the terroir dictates a different approach, and elicits different levels of complexities, of weight and aromatics, yet always ‘Norton’.

While most of you readers are not in Virginia, and less likely to taste Norton, you can order from Norton wines on Wine-Searcher.com. Just type it in as a key words Norton Wine. You should do so, and see for yourself. Or, you can go to the websites of some of the best producers, like Chysalis Vineyards, Paradise Springs, Cana, Rappahannock, Ducard, Fifty Third Winery, and Winesmith to order. Better yet, buy 3-4 bottles, and put some away in the basement or somewhere else cool and try in another 4-6 years. Norton was meant to age, taking on a more complex, almost gamy-mineral red fruit character like fine aged, Bordeaux.

Norton vine at DuCard Vineyard planted on Lyre System, 4 September, 2024, about a month away from harvest. (JBMW

A word about tasting and enjoying Norton. It demands food, given its structure and sometimes almost contrarian character. Food brings it into harmony, Something our country could use a little more of these days, too.

Fourth of July Burgers and dogs are very harmonious with Norton, as it happens!

Enjoy the day.