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07. Adolph Russow and the Monticello Wine Company

Born in Lauenburg, Germany in 1851, Adolph Russow, after receiving a liberal education and pursuing graduate studies in Germany, came to the United States in 1868. After a period of operating streetcars in New York City, Russow moved to Virginia. In 1872 he purchased Red Hills at Proffit in Albemarle County. On this farm of 307.5 acres, he established Bellevue Vineyards, which sold grapes to the Monticello Wine Company, founded in 1873. The following year the wine company chose Russow to be the supervisor of its wine cellar.

The Monticello Wine Company was created as a cooperative to encourage and provide a consistent market for Albemarle’s grape growers. Many of Charlottesville’s most prominent citizens took stock in the company. In the interest of both producers and consumers and for the public well-being, the wine company’s goal was to make pure and healthful, low-alcohol table wines of medium grade. They pursued Jefferson’s dream of creating an affordable table wine that would lead to temperate drinking habits.

For a few years, local farmers found a better market in New York City for their table grapes until the transcontinental railroad brought California grapes into the competition. Then they started selling their grapes to the Monticello Wine Company.

By 1878, the company had received international recognition for the quality of its wines. Adherence to high standards led to a continuing string of awards at a variety of state, national and international competitions.

At harvest time, local grapes were transported in wagons down what is now Wine Street, or down Second Street N.E. (on which the Society is presently located) to where both of these roads dead-ended at the edge of town in the mouth of a ravine, next to the old quarry adjoining the present site of the Greek Orthodox Church. This was where the company’s wine cellar was built. At that time, the cellar was surrounded on all sides by pasture land that extended to the tracks of the Virginia Midland Railroad which had a spur line serving the wine company, running almost parallel to Schenks Branch.

Russow’s granddaughter, Augusta, reminisced, “In the summer when the grapes started to get ripe, my grandfather took mother and me to the country to visit his customers. We usually went early on Sunday morning riding on his two-horse surrey. We carried lunch but were always invited to have a good country dinner at one of ‘Big Papa’s’ grape growers.”

When in 1887 the Black Rot destroyed many vineyards here, a lot of the farmers were no longer willing to invest the time, money and care to treat their vineyards. The Monticello Wine Company was forced to buy grapes from other states to have enough to continue making their wines. By 1900, the company was giving away vine roots for free to encourage farmers to invest in grape growing.

The company outlasted other Southern wine companies, most of which folded with the onset of local option in their communities. Russow and the Monticello Wine Company survived the strictures of Charlottesville’s 1907 local option by becoming a mail order business, purchasing licenses and offices in other states. But by 1915, as the number of “Dry” states increased, the company had to close its operations for good. The Monticello Wine Company building burned in 1937.

Red Hills, 1914 photo