The history of wine goes back thousands of years … but in America, just a few hundred years. As little as 200 years ago, America was still a vast wilderness yearning to be developed and European immigrants were itching to duplicate the comfortable lifestyle that they had left behind. Alabama was hand-picked to become America’s wine country!

In 1816, former French officers decided to “Form a large settlement somewhere on the Mississippi or Ohio to cultivate the vine.” With the idea to supply all of America’s wine needs, the group gained momentum and became the French Vine and Olive Association.

At the time, the Mississippi Territory was being highly promoted and since it was part of the old French Territory and Mobile was a French city, the group decided to locate their settlement in an area near the junction of the Tombigbee and Black Warrior Rivers. They were promised a climate similar to France and soils adapted to the vine and the olive.

Eager to get started, 150 people immediately sailed into Mobile and traveled up the Tombigbee and laid out the town of Demopolis. However, the city was not part of the grant and the group moved to Aigleville.

Other problems included the unwelcoming Black Belt soil for the imported grape vines, harsh winters that destroyed the olive trees and the lack of knowledge about agriculture or growing grapes.

But the French persisted and in 1827, 271 acres were planted but the vineyards were islands in the middle of cotton fields. In January 1828, an official report in Congress noted that the drought of the previous summer wiped out all the vines and the French were in the midst of replanting, but the French Vine and Olive Association was wiped out by 1829.

Alabama’s wine industry did not die there. In the next issue, we’ll examine the rise and fall and rise again of Alabama’s venture with the vino.