It's easy to grow, a Virginia native, and “makes a nice bottle of red wine,” says Dennis Horton of his Norton grapevines, shown here.
Jennifer McCloud tends to her Norton vines.
In the 1830’s, a group of German immigrants moved west from Philadelphia and founded the community of Hermann, Missouri. Within 10 years they had begun planting Norton—or at least a close cousin, Cynthiana (the two are now viewed as indistinguishable)—and thanks to the knowledge they brought from the Fatherland, began to turn out exceptional wine for the day. (In the 1860’s, Missouri wine experts also helped save the French wine industry by sending disease-resistant vines across the Atlantic to graft onto European vines, which were being decimated by phylloxera.)
A Norton produced by Stone Hill Winery, which by the turn of the century was one of the largest in America, was declared the “best red wine of all nations” at a competition at the World’s Fair in Vienna.
Of course, national Prohibition would shut down Missouri’s wine industry, just had happened earlier in Virginia. But unlike in Virginia, the Norton vines survived—thanks in part to some wineries that carried on making sacramental wine. Some resourceful bootleggers may have helped as well.
After a 30-year delay while Missouri worked out its own liquor laws, Stone Hill finally restarted its winemaking operations. And – here’s where it gets good, so hold on to your Riedel stemware—who should have grown up one block from Stone Hill? None other than one of the fathers of Virginia’s modern wine industry—Dennis Horton. And so our grape came full circle.
After serving in the military and attending the University of Maryland, Horton settled in the Virginia Piedmont and began to develop his bold vision for quality winemaking. Since he now lived in Norton’s home state, and knowing something about the grape’s success in Missouri, Norton was a natural for his fledgling operation.
He first planted it in 1989, with his cuttings coming from Stone Hill.
He now grows 11 acres of Norton, which produce as many as 2,600 cases of wine per year. He blends in some other grapes, such as mouvedre or tannat, depending on the year, to make a relatively straightforward, approachable bottling that he lets go for 12 bucks. He has also made a late-bottled vintage port from Norton – the first since the 1800’s.
Now, about a dozen wineries, depending on the year, offer a Norton bottling, among them Keswick Vineyards outside Charlottesville, Veramar Vineyard in Berryville, Rappahannock Cellars in Huntly, Rockbridge Vineyard in Raphine, and Cooper Vineyard in Louisa.
But no one, not even Horton, has been a bigger proponent of “the real American grape” (she’s even trademarked the phrase) than McCloud.
Already a successful entrepreneur, McCloud was looking for a place to set up a winemaking operation when she saw a presentation by Horton in 1995. He “deserves the honor and accolades of returning Norton to its natural soil,” she says. “The single most important reason I’m in Virginia was what Dennis did with Norton and viognier.”
After purchasing the Locksley estate in Middleburg, she planted Norton in 1998 and bottled her first wines from the grape in 2000. While most local wineries are content with one bottling of Norton, Chrysalis offers four: Estate Bottled Norton and Locksley Reserve, which are about 80 percent Norton with other varietals blended in as needed; Barrel Select Norton, a 100 percent Norton offering; and Sarah’s Patio Red, a slightly sweet “rosé” of Norton, which looks more pinot noir than pink.
New plantings will increase her Norton vineyards from 23 to 40 acres. At full production, she expects to turn out as many as 9,000 cases, which she believes will make Chrysalis the largest producer of Norton in the world.
McCloud can spend hours discussing the grape, and her goal is nothing less than putting Norton on the national and international stage as a serious grape. “I think it’s going to happen,” she says. “We’ve done a lot of evangelizing.”
That’s putting it mildly. The Chrysalis property already boasts a new Norton greenhouse and nursery, where McCloud and other oenologists are experimenting with the same type of hybridization that Daniel Norton did. She’s attempting to get a National Norton wine fest and competition off the ground. And more:
A disease-resistant white Norton is in the works. McCloud is pressing Norton grapeseed oil and milling the spent seeds for flour. She’s had scientists test the grape for resveratrol, the compound that gives red wine its much-touted anti-cancer and heart-healthy properties. The results? You guessed it: It’s higher than in any other grape tested.
“What a plant!” she exults. Others are beginning to get the experimental bug too. Jeff Cooper at Cooper Vineyards makes a Norton ice wine with essence of chocolate, while Keswick produces a 4.8 percent alcohol chocolate Norton sauce.
But such gimmickry aside, will Virginia’s grape ever be traded among the sniffing-and-spitting, Wine Spectator-reading crowd?
Virginia winemakers may be a biased lot, but they sure seem to think so. “It’s really in its infancy in terms of how to grow it and make great wine out of it,” says Elliff. “Thousands of man-years of experience dropped down to zero with Prohibition. Now there are only a few of us growing it for five to 10 years. In Bordeaux you have a million man-years of experience. There will be leaps and bounds of further improvement. The best is yet to come on this.”
About the Author
Jeff Dufour is a Washington-based reporter who spends his weekends exploring the Virginia countryside.
