Nuttall Dismisses Vevay Wine 1818

Thomas Nuttall's description of the wine produced by the early vineyards in Switzerland county was one of a number of less than enthusiastic descriptions of the area's product of the vine.

Nuttall's Journal of travels into the Arkansa [sic] territory October 2, 1818-February 18, 1820. Cleveland, Ohio, A. H. Clark, 1905

I descended about 30 miles, and lodged with a very polite and hospitable Frenchman, three miles above the Swiss towns of Vevay and Ghent.

He informed me that he had emigrated the last summer from Grenoble, and had purchased land here at the rate of 10 dollars per acre, including the house and improvements which he occupied. He complained how much he had been deceived in his expectations, and that if he was home again, and possessed of his present experience, he would never have emigrated.

He did not give a very favourable account of the settlement of Vevay, and he and others, particularly a Swiss whom I called upon, informed me that the wine here attempted to be made was of an inferior quality. It sold at 25 cents the bottle, but soon became too sour to drink, and that instead of obtaining the northern vines for cultivation, as those around Paris, they had all along attended to the southern varieties.

So the vineyards of Vevay, if not better supported, will probably soon be transformed into corn-fields. The wine which they have produced is chiefly claret, sometimes bordering on the quality of Burgundy, for the preservation of which their heated cabins, destitute of cellars, are not at all adapted; we do not, however, perceive any obstacle to the distillation of brandy, which could be disposed of with great facility and profit.

The quantity of wine said to be yielded to the acre, is about 500 gallons, which, if saleable, ought to produce a considerable emolument, and materially benefit the country, by diminishing the foreign demand. Several gentlemen of science, wealth, and patriotism in Kentucky and Mississippi Territory, are now also beginning to devote their attention to this important and neglected subject, and are commencing by the cultivation of improved varieties of the native species of vine, which promise, above those of Europe, every requisite of fertility, hardihood, and improved flavour.