Early French attempt: Vine and Olive Colony
Wine production in Alabama is usually first acknowledged by French military aristocrats who were exiled from Napoleon's army, given land, and founded the Vine and Olive Colony at the confluence of the Tombigbee and Black Warrior Rivers in 1817. This romanticisced tale comes from a real project in 1816, proposed by Jean-Simon Chaudron, editor of Philadelphia's French Newspaper, Abeille Americaine. This project of a French settlement in the "Old Southwest" was approved by Congress, who wanted to consolidate their hold on the Gulf Coast and establish an American winemaking industry, independent from European wine trade. They were granted 92,000 acres and a 14-year grace period for the majority of the land to produce grapes and olives before they had to pay Congress back for the land. [3]
The French settlers that were granted land were mostly French immigrants or refugees from Haiti. They ran into many issues in their attempts to grow grapes. Many of the settlers lacked any agricultural experience, most of the grapes died on the voyage from Europe, and the climate in Alabama was not suitable to the grape varieties they tried to grow. [3] The French recorded a blight that killed the vinifera grapes they attempted to grow, later acknowledged as Pierce's disease. [4]
The settlers could only successfully grow cotton in this region. They asked Congress to be released from their obligation to grow grapes and olives and by the 1830s, most of the vineyards became cotton plantations with most of the original settlers disapparating. [3]
