Nicholas Longworth (horticulturist)
| Nicholas Longworth | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
January 16, 1783 Newark, New Jersey |
| Died | February 10, 1863 (aged 80) Cincinnati, Ohio |
| Resting place | Spring Grove Cemetery |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Lawyer, banker, real estate speculator, winemaker |
| Known for | Winemaking |
| Net worth | USD $15 million at the time of his death (approximately 1/411th of US GNP) |
| Spouse(s) | Susanna Howell |
| Children | Joseph Longworth Catherine Longworth Anderson |
Nicholas Longworth (January 16, 1783 – February 10, 1863) was an American banker and winemaker as well as the founder of the Longworth family in Ohio. Longworth was an influential figure in the early history of American wine, producing sparkling Catawba wine from grapes grown in his Ohio River Valley vineyard.
Longworth was born in Newark, New Jersey on January 16, 1783. He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1804 and married Susanna Howell, three years his junior, daughter of Silas and Hannah (Vaughan) Howell, on Christmas Eve, 1807. His Greek Revival villa, then on the eastern edge of Cincinnati, is now the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati.
Nicholas pursued the study of law under Jacob Burnet, one of Cincinnati's first millionaires.
Believing Cincinnati to be an ideal location for grape cultivation, he established viticulture as a successful venture on the hills adjoining the city. He planted a vineyard of Catawba on the Mount Adams hillside and began making a sparkling wine from the grapes using the traditional method used in Champagne. From the 1830s through the 1850s, Longworth's still and sparkling Catawba were being distributed from California to Europe where it received numerous press accolades. In the 1850s, a journalist from The Illustrated London News noted that the still white Catawba compared favorably to the hock wines of the Rhine and the sparkling Catawba "transcends the Champagnes of France".
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