The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine

The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson & Wine

Set against the backdrop of the great wine regions of France, the Napa valley and the historic Virginia landscape “The Cultivated Life” guides the viewer on a visual journey of the life of the founding father of American viticulture.

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"Jefferson...dreamed of starting a wine culture in America that would lend refinement to everyday living."
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USA Today | Life section cover
November 4, 2005
THE STORY
When nominated to be the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson listed his profession as “farmer.” Although he spent most of his life in the political arena, Jefferson always considered himself a man of agriculture. His accomplishments as a founding father and politician have been well documented. However, his struggles as a vintner and his passion for the finest wines have remained relatively unexplored – until now.

Jefferson held the belief that wine was the most civil of drinks. In wine, he saw an opportunity for civility that the country lacked and an avenue to match in culture, the military and political achievements of the young nation he had helped to found. The ever-optimistic Jefferson believed that the delicacy of fine wine, like knowledge, could uplift man’s spirit and refine his soul. He even went so far as to affirm, “No nation is drunken where wine is cheap; and none sober, where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage.”

When Jefferson envisioned, “We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly the same kinds, but doubtless as good,” he expressed his vision for an future America that was different from Europe, but its cultural equal.

Over the course of his life, Jefferson’s love for wine never waned, stating simply “Good wine is a daily necessity to me.”  The Cultivated Life takes the viewer on a visual journey from Jefferson’s experimental vineyard at Monticello to his epic tours through France’s most prestigious wine regions, to the Napa valley where his legacy is felt strongly today.  

AS SEEN IN

WINE SPECTATOR

A PRESIDENT’S PASSION
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une 28, 2006

The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine is both a portrait of our third president and a study of our country’s founding as seen through the lens of wine. By concentrating on one man’s passion, the Emmy Award-winning documentary (which previously aired on PBS) explores how the seeds of a nation’s taste and culture were planted.

Thomas Jefferson was, in Napa vintner Robert Mondavi’s words, “A man 150 years ahead of his time…”

THE INTERVIEWS

One of the most compelling aspects of The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine is the depth of interviews that tell the story.  In France we interviewed descendants of the chateau owners and wine merchants who supplied Jefferson with the finest wines of Europe.  Back home, we filmed interviews with historians and authors who paint the entire picture of Jefferson’s lifelong struggle to elevate the cultural refinement of his young country to the levels he has seen in Europe.  And finally, we interviewed winemakers in California and Virginia — including one of the last filmed interviews with Robert Mondavi — who speak of fulfilling Jefferson’s dream in the American vineyards of today.