HERITAGE
A priceless landscape
The Barbour family preserved this priceless landscape in pastoral farming from the middle of the 18th Century through the middle of the 20th, by the wise rotation of crops and a continuous maintenance of sheep grazing. It was the second-generation heir, James Barbour, born 1775, who set the plantation on that path of sustainable agricultural practices while others, lamentably, depleted their soils in singular commitment to tobacco.
Founding the Estate
Defying the unanimous advice of government officials, land owners, and bankers to plant tobacco at Barboursville, Gianni Zonin -- heir to a family wine enterprise established in 1821 in the Veneto -- acquired this plantation in 1976 with the seemingly ridiculous expectation of creating a vineyard. Jefferson had attempted this, persisting into the 19th Century at Monticello, always failing to achieve a single harvest.
