Wineries have recently begun popping up in the Upstate, though most either import bottles of wine from California or elsewhere, or they use grape juice from other locations to make wine. Only a few of them, including Eagle Mountain Vineyard and Winery, in Travelers Rest, and City Scape Winery, in Pelzer, have planted their own vines. So, you may wonder why, with the increasing popularity of wine, more grapes aren’t grown here.
In the 1800s, European immigrants, anxious to carry on the grape growing and winemaking they knew in their homelands, established several vineyards near Greenville. At one point in the Upstate’s history, early successes led to the belief that grape growing and winemaking would be the next great economic opportunity for the region.
By the 1870s, some Greenville grape growers, found great success in the short term, as told in my historical fiction novel about Elizabeth Garraux, “When He Was Gone.”
Paris Mountain had hundreds of acres of cultivated grapes in the 1870s and ‘80s. The largest operation was Mammoth Vineyard, owned by French immigrant A. Carpin, who had more than 70,000 vines by 1886. Wine from the Upstate was sold all over the Southeast and as far away as Boston, with one newspaper review calling it “as good as any European wine.”
There were a few large vineyards in the North Main neighborhood as well, some with tiered stone walls that are still visible in the neighborhood.
Some of Greenville’s most successful growers have names that remain on street signs in the city, including Buist, Markley and Garraux.
So, where did all the grapes go, and why haven’t they made a comeback? The best explanation is that in the late 1800s, a few years of bad weather and devastating grape diseases that became common in the Southeast, along with the Temperance Movement put an end to the once thriving grape-growing business.
In Elizabeth Garraux’s case, the failure of the vineyards caused her to change her life’s direction in a way that would impact both her family and the city. Grapes were only a small part of her amazing story, as you will learn in “When He Was Gone.
[The novel is currently in the prepublication process.]