Brotherhood Winery

 

America’s Oldest Winery, established in 1839, is located at

100 Brotherhood Plaza Drive, Washingtonville, NY 10992

 

In 1810, a French Huguenot émigré named Jean Jaques purchased land in New York’s bucolic Hudson Valley and began planting grapes.  By 1837, Jean needed more land, so he purchased a plot in the quiet village of Washingtonville, NY, and planted another vineyard.  In 1839, his first underground cellars were dug and he fermented his first wine vintage.  Those cellars, the oldest and largest in America, are still in use today at Brotherhood Winery.

 

The Jaques family made wine at the Washingtonville facility for almost 60 years, selling much of it to Jesse and Edward Emerson, two New York City wine merchants.  The Emersons, Finger Lakes vintners themselves, understood the high quality of Jean Jaques’ wine and used it to improve a blend of wine from an organization called The Brotherhood of New Life - an experiment in utopian communal living in the Hudson Valley.  When the Emersons took control of the Washingtonville winery, they renamed it Brotherhood, a name that it still proudly bears today.  The Emerson family operated Brotherhood until Prohibition.  In 1921, Louis Farrell purchased the winery and its large stock of sacramental wine. He sold wine for religious ceremonies throughout Prohibition, which was finally repealed in 1933.  It has been noted that the clergy population in the area grew substantially during this period.  Louis was the first to grasp the value of Brotherhood’s location, as the nearest winery to New York City.  They began conducting tours of the winery, highlighting the now-enlarged underground cellars, the history of the facility and its picturesque site.

 

A partnership of businessmen purchased the winery in 1987, including a prominent winemaker from Chile, César Baeza.  César, internationally recognized as a master blender, wine educator and winery consultant, set about creating premium New York varietal wines and converting Brotherhood into a premier destination in New York State.  In 2005 César formed a new partnership with two winemaking families from Chile, the Castro and Chadwick families.  The new Board of Directors has embarked on a massive restoration and renovation program at Brotherhood that includes equipment upgrades, the planting of new vines and a facility remodeling, demonstrating the partners’ commitment to improving quality.