Built around 1860 by vintner Tom Friend, the ruins of antebellum wine cellars in Dutch Hollow in Dunbar, West Virginia may be the last reminder of a thriving WV wine industry before the Civil War. Nominated in 1970 to the National Register of Historic Places, the area is now a day-use park with picnic tables, walking trails, and seven-acre fishing lake.The cellars only operated three years before the war and failed to survive afterwards. Big, blue grapes were grown in local vineyards, pressed, fermented in summer sun, and set in cool cellars age. Afterwards, casks were carted to Charleston and shipped to to market in Cincinnati, Ohio. I plan to return here in the afternoon when sunlight will be cast on the entrances rather than grapple with dark values of early morning shadows. What an awesome place to paint!
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