International Wines & Craft Beer is excited to welcome Biltmore Estate to our portfolio!

“We have a river. We have a château. We have the land. We have no vineyard. Every French château has a vineyard.” – William A.V. Cecil

Biltmore Estate, the luxurious family home of George and Edith Vanderbilt, is a marvel of elegance and charm, as magnificent today as it was more than a century ago. Faithfully preserved and filled with original furnishings and masterpieces of art, no other residence in America offers a more authentic and inspiring view of Gilded Age life while suggesting that the Vanderbilts and their guests are still at home.

Wine has played an integral role in the estate since the beginning, as George Vanderbilt’s love of collecting extended to filling his wine cellar. However, it wasn’t until the early 1970s that George Vanderbilt’s grandson, William Cecil, envisioned the idea of an estate winery to honor the agricultural heritage of his grandfather’s estate. Despite a variety of obstacles, he planted French-American hybrid vines below Biltmore House, and his inaugural vintage was bottled in the Conservatory basement. In the late 1970s, the vineyards were moved to their current location on the west side of the estate, and about 150 acres were planted with vinifera grapes. William Cecil traveled to France and hired Philippe Jourdain, a sixth-generation winemaker whose expertise and skills, including his suggestion to plant additional vinifera varietals, were integral in building the future of Biltmore’s Winery. Biltmore Winery bottled its first wines – 1983 vintages of Château Biltmore Merlot and Château Biltmore Cabernet Sauvignon crafted from North Carolina grapes – in 1984, and then opened to the public in 1985.
Today, Biltmore Estate Wine Company produces about 150,000 cases of wine annually. The wines have been honored with countless awards and medals and are now available in retailers and restaurants in 19 states and direct-shipped to 40 states.