Pleasant Valley Wine history

Clever! After the winery started producing champagne in 1865, it began winning awards for its excellent Sparkling Catawba.

In 1867, this wine was awarded honorable mention at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the first American Sparkling wine to win an award in Europe.

In March 1871, Charles Davenport Champlin, a Hammondsport businessmen, sent a case of champagne to a close friend and well-known wine connoisseur in Boston.

In 1873 in Vienna, the winery’s champagne was awarded first prize and its first European medal; since then the Company’s champagnes have received numerous European gold medals and other awards.

On March 8, 1893, the Pleasant Valley Wine Company was registered as a New York State corporation, with the Champlins and Massons holding 205 of 400 outstanding shares of stock.

Adding further excitement, on July 4, 1908, Glenn Curtiss made the first pre-announced airplane flight on the Pleasant Valley flats directly below the winery entrance.

The good news that Pleasant Valley had sold more champagne in the first six months of 1919 than in any previous year was marred on July 1 by the enactment of Prohibition.

Charles D. Champlin II, grandson of the founder and dean of American champagne makers of his time, managed the operation until his death in 1950.

The family retained control of the business until 1955 when it was sold to a company run by Marne Obernauer, a businessman from New Jersey, who officially renamed the winery Pleasant Valley Division of Great Western Producers.

In 1962, the Taylor Wine Company bought Pleasant Valley Wine Co., its next-door neighbor.

Eight of these Great Western Winery buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Having survived Prohibition and several ownership changes, the winery returned once again to local family control in 1995.

In 2002 they purchased the historic winery outright.