At the Port of Piraeus, Greece, one young girl began a journey that would carry her across both the globe and the threshold of her new life. Weeks later, upon her first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, she said a quiet prayer for acceptance in this unknown country. The year was 1920, and Doukénie Bacos turned 15 years old on that ship. She disembarked at Ellis Island carrying her mandolin, a symbol of Doukénie’s heritage and expression of her hope. Today, each bottle of Doukénie wine bears this emblem of pride and quality.

The Bazaco/Bacos family are of Greek origin (Andreandroupoli, Greece), initially placed roots in New York — more specifically Brooklyn then Pound Ridge/Windham . . . (Actually my father was from Richmond moving north.) When Nicki and I moved to the Washington D.C. area for medical training, it was our desire and intention to purchase a farm following in our family’s footsteps. (Nicki from Ohio as an ICU nurse in D.C. and I a fledgling physician right off the boat — actually off the plane since I trained in Europe — met at the Washington Hospital Center. After training and a stint in the military, we moved to Oakton, Va.)

We acquired our present facility (Windham) in the early 1980s and did traditional farming to include crops, cattle, and sheep. My grandmother, (Doukénie Bacos), who immigrated to the United States around 1919, was from a farming family in Thrace (eastern Greece) where her father, in addition to his agricultural background and position as town sheriff, had a vineyard for wine production.

My grandmother many times talked about her family's winemaking and had encouraged us to not only practice traditional agriculture, but seriously consider the production of wine. For this reason, after several years of farming, we decided to plant grapes with the intention of selling the fruit to local winemakers since many wineries were being started locally and in other parts of the state. After several years of producing fruit for other wineries, Nicki and I were encouraged to start a winery with a friend who would be the winemaker and I would continue work the vineyard. Therefore, in 1995, an upstart winery, Shadwell-Windham (Shadwell being the birthplace of Thomas Jefferson, the first viticulturist and winemaker in the United States) was started. We produced approximately 400 to 500 cases of wine per year for a couple of years.

As many wineries began, everything was done in the basement of the main house, i.e. bottling with a gravity fed bottler, hand corking with a single corker, labeling by hand with the equivalent of Elmer's Glue, and finally heat capping with a hair dryer. Our family then went on to expand the winery under the name of Windham. Due to a name conflict, we eventually changed the label to Doukénie Winery in memory of and a tribute to our roots.

In 2000, we realized that the production of wine was a significant project and a formal winemaker was brought on board and eventually transitioned to our present winemaker (Sebastien Marquet). We are now producing approximately 4,000 to 5,000 cases of quality wine per year from 40 acres of vines. Our goal is to continue producing small quantities of superior wines with the intention of making Doukénie a destination for those interested in a beautiful country setting and to experience wines of excellence.

Nicki, George, and Hope