VENI, VIDI, VINUM: How Two Italians Achieved a 200-Year-Old Dream of Virginian Wine. “Since Thomas Jefferson first tried, growing European vines had always failed.”

This is actually from last year, but ran across it while enjoying a little light reading with lunch:

Op-eds criticized them as buffoons. Locals cracked jokes about them being in the Mafia. An arsonist burned down the barn housing their winery. Farmers who had planted French-hybrid vines spoke out against them. Officials viewed them with suspicion—as if the endeavor were actually a ruse to undermine the East Coast’s so-called wine industry or mislead local farmers.

When Virginia’s commissioner of agriculture ascertained what was happening, he summonsed Rausse to a conference room in Richmond. For two hours, 24 scientists and professors took turns lecturing. Plant pathologists explained American diseases and virologists told of native viruses. One after another, they said Rausse would fail. The meeting adjourned with the commissioner pointing to a cigar box: “Tobacco is the real future of agriculture in Virginia, not wine.” A Virginia Tech professor added, “The moment you get a Virginia farmer excited about something that does not make any sense, we have a duty to step in and stop you.”

Rausse says he did not like being told what he couldn’t do.

He then went on to make lots of award-winning Virginia wines, and in the process almost single-handedly jump-started quality East Coast winemaking.

I very much doubt our experts in any field have gotten smarter, better informed, or wiser in the last 40 years. Or as Heinlein wrote just a few years before Rausse was told what he couldn’t do, “Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.”