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ORAL HISTORY
Charles Cowart and Charlie Cowart
Still Pond Winery
West of the city of Albany, in southwestern Georgia, not far from the Alabama line, three generations of Cowart men have grown grapes. First they grew for fresh, eating grapes, and later for wine. Charlie Cowart, the eldest of the three, managed a cattle farm and was the first to ponder the possibilities of wine when he planted fifty acres of muscadines in the 1970s. His son, Charles, leveraged that dream when, in 2003, he began making his own lime of Still Pond wine from Cowart-grown grapes.
Still Pond got its name from the spring-fed pond that dominates the property. Some say there was a Confederate brandy still that made peach brandy there during the Civil War. That may be a tall story, but digs into the dirt around the pond have revealed peach pit middens.
Today, a third generation of the Cowart family, Charlie (named for his grandfather) is the winemaker for Still Pond. He’s working to increase production and introduce drier wines made from muscadine grape varieties.
