Ohio owes the rich heritage of its wine industry to Nicholas Longworth, whose passion for growing native grapes and producing fine wine led to the development of the Ohio wine industry in the nineteenth century. The five-foot-one “crazy Jerseyman” came to Cincinnati from Newark in 1803 at the age of twenty-one with little more than the clothes on his back.

John Michael Meier, a Bavarian farmer, planted 600 acres of Catawba grapes on his homestead just north of Cincinnati about where Kenwood Town Center is now located. But it was his son, John Conrad Meier, who set Meier's on its way as a major force in the commercial wine industry. His discovery of a method of bottling fresh grape juice and maintaining its delicate flavor resulted in the John C. Meier Grape Juice Company.

As Ohio 's oldest and largest winery, Meier's is perhaps most famous for the John C. Meier line of Sparkling Non-alcoholic juices which are sold throughout the United States .