You have arrived at the online home of Chateau Z Vineyard. Chateau Z is a late 19th century farm home built by Mr. James B. Peters around 1897 in a broad valley on the eastern side of Tobacco Row Mountain in central Amherst County, Virginia. The previous farm house on the property was a log home, probably built by William Beverley of Monacan Indian heritage, sometime around the civil war. The old log home has been used as a barn since Mr. Peter's built the current chateau. An Italian tile barn was constructed adjacent to the old log home/barn by Mr. William Uniss in the early 1970's and now houses the chateau's vineyard equipment.

There is a lot of "we" in this website and it refers to Drs. Clifford and Rebecca Ambers, both Ph.D. holders in geology. Cliff takes care of all vineyard business including all farm labor. Rebecca is an associate professor in Environmental Studies at nearby Sweet Briar College.

Well, a chateau is a house, which is where we live. "Z" refers to Cliff's father Anthony's birth surname which was "Zamborsky." Tony served on Navy Pier in Chicago during WWII as an instrumentation instructor and having a 'Z' name, received his paycheck after all the other sailors. He often recounted the story of getting his paycheck after most of the rest of the sailors had spent theirs. He told us that he decided then to lose the 'Z' so his children wouldn't be at the end of the list. He dropped the 'Z' from Zamborsky, removed the 'ky' and changed the 'o' to an 'e' to arrive at "Ambers." And here we are! There have been many times it has been nice to be at the front of the line and we remember it in the name of our vineyard. Tony was also a "grape nut", as well as an avid gardener and orchardist. His passion lives on in our vineyard.

Shown at right is Tobacco Row Mountain viewed from the Blue Ridge to the southwest. Chateau Z is on the opposite side of the mountain from this view.