Nicholas Longworth was an American real estate speculator and winemaker as well as the founder of the Longworth family in Ohio. Longworth was an influential figure in the early history of American wine, producing sparkling Catawba wine from grapes grown in his Ohio River Valley vineyard. He also made significant contributions supporting the arts, impacting the careers of Robert S. Duncanson, Hiram Powers, and others.

Catawba is a red American grape variety used for wine as well as juice, jams and jellies. The grape can have a pronounced musky or "foxy" flavor. Grown predominantly on the East Coast of the United States, this purplish-red grape is a likely a hybrid of the native American Vitis labrusca and the Vitis vinifera cultivar Semillon. Its exact origins are unclear but it seems to have originated somewhere on the East coast from the Carolinas to Maryland.