Juanita Swedenburg left a legacy worthy of her American Revolutionary War ancestors when she died at her Middleburg winery. A champion of disintermediation, the ability of consumers and producers to deal directly across state lines without the involvement of a middleman, she fought long and hard to ensure that she could ship cases of her wines directly to customers across the nation. Her life had been fascinating and full before she and her husband decided to "retire" to Valley View Farm in Middleburg where she was actively involved in every aspect of the enology business. A native of Springfield, Illinois, she graduated from what is now known as Illinois State University at Normal and did graduate work at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Miami and the University of Michigan. Before she entered the Foreign Service, she taught high school English and French. She met her husband, Wayne, in Saigon in the fifties where he was an accountant and she was a personnel administrator. They married in 1953 and, according to the New York Times, soon began dreaming about where to retire. Valley Farm was a Lord Fairfax property and had been a working farm since 1792. After the Swedenburgs decided against a coffee plantation in Kenya or a cattle ranch in Costa Rica, the decided a winery in the beautiful agrarian area of Northern Virginia would suit them very well. They opened Swedenburg Winery in 1988. She was totally committed to her industry and furious that she could not ship her 2,000 annual cases directly to customers in other states. Described in the New York Times obituary as " a hard-charging woman whose personality was described as a mix of diplomacy, gruff charm and bullheadedness, Juanita Swedenburg was truly a grande dame of Virginia vintners. "As a descendant of settlers who fought in the American Revolution, she was outraged that such a stupid law could exist in a nation with the greatest free-enterprise system in the world," according to Clint Bolick in his book, "David's Hammer, The Case for an Activist Judiciary." Bolick, a specialist on judicial activists and a co-founder of the Institute for Justice in Washington, D.C., was immensely helpful to Mrs. Swedenburg, as she shaped and drove her case to a successful decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. "She understood that freedom of commerce among the states was one of the principal motivations for creating the U.S. Constitution," he noted. "By giving Congress the authority to regulate commerce, individual states could not set up barriers at their border to protect state industries from out-of-state competitors." The founders believed that this sort of protection by the states would greatly inhibit the country's prosperity, and Juanita Swedenburg agreed. She was determined to ensure that the framers of the constitution be heard in the 21st century, and, although the "big boy distributors" did everything in their power to stop her. When she won her case, the victory was very sweet. According to Bolick, she believed the case was a vindication of the American legal system because, in few other nations could one small entrepreneur prevail over the powerful combination of massive commercial interests and state governments. "Her triumph demonstrates that ours truly is a nation governed by the rule of law," wrote Bolick. "Mrs. Swedenburg's victory is worthy of a hearty toast of a very fine glass of wine." Mrs. Swedenburg is survived by her son, Marc, a brother and her granddaughter. Her husband died in 2004, one year before the Supreme Court ruling.