PLAN A WINE ADVENTURE

Photo courtesy of Cloer Family Vineyards

Photo courtesy of Cloer Family Vineyards

EXPLORE VITICULTURAL OFFERINGS IN THE TRIANGLE AND BEYOND

BY CAITLYN WHEELER

Like its barbecue and beaches, North Carolina’s wineries are eclectic, unique and worth getting to know. From nearby Cloer Family Vineyards just off the American Tobacco Trail in Apex, to 70-acre Childress Vineyards at the base of the Yadkin Valley, Triangle residents have convenient access to a variety of wine adventures in all directions.

North Carolina has a surprisingly robust viticultural history. The oldest cultivated grapevine in the U.S., the gnarled “Mother Vine,” is on Roanoke Island in Manteo. The U.S.’s most visited winery is the Biltmore Estate Winery in Asheville (it draws more than a million guests a year). And, before Prohibition, North Carolina’s “Virginia Dare” wine, made near Medoc Mountain, was one of the country’s best-selling brands. (The Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Sonoma, California, now owns and celebrates this wine.)

Over the last 20 years, the Tar Heel state has re-embraced their viticultural promise, claiming more than 200 wineries from Manteo to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Vintners are producing not only sweet wines from Muscadine grapes, which have traditionally grown well in the Sandhills and Piedmont regions, but also a variety of dry, European-style wines from vinifera grapes, which favor the mountains’ hillier landscape and milder temperatures.

As the North Carolina wine industry accumulates accolades, discover how the “terroir” (climate and soil) here affects this ancient beverage. Many wineries offer more than wine: verdant views, excellent food, live music, grape-stomping festivals—even sporting events. Best of all, their winemakers will woo you with passionate personal stories and their individual approach to making wine. Let’s take a tour.

Photo courtesy of Botanist and Barrell

Cloer Family Vineyards

8624 Castleberry Road Apex, North Carolina 27523 919.387.5760 cloerfamilyvineyards.com

In 2010, Tam Cloer, the second-generation owner of an 18-acre farm and family landscaping business in Apex, pursued a personal passion by opening Cloer Family Vineyards. Tam learned the fine art of winemaking from an elderly neighbor growing up, and has been continually grateful for the generous mentorship he received from the North Carolina winemaking community. He now offers wine tastings to delighted family and friends, and produces 600 cases of wine a year. “Tam is the winemaker, I’m the taster,” says Tam’s wife, Pam Cloer, who manages the winery. “It works out great.”

At first, the Cloers experimented with growing vinifera and French hybrid grapes, but after years of fighting off mold and mildew, Tam turned to a team of horticultural researchers at North Carolina State University who recommended planting Muscadine grapes, which are native to our state. The plants thrived. The Cloers now use the grapes they grow in Apex to make dry muscadine wines, and rely on grapes grown in the North Carolina mountains to make European-style wines. “They’ve got a very distinct taste,” Pam says of their muscadine wines. “Some people say they taste just like true Southern hospitality.”

The only winery in the Triangle with a vineyard, Cloer Family Vineyards offers beautiful outdoor patios and spaces for a picnic, or just to sip wine. And there is more to experience than wine. “Little kids love our sheep,” Pam says.

Many of their guests come by bike via the American Tobacco Trail, or park their cars at the winery and use it as a starting point to bike the trail, saving the wine tasting as a treat at the end of their ride. The winery is open Fridays and Saturdays, and all five of the wineries’ wines are included in the Cloer Family Vineyard flight.

Photo by LumiNola/Getty Images

Photo courtesy of Cloer Family Vineyards

Chatham Hill Winery

8245 Chapel Hill Road Cary, North Carolina 27513 919.380.7135 chathamhillwine.com

Calling itself “an urban winery in the heart of North Carolina,” Chatham Hill Winery offers local art, live music on Fridays, and a variety of North Carolina wines. Established in 1999 at the beginning of North Carolina’s wine revival, Chatham Hill Winery’s winemakers have spent the last 20 years perfecting wines that reflect the terroir of its sourced grapes—that is, the North Carolina mountains.

Head winemaker Richard Maestri fell hard for the winemaking process while visiting Chatham Hill Winery years ago. He returned to volunteer—first to help with bottling, then to take on more complex roles. He entered the realm of winemaking after becoming close with the winery’s original winemaker, Marek Wojciechowski, who had a Ph.D. in chemistry and an infectious passion for wine.

“We can’t grow the grapes we want in the Triangle,” Maestri says. So, they source most of them from vineyards located in the North Carolina mountains. They take meticulous care to ensure the fruit meets their standards, and stay in constant touch with growers as the harvest approaches. Maestri tests FedEx packages of grapes for sugar and acidity levels until the grapes are just right. “Every year is different,” he says. “The harvest is very dependent on temperatures and rainfall. You have to play with what you get.”

Maestri prefers grapes that thrive in North Carolina’s heat and humidity, which leads Chatham Hill Winery to specialize in some lesser-known wines, like cabernet franc and viognier. Maestri’s personal goal is to “use North Carolina’s strengths” to create a full-bodied wine that is “full of aroma and flavor but with a smooth, easy finish.” His broader goal is to make wines that his customers— with all their different taste palettes—will love.

Photo courtesy of Honeygirl Meadery 105 Hood Street, #6 Durham, North Carolina 27701 919.399.3056 honeygirlmeadery.com

“People come to mead with different preconceptions,” says Diane Currier, owner and mead maker at Honeygirl Meadery. She notes that some people associate mead with its historic use as a tonic, or with the syrupy sweet drink served at Renaissance fairs, or with “The Hobbit” or “Game of Thrones.”

But along with the popularity of craft beers and ciders, mead has become a new “it” beverage. “There has been an explosion of attention,” says Currier, whose own interest was sparked by a hike through a field of fireweed flowers in Alaska, followed by drinking a glass of fireweed mead and “seeing the connection between the beautiful, fragrant flowers and the honey-based wine.”

Mead relies on sweet honey for its primary fermentable sugar, but Honeygirl’s meads range from bone dry to semisweet. The unique result, Currier says, is similar to wine. It consists of 12% alcohol and pairs perfectly with a savory meal, reflecting the seasonality of its ingredients with just “a perception of honey on the tongue,” she says.

Honeygirl’s classic dry Bourbon Barrel-Aged Wildflower Mead won the 2020 drink of the year in Our State’s Made in NC Awards, and Currier hopes to spread the word about her many other mead styles and flavor expressions. “In some, we capture a seasonal taste using fresh local fruit or flowers,” she says. “In others, we use herbs.”

In summer, she makes a blueberry mojito mead, which includes blueberries, honey, lime and mint. For the holidays, she likes to make mead with cranberries, honey and white grapes. In addition to wine-style meads, Honeygirl makes apple meads, or “cysers,” which are aged in a bourbon barrel. She also makes sparkling meads called “session meads,” which consist of 7% alcohol and taste more like cider.

If you visit Honeygirl Meadery, try a mead flight or schedule a mead-maker tour. Currier recommends bringing a picnic or ordering via DoorDash from a downtown Durham hotspot, then purchasing a bottle of mead to enjoy with it while sitting at one of the meadery’s outdoor tables.

Photo courtesy of Honeygirl Meadery

Photo courtesy of Honeygirl Meadery

105 Persimmon Hill Lane Cedar Grove, North Carolina 27231 919.644.7777 botanistandbarrel.com

As a lifelong farmer, Lyndon Smith fully understands how important, delicious and superior fresh produce is, and wondered why he couldn’t find any fresh, natural, local ciders or wines in the South. Along with his wife, Amie Fields (a certified pommelier); his sister, Kether Smith; and her husband Deric McHenry (both culinary experts), Smith founded Botanist and Barrel. Their goal: to produce natural, minimalist wines and ciders. The team makes wines under the “DéFi” label. Why “DéFi”? “No one thought we could do it,” Smith says.

The use of French is also a nod to the foursome’s various French ancestries and their shared admiration for the French tradition of making natural wines. DéFi wines are “pét-nat,” which means they are naturally sparkling wines that were fermented in the bottle rather than with added sugars and yeasts.

Despite the French reference, Botanist and Barrel is not trying to compete with European wines. “‘Just as good as?’ is the wrong question,” Fields points out. “When we make cider or wine, we would love to kick butt versus the European cideries, but that’s not the right lens. The right approach is to focus on what we have right here in North Carolina to make the best possible product.”

Fields describes Botanist and Barrel’s natural wines and ciders as “serious,” “adventurous” and “very local.” To that end, Smith has become a collector of ugly fruit that is still sweet and flavorful, but has been cast off by North Carolina farmers because it isn’t “pretty enough” to sell to consumers. Through his network of farmers, he receives blackberries, pineapples and apples for Botanist and Barrel's wines and ciders.

The fruit taste, Fields says, captures the very essence of the fruit without being overpowering. “Like having a glass of Champagne with a strawberry in it,” she explains.

“Stop by so we can geek out with you,” Smith encourages. “We are incredibly passionate about what we do and want you to have a unique experience.”

Go for the wines and ciders, and stay for the food trucks and pop-ups that routinely show up at the farm. “We get weird, fun stuff,” Smith says of the vendors: “raclette, oysters, lobster dogs and vegan options.”

In addition to the cidery and winery in Cedar Grove, Botanist and Barrel offers a tasting bar and bottle shop in Asheville. Learn more about its offerings at botanistandbarrelasheville.com.

Photo courtesy of Botanist and Barrel

Thomas Barwick/Getty Images

Photo courtesy of Grove Winery

Grove Winery

7360 Brooks Bridge Road Gibsonville, North Carolina 27249 336.584.4060 grovewinery.com

Just an hour northwest of Raleigh, the Haw River Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA) is the closest of North Carolina’s five federally recognized grape-growing regions to the Triangle. The Grove Winery, a great place to start a Haw River winery tour—or to visit as a destination on its own—concentrates on classic, Europeanstyle wines, including a multi-award-winning malbec and nebbiolo.

Winemaker Max Lloyd grew grapes for commercial distribution on a Virginia farm for 30 years before returning to the Triangle to start making his own wine. “One of the cool things about North Carolina wine is the diversity of grapes that grow here,” he says. “We’ve got traditional grapes that make fine cabernet and chardonnay. But we also have the state fruit—the muscadine grape—as well as fruits like blackberries and strawberries, which make excellent, slightly sweet wines.”

Just 900 yards from the Haw River, and a couple miles from the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, Grove Winery is a hub for bikers, hikers and paddlers. The winery hosts annual bike rides and occasional paddle dinners through The Haw River Canoe & Kayak Co. For those who opt to arrive by horseback, there is even a hitching post—and the winery offers riding trails around its extensive vineyards.

1000 Childress Vineyards Road Lexington, North Carolina 27295 336.236.9463 childressvineyards.com

Less than two hours away, Childress Vineyards offers a great starting point for a weekend on the Yadkin Valley Wine Trail. Southern comfort meets Italian elegance with its Tuscan villa, popular bistro, regular events calendar and, of course, awardwinning wines. (Childress Vineyards wines have garnered more than 500 awards.)

When Richard Childress, former NASCAR driver and current NASCAR team owner, opened the winery in 2004, there were only 30 wineries in North Carolina. “There was a stigma around North Carolina wine,” says Morgan Brookshire, communications director at the winery. “Richard wanted to prove that a local vineyard could produce California-quality wines.”

To reach this goal, Childress recruited Mark Friszolowski, a world-renowned winemaker from New York. Together they built a brand and, along the way, helped bolster the state industry. Friszolowski has twice served as president of the North Carolina Winegrower’s Association.

If you’ve got a full day, Brookshire suggests starting with a wine tasting. “We’ve got an incredible variety of wines that cater to everyone’s taste,” she says. You can bring your glass anywhere on the extensive grounds.

Next, Brookshire recommends taking the winery tour, then having lunch in the bistro with its 360-degree vineyard view. “The wine slushy is super popular on a summer afternoon,” she adds.

Childress Vineyards hosts local bands every weekend from May through October. It also features an annual “grape stomping harvest party” in September, and several themed parties throughout the year.

Photo courtesy of Grove Winery Photo courtesy of Childress Vineyards Photo courtesy of Childress Vineyards

NC WINE TRAILS

If you’re feeling more ambitious—longing for the Napa or Loire valleys, but not interested in the price tag—consider exploring North Carolina’s more distant wine trails.

“The question is: What kind of wine adventure are you looking for?” asks Whit Winslow, executive director of the North Carolina Wine and Grape Council. “And our response is: North Carolina has it.” Stay a night in a treehouse at Treehouse Vineyards in Monroe, he suggests, or take a ferry ride from Duck to Sanctuary Vineyards in Currituck. Relax and enjoy the classic wine-country view at the Raffaldini Vineyards or Piccione Vineyards in Swan Creek.

The council’s website at ncwine.org has photos and descriptions of 120 North Carolina wineries to inspire your trip. In addition to five wine trails and three classic geographic areas, the website lists North Carolina’s five American Viticultural Areas, as designated by the federal government in recognition of their distinctive climates and soil. They include: Appalachian High Country, Haw River Valley, Swan Creek, Upper Hiwassee Highlands and Yadkin Valley. You can use the site to create a wine itinerary with any of these delineations as a starting point, or come up with your own weekend escape by selecting certain parameters. “After a year of hunkering down, people are coming out in droves to enjoy the great weather and a glass of wine at these beautiful places,” Winslow says.