When thinking about wines, France, Italy, Spain, Chile and the Napa Valley come to mind first, rarely North Carolina or Virginia. Yet, a number of U.S. states are making big headway in developing their own wine-making culture. For example, in North Carolina many tobacco farms are being replaced by vineyards and wineries and the state authorities have encouraged this move. Growers have gotten assistance from local municipalities, most particularly with signage, directing visitors to nearby vineyards as a place for recreational fun.
Wineries are great places to visit for a day or even a weekend. They are emerging as popular touristic attractions. For example, the Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development of the North Carolina Department of Commerce operates VisitNCWine.com, which gives complete information about North Carolina wineries.
The Virginia Wine Marketing Office, the state Wine Board and a few other partners market Virginiawine.org, providing complete information about Virginia wineries. Even Kansas has a wine history. In fact, it was rootstock from Midwestern grapes that were used as a graft for European grape varieties, because of their resistance to the bacterial infections that plagued European vineyards in 1800s. The Kansas Viticulture and Farm Winery Association's kansasfarmwineries.com provides interested readers with all pertinent information about where to find wineries in Kansas.
Two weeks ago I decided to take my family to visit the Sheton Vineyards in North Carolina: the largest vineyard east of the Mississippi River. It was only a one-and-a-half-hour drive from Hickory. We set out from home at 9 o'clock in the morning. We arrived at our destination at about 10:30. The area is beautiful and the weather was great. We were greeted by Shelton's hospitable staff members and volunteers who welcomed us with warm Southern hospitality. They gave our children small bags of fish food so they could enjoy feeding the fish in the small lake located in the heart of the vineyard. There is a small island in the lake and there are several picnic tables where visitors can bring their food (no alcohol is allowed, as there is plenty of red, white and rose wine for sale) and have picnics while visiting the vineyard.
Tours and tastings are well organized. Before going there, some of our friends doubted that a visit to a vineyard would be interesting enough for the children to make for it to be a family day-vacation. I knew our children would learn something new, something good about nature that they wouldn't normally learn while carrying out their daily activities. Shelton's tour guides made certain that our kids enjoyed the tasting tour. They spoke to them at a level they could understand about the process of wine making. During the tour, while the adults were tasting various types of Shelton Vineyards wines, the kids were drinking grape juice. The wine-tasting activities included a guided tour of Shelton's 33,000-square-foot winery with an overview of the wine-making process, a tasting of five wines, and a souvenir wine glass. The tour costs $5 per person and the tours begin every 30 minutes.
After making our wine selections, we fed the fish in the tiny lake and went to The Harvest Grill restaurant, which is located on the grounds of Shelton Vineyards, for lunch. The patio seating at this upscale dining place has a bistro style atmosphere. (The restaurant also has a traditional dining room with a more formal atmosphere.) It gave us a sense of being intimately close to the grapes growing in the vineyard.
Then came the free hayride offered by Shelton. It takes about 30 minutes, but it is highly recommended. We all enjoyed every bit of it. On the way back we stopped at Raffaldini Vineyards and Winery. The architecture of this winery and the surrounding locations reminds the visitor of Tuscany. When telling them about this, the manager told us that it is the goal of the Raffaldini family: to create a little piece of Italy here in North Carolina.
Our trip to these two local wineries was such a pleasant experience that we have decided to spend the next few weeks visiting more local vineyards here in North Carolina. Only a decade ago there were only ten in the state. That number has grown to more than 110. So watch out Europe and South America; viticulture in the United States is on the rise.
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