NC Wine Country News & Events

The April showers have been ample and the vines are budded all across North Carolina’s verdant wine country. Wine has proven itself one of the most popular and lucrative agricultural, agritourism and value-added production success stories since the demise of Big Tobacco, and the many public offerings of wine country promise to remain one of the strongest sectors of the important North Carolina tourism industry in these troubled economic times.

First, in a big first for NC’s wine industry, the Duplin Winery in Rose Hill near Cape Fear, has become the first North Carolina winery – the first winery outside the west coast, in fact – to have earned the Adams Beverage Group Fast Track Brand award as well as the Impact Hot Brands Award from Wine Spectator publications.

Duplin’s champagne is being served at Mount Vernon, its Magnolia was named a favorite summertime wine by Martha Stewart. The winery now has a 1 million gallon capacity and receives over 100,000 visitors annually. There are daily tours and tastings, weekly music with wine and cheese in the courtyard, and even a popular dinner theater.

In other news, the Haw River Valley is now the third wine growing district in North Carolina to receive federal recognition as an “American Viticultural Area” [AVA], establishing that grapes grown in the 868 square mile area produce distinctive wines. The piedmont valley joins previously recognized AVAs in the high country Yadkin Valley and Swan Creek within Yadkin’s broader AVA. This brings multiple piedmont vineyards and six wineries into the prestigious designation and is a significant boost to the wine and viticulture industries expanding in our state.

Check out some of the coming season’s events at Visit Alamance, beginning with the Art on the Haw River Wine Trail on May 2 and 3, 2009. This is a free for the whole family event and will combine a winery tour and tastings with exhibitions and demonstrations of fine arts in the style of traditional artist studio tours. Visitors can travel the 50-mile scenic drive through the heart of the rural piedmont to find unique, hand crafted furniture, hand blown glass, distinctive pottery, metal sculptures, paintings and photographs, collectable quilts and fiber arts, the cultural crafts and fine arts kept alive and thriving by the friendly people in this friendly region.

North Carolina currently ranks 10th in the nation for wine and grape production and is home to more than 80 fine wineries. That’s triple the number that existed in 2001, so this diverse agriculturally-based value-added industry continues to lead the way as a valuable model of successful rural development in this time of general economic insecurity.

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