JANUARY 8, 2009 issue
Shelter Highlights
WINE
Story by Sam Calhoun
Talk of new grape vineyards popping up across the High Country has been commonplace for years now, and the High Country’s first winery—Banner Elk Winery—is continuing to make a name for itself within the American wine industry. Last year brought more awards for Banner Elk Winery and saw the creation of the High Country Winegrowers Association—a group of local vintners, vineyard owners and wine business experts that hope to establish the High Country as the new Napa Valley. The High Country is now wine country, and the journey was documented on the Shelter cover throughout 2008.
Banner Elk Winery Wins Two Medals at Blowing Rock Food and Wine Festival
Published April 17, 2008
Banner Elk Winery, located at 60 Deer Run Lane in Banner Elk, won a gold medal for its Foch and a silver medal for its chardonnay at the Blowing Rock Food and Wine Festival in April 2008. Banner Elk Winery’s Foch won in the red hybrid grapes varieties category, and the winery’s chardonnay won second place in the white European grape varieties category.
“We’re really pleased with the awards,” said Dr. Richard Wolfe, co-owner of Banner Elk Winery. “The grapes were grown right here in the High Country. We’re putting in a lot more grapes this year so we can start production on a greater scale.”
The New Napa Valley—No, Really
High Country Winegrowers Association Forms, Develops Initiatives
Published July 24, 2008
The High Country is now wine country—at least that’s the concept supported by the newly formed High Country Winegrowers Association and a recent wine tourism study conducted for the NC Wine and Grape Council by professors at ASU.
Considering that dozens of vineyards have sprouted up around the High Country over the past few years, it was only natural that local vintners, vineyard owners and wine business experts would organize at some point in hopes of establishing the High Country as the new Napa Valley.
Sounds like a stretch? Not if you listen to members of the High Country Winegrowers Association, who held their first meeting in July 2008 at Creston Vineyards at Cherry Tree Farm. Thirty vineyard owners, winery owners and landowners from Watauga, Avery Ashe and Johnson counties interested in the future of vineyards, wineries and agri-tourism in the High Country attended the event.
The event coincided perfectly with the release of a wine tourism study conducted for the NC Wine and Grape Council by professors at ASU. The study polled 925 visitors to North Carolina wineries and shed an optimistic light on the boost to tourism that North Carolina wineries are bringing to the state.
“We’re doing something in the mountains now that they said we couldn’t do,” said Dr. Lucien Wilkins, owner of Spencer Mountain Vineyards, located off Isaac’s Home Road in Cove Creek. “We’ve found that this area is Bordeaux and we should be able to grow superior grapes up here.”
High Country Winegrowers Association Hosts Pre-Harvest Winemaking Seminar at Creston Vineyards September 23
Published September 18, 2008
The High Country Winegrowers Association hosted a free seminar on preparing to harvest wine grapes and basic winemaking in September 2008 at Creston Vineyards at Cherry Tree Farm in Creston.
Norm Oches and Marta Sanchez-Lastowska of the Oenology, Viticulture and Natural Products Group at ASU led the seminar, demonstrating the art and science of determining when wine grape harvest should occur; how grapes should be handled, crushed, and de-stemmed prior to winemaking; and the basic steps in High Country winemaking.
Oches and Sanchez-Lastowska demonstrated how to sample grapes in the vineyard and demonstrated the use of a hydrometer, a refractometer, pH and acid level instruments, use of winery cleaning agents, yeast, enzymes, yeast nutrients, fining agents and stabilizers.
“The objective here is to teach people and to have more people in this area making quality wines,” said Wilkins. “The bottom line is that we want people up here to produce the best wines that you would find anywhere—we have the terroir to do that; our area lends itself to it. The High Country Winegrowers Association wants to encourage others in this region to develop small vineyards; that is why this event is free and open to the public.”
A Banner Year For High Country Wine
Banner Elk Winery Wins Seven Medals at State Fair, Adds New Amenities
Published October 30, 2008
Watch out Napa Valley—now it’s official. Every variety of wine now served and produced by Banner Elk Winery is award winning.
Following multiple awards in 2006 and 2007, Banner Elk Winery came home with seven more medals from the 9th annual North Carolina State Fair Wine Competition that took place on October 8 and 9, 2008, in Raleigh.
“Every wine served at the winery has now won a medal over the past three years,” said Wolfe. “We’ve become a destination and doubled our sales so far in 2008.”
At 2008’s wine competition, Banner Elk Winery’s 2006 Chardonnay, 2007 Marechal Foch and 2006 Banner Elk Red took home silver medals, and Banner Elk Winery’s 2007 Seyval Blanc, 2007 Banner Elk White, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon and 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon received bronze medals.
At the 2007 North Carolina State Fair Wine Competition, Banner Elk Winery took home four bronze medals for its 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 Seyval Blanc, 2007 Rose and 2006 Chardonnay. In 2006, the winery won a double gold medal for its 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon and a bronze medal for its Blueberry Wine.
The bigger news for the future of sustainable agriculture in the region, though, is that all of the grapes grown and used to make all the wine now are grown in the High Country, a place where critics from California to the Yadkin Valley said it could not be done.
“We are growing primarily French-American hybrid grapes to withstand the temperatures up here. We’re not reinventing the wheel—it’s been done like this in France and Italy for years,” explained Wolfe. “This year our grapes were on the vine for six weeks longer than the Yadkin Valley. At this time of year, we have cool nights and warm days—ideal conditions to ripen grapes to perfection.”
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