Adventures in Clemmons, NC: Part Two

As Mr. B alluded to in his comment to my first post on this subject, we had a great process this time around for tasting (and ultimately buying) the wine.

While we were at the gate waiting to get in, they handed out a program of which wineries were there and where they were located. Right off the bat we were extremely disappointed to see that one of our past favorites at the festival, Rock House, was not in attendance, nor was Biltmore (no big loss since you can buy their wine in every local grocery store) or Shelton (this was another disappointment since Doc and Analee had highly recommended checking this winery out).

But, there were some other favorites there and some new ones (to us) that we thought we'd try out.

So, as earlier reported, we got into the gate, set up our picnic spot, and headed over to the wineries.

Because we were "first in the gate" and other patrons were busy getting their picnic spots arranged, there were not, at first, many people tasting. As Mr. B said, this made it far more enjoyable a) not to have to elbow our way up to the tasting tables and b) get to talk to the owners/wine makers (although not every winery we visited had informed people staffing their booths, most did).

First up was a winery that now I can't remember its name because we didn't like their wine so didn't buy any. I do remember, though, that the pourer poured the wine backwards, meaning, he started off with the dry red and moved down to the dry white (we did not want to taste any of their sweet wines). For those of you who don't know, the correct way to taste wine is from dry to sweet and typically they will begin with the dry whites, move to the semi-dry (off-dry; semi-sweet) whites, then on to the dry reds and finally end up with "dessert" wines (which is what a lot of people in NC drink like table wine...ugh) sherries, ports, etc.

We then ventured over to one we hadn't seen before called Hinnant Family Vineyards, which is located in Pine Level. http://www.hinnantvineyards.com/?www.catchwine.com Along with the standard "sweetie wines" using the predictable Muscadine grape (we heard from MANY wine makers that they don't LIKE to make sweet wine but since that is what the majority of their customers like, they do make it) they also had some dry wines. We liked (and bought) something called Norton. At first I thought that was its "brand" name and thought it was pretty funny to call a wine "Norton" but then realized I'd misunderstood the pourer when he was talking about the different grapes in the wine. I thought he was describing a meritage (or blend) of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Zinfandel but what he actually said was the grape itself is called Norton and it grows well in parts of NC but mostly in VA and KY. Well, he was right; this particular wine had flavors of all three of those grapes, finishing off with the nice spiciness of a good Zinfandel. Of course, Norton was the most expensive of the lot!

Next we stopped over to say "hi" to our friends at Rock of Ages http://www.rockofageswinery.com/index.html. You might recall that this is winery that had the Cork and Pork Festival that we went to (and I blogged about) in early May. By mutual agreement, we decided there was no sense in buying a bunch of wine from the wineries we could get to easily enough from home (plus we bought enough already from Rock of Ages at their festival) but, we elected to taste their wines, anyway, since it was hot and they'd brought along their nice "stainless" Chardonnay, semi-dry Riesling, and their two semi-sweet reds that, for whatever odd reason, we like. It might be the names; "Bushy Fork Red" and "Cork and Pork"! In any case, they sure taste great when you're warm!

Then, we went over to Black Wolf for the obligatory pictures in front of their banner (we do this every year). We tasted there, too; but, were pretty disappointed in their offerings. Like so many of the other vineyards, they brought mostly sweet wines with them (because that is what sells). In years' past, they had an excellent Cabernet Sauvignon but it was nowhere to be seen on this day. Oh well, we got our pictures, at least!

More soon on our two new favorite wineries and a few of our old stand-bys.

Mrs. B