Yadkin River Wine Trail

The Sixth Annual Yadkin Winter Reds wine event offered two weekends of wonderful wine and food in Yadkin County. It was a great opportunity to visit Yadkin County wineries and taste the variety of wines they produce.

Brian and I attended the first weekend of the wine and food pairings on January 31, visiting the wineries on the Yadkin River Wine Trail and a new winery that opened last year. All the wineries featured their “Winter Red” (a 2-ounce pour) with a serving of a food selected to pair with the wine. Website: www.yadkinriverwinetrail.com

Our first stop on the Yadkin River Wine Trail was Cellar 4201, a boutique style family-owned vineyard located on Apperson Road in East Bend, only 15 minutes from Winston-Salem. The owners/vintners, Greg Hutchins and Donna Carlyle Hutchins, who live on the property, focus on growing premium grapes in small lots that produce hand-crafted wines in limited-case production.

Cellar 4201 has a large outdoor patio with several umbrella-covered tables.

We received a bag with tickets and wine glasses for the event, and a map of the wineries in Yadkin Valley. They served Herb Roasted Pork Loin paired with Limited Edition Sangiovese, their signature Chianti-style wine. Cellar 4201 is a great winery to visit with friends for a game of cornhole on the lawn. They also host private parties, weddings, and corporate events. Website: www.cellar4201.com

The Divine Llama Vineyards, off Macedonia Road in East Bend is owned by Michael West and Tom Hughes, who were architectural students at Virginia Tech. Years later when working together as architects in Winston-Salem, they purchased 77 acres in the Yadkin Valley Appellation in 2006. They currently have a five-acre vineyard and twenty acres of pastures for llama and miniature horses.

The llamas at Divine Llama Vineyards gather against a brilliant Carolina sky
and a view of Pilot Mountain.
(Photo courtesy of Tom Hughes of Divine Llama Vineyards)

Both families have homes on the property, and there is a nice tasting room with picnic tables in the yard. Divine Llama Vineyards offers llama treks throughout the year – which is on my list of things to do in Yadkin Valley. We enjoyed In a Heartbeat, a semi-dry red blend, paired with Chocolate Cake made with the same wine. Website: www.divinellamavineyards.com

The Divine Llama Vineyard tasting room has chairs on the porch and picnic tables on the lawn.
(Photo courtesy of Tom Hughes of Divine Llama Vineyards)

Flint Hill Vineyards, also in East Bend, is located on land that has been in the Doub family for over one hundred years, earning the Century Family Farm designation from the United States Department of Agriculture. Tim and Brenda Doub realized the valuable lessons learned by growing up on a farm and they wanted the same family living for their children.

Flint Hill Vineyard’s tasting room is a historic farmhouse in a beautiful setting.
(Photo courtesy of Brenda Doub at Flint Hill Vineyards)

The tasting room is a restored 1800s farmhouse, nestled among century-old oaks with a picnic area. They paired delicious chili with Tres Cerise, a new release made from all three of their estate grown reds: Chambourcin, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah. Last year Flint Hill added a wood-fired grill to their patio where they have Pizza Nights with Handmade Artisan Wood-Fired Pizzas and live music on certain Sunday evenings beginning in May. Flint Hill has Wine-Pairing Dinners throughout the year. Check their website for specific dates. Website: www.flinthillvineyards.com

The newest winery in the area is Sweet Home Carolina, on Old US 421 in Yadkinville. When John and Lyn Layton-Koren retired to Yadkin Valley from Virginia Beach, VA, they realized that they had settled in the heart of North Carolina wine country! They visited wineries in the area to learn about growing grapes and making wine. The 23-acre property has a history as a booming hub for moonshiners, and remnants of stills can be seen among the trees by the edge of the creek.

Sweet Home Carolina has a beautiful stone fireplace in the tasting room,
where they served soup & bread paired with wine.
(Photos courtesy of Lyn Layton-Koren of Sweet Home Carolina)

Sweet Home Carolina includes the vineyard, winery, tasting room, private home, art studio, and a miniature horse and donkey farm. Their wines include the Artist Series – Lyn’s personal series of wines with labels depicting her original works of art. They served Creamy Potato and Sausage Soup with Home Baked Bread paired with Wild Thing, a sweet red Chambourcin. After the wine and food pairing, we walked to the farm to see the miniature horses and donkeys. When we walked up to the fence, they all came trotting through the field to see us. Website: sweethomecarolinawinery.com

Mary Ann enjoyed feeding hay to the miniature horses and donkeys at Sweet Home Carolina.

RagApple Lassie Vineyards, on Rockford Road in Boonville, was a dairy farm when Frank Hobson, Jr. was growing up. Active in 4-H, he raised a Grand Champion Show Calf named RagApple Lassie.

The cow sculpture greets visitors at RagApple Lassie Vineyards.

Frank, Jr. was a successful tobacco farmer for many years, but when allotments for tobacco farmers were reduced by 53 percent, he joined other farmers looking for alternative crops to help replace lost income. Researching the possibility of planting a vineyard, he planted one of the first vineyards in the area in 2000. His wife Lenna, a marketing professional, encouraged him to build a winery, which they named after his show calf, RagApple Lassie. The building, designed by a UNC-C School of Design architect, looks like a typical farm building in Yadkin County, including the silo. Constructed of common galvalume and concrete, it houses the fermenting tanks, the wine tasting room, gift shop and café, as well as an underground wine cellar, with a 40-foot wall mural.

RagApple Lassie served lamb stew paired with Syrah. Lenna’s tasting notes describing the wines read like a romance novel, which adds to the enjoyment of the wine-tasting experience. The Hobson’s Guest House is now available for rentals. Website: www.ragapplelassie.com

Sanders Ridge Vineyards, on Round Hill Rd. in Boonville, our last stop, is a Century Designated farm consisting of old growth forest, known as “The Big Woods”, marshland, creeks, lakes, and open fields. John Benjamin Shore settled the original 800 acres in 1847. His great-great grandson, Neil Shore, is the fifth generation of Shore farmers to work the land on Sanders Ridge. The beautiful winery and restaurant opened in 2009. Sanders Ridge wines, made from the grapes grown in the 15-acre vineyard, are crafted in an on-site winery.

Sanders Ridge Vineyards has a rustic post and beam architecture, in “The Big Woods” next to a pond.
(Photo courtesy of Cindy Shore of Sanders Ridge Vineyards)

Sanders Ridge was the first winery in North Carolina to produce a boxed wine – Carlos Muscadine, (my favorite wine from Yadkin Valley). We had Mini NC Grassfed Peppercorn Encrusted Beef Sliders, paired with Big Woods, a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. Later we enjoyed a delicious dinner in their Hearth Restaurant, our favorite restaurant in Yadkin Valley. (Be sure to try their pimento cheese!)

Sanders Ridge Vineyards also has the Hearth Restaurant.
(Photo courtesy of Cindy Shore of Sanders Ridge Vineyards)

Neil and his wife Cindy produce USDA certified organic vegetables, herbs, and cut flowers, which are used at the restaurant. Sanders Ridge also has the Big Woods Zip Line, a fun zip line course between platforms in the Big Woods. They recently opened The Cabin at Sanders Ridge, for a cozy get-away in Yadkin Valley! Website: www.sandersridge.com

The wineries on the Yadkin River Wine Trail have events throughout the year. Check the www.yadkinriverwinetrail.com website or the website and Facebook pages of the individual wineries.