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[Music] [Music] there is just something about a good glass of wine and some mighty fine wine is being produced right here in North Carolina in fact what is happening in our state's wine industry is nothing short of phenomenal in 1980 North Carolina had just two wineries only one was producing wine from the types of European grapes most wine drinkers are familiar with like Chardonnay and Cabernet the other was making wine from our state's native muscadine grape so only two wineries in 1980 only eight in 1990 then 21 in 2000 but look what's happened since then today there are 110 wineries in our state I think the reason is that North Carolina is pretty good at growing grapes and producing good quality wine so let's take a quick wine tour of North Carolina our state's largest wine producer is Duplin winery in Rose Hill it makes muscadine wines little sweet taste of the south and that's what we have Asheville's Biltmore winery is the number two wine producer in our state but it's number one in visitors because of its iconic tourist attraction we're the most visited winery in the country we've got over a million visitors coming through the air a year calaboose cellars in Andrews is our state's smallest winery it's housed in an old jail 300 square feet includes a bathroom calaboose is production room is also the bottling shipping and tasting room we've had 18 in here and the rest have to wait outside oh that's Grandfather Mountain Theatre elf winery is North Carolina's highest winery and vineyard this is the hives in eastern United States it grows the same grapes grown in Europe's high elevations so we found the kind of grapes that they grow over there we've brought them back here and they do an excellent there are wineries along our coast - like vineyards on the scope or not the winery is located right on the Scuppernong River the river is named for the muscadine grape European settlers found growing on its banks centuries ago we have 15 different varieties of muscadines the Yadkin Valley area here in the States Piedmont has the most wineries raffled DD vineyards is the only one specializing in Italian grapes as far as I'm concerned this area would challenge the west coast hands-down some wineries have restaurants like the fine dining at Shelton vineyards harvest grille seasonal with a lot of emphasis on using as much local product as possible some wineries have lodging from bed and breakfast inns to cabins even tree houses every winery has its own unique twist childress vineyards in lexington has a nascar flavor because of owner Richard Childress we're very fortunate to have all the fans really support our winery everything from A to Z could be up here at some point here on one shelf or the other Larry Ehlers of Chateau Lorinda vineyard in Sparta makes most of his wine from fruit other than grapes we do blueberry wine strawberry wines plum wines and cherries raspberries apples pears even cantaloupes we use about every fruit that's common in the supermarket at one time or another at Sanders Ridge vineyard and winery in Boonville you can sip fine wine and you can ride a zipline you can't ride by Rama's here at divine llama vineyards in East bend but the llama will carry your wine for you on a trek through the woods you'll do that for anybody every winery has their own personality their own uniqueness but we also are all striving for a really good quality wine and they're succeeding the quality of our line is continually getting better and better next how the industry got this far it's not easy the one in the middle is the one that we believe is the original vine itself which may date to about fifteen eighty-six everyone has a mother so does North Carolina's wine industry it's the mother vine in Manteo maybe the oldest living grape vine in the world it's a Scuppernong vine some say Indians planted it European settlers found it and some believe Thomas Jefferson used cuttings from it to establish one of the country's first commercial wineries it's amazing just amazing our state's progress almost 200 years later former state senator fountain Odom authored the bill that made the Scuppernong North Carolina's official state fruit it just is easy to grow and it has a very good sweet natural taste to it and it also has unbelievable health benefits that helped make muscadines the foundation of our state's new wine industry our state's first commercial winery made muscadine wine when it opened in Halifax County in 1835 in that period 1830s 1840s 1850s you saw a gradual growth of the industry lots of small wineries for us all exclusively in the eastern part of the state North Carolina led the nation in wine production by the 1850s our state had 25 wineries but the civil war wiped out our wine industry starting in the 1870s and 1880s it sees a rebirth and in part it was it was encouraged because he was seen as a solution to rural poverty by 1900 the state's wine industry was thriving again prohibition comes destroy so many counties voted to stay dry after prohibition was repealed in 1933 so our state's wine industry struggled until the 1960s as a resurgent interest in the state concerning the role that wine production might play in alleviating rural poverty and there was growing demand for our grapes from other states the state of North Carolina is you know promoting grow muscadine grapes and sell them to a big winery out of New York Dave Fussell's dad couldn't pass up that wineries offer up $350 a ton for muscadine grapes so we started planting them and as we were waiting on our first big crop the price fell to 125 a to me so what the world a whole bunch of bad butts gonna do with a bunch of grapes we're Methodists now and got into the wine business the Fussell's opened Duplin winery in 1975 as a little kid I stomp grapes and lick labels and we made 20 cases of wine the first year and happened to sell it all Duplin winery now produces about 360,000 cases a year Lord oldest and the largest one man North Carolina it's no surprise that muscadine wine succeeds here it's a native grape that is relatively easy to grow and a lot of native North Carolinians like sweet muscadine wine the problem is is that it doesn't necessarily produce the wine that most people associate with wine which is wine made from European vanilla grapes the real problem with growing vanilla grapes in North Carolina is that every single known pests and disease that exists on vines exist in North Carolina so as a real real struggle that didn't stop Jack Criss Dallas and his wife Lillian we wanted to grow the kind of grapes that made the kind of wine we'd like to drink in 1972 Jack planted an acre of european vanilla grapes on some land along the Yadkin River just west of winston-salem by 1988 we had 30 acres of vineyard all planted in vain' infra we didn't know we weren't supposed to be growing Riesling and Chardonnay and 7l Blanc and Pinot Noir the vine is still growing the Chris Thomas has decided to open a winery called West Bend vineyards in 1988 the winery and Jack's vineyard is still going today he went against what everybody told him he couldn't do and that was kind of a challenge for him North Carolina's wine industry gained momentum in 1972 when state lawmakers cut winery license fees and wine taxes and when the Biltmore company opened a six and a half million dollar winery on the grounds of its estate in 1985 it exposed tourists from around the world to some of our wines so the opportunity for them to be in North Carolina taste wine that they like by choose to buy wine that they like think sets them up very nicely for visiting other wineries and being oh yes you can grow grapes in North Carolina yes North Carolina wine can be good in 1986 the state created the North Carolina wine and grape council to help support the industry with marketing and in 1990 grape growers and winemakers created the North Carolina wine Growers Association to help each other with knowledge how to get started some of the trials and tribulations some of the mistakes that have people have made to try to avoid that and minimize the costs the wine Growers Association started with 20 members now we have probably about 400 members next just how did that happen in such a short period of time we are where California was after 20 years [Music] it seems like there's a new winery opening every month in North Carolina we went from eight wineries to 110 in just 20 years so how did that happen so fast Charles and edge Shelton are part of the answer they retired from their successful Charlotte based construction business and open Shelton vineyards in Dobson in 2000 will we tell people that we lost our mind but their minds were focused on making their home County a nationally recognized wine-producing region they helped get the Yadkin Valley federally designated as an American viticulture area or a VA since then two more AVS have been established the Swan Creek and Hall River Valley a BAS what the ABA says is that basically the the grapes that are grown within the ABA are significantly different than the grapes that are grown outside of the ABA that gives our ABA wineries a federal stamp of approval that's valuable for marketing and then when you get to the road it's turn on that PTO and open those valves and you'll be good support from Shelton's and the golden leaf foundation also helped establish a viticulture and enology program at Surry Community College in 1999 viticulture is the science of growing wine grapes and analogy is the science of making wine a lot of people who have been there school graduated have their own winery now this school has its own working vineyard and winery the Shelton's helped fund a new five million dollar Center for viticulture and enology at Surry Community College in 2010 I think it was necessary for the development of the industry not only in this area but this region the whole wood region makes a statement we mean business Surry probably has a tie to nearly every winery in the state Juice students come from all over the country but most end up working in North Carolina many have degrees in other fields and were lured into the wine industry and so they were able to come here get the hands-on and immediately go to work or start a business future get going Frank Hobson went to Surry Community College to learn about growing wine grapes it was a challenges lots I didn't knows and as we live would learn how to treat the vines and what to expect we get better with growing them and staff Frank's wife Letta went to Surrey to learn about operating a tasting room and marketing a winery they were such leaders and stepping out and saying this can be great for our area and we want to be a part of it and we want to be supportive of it the Hobson's open drag Apple lassie vineyards in 2002 we were farmers first dairy farmers rageh policy was Frank's 4h show Kath then they were tobacco farmers we would go about 130 acres tobacco after the decline of tobacco the Hobson's wanted to keep their land in farming and decided to try wine grapes nothing else comes close to replacing the economic value of tobacco but the Hobson's didn't convert all their farmland to vineyards we still grow tobacco and soybeans a corn wheat and stuff that's what most large farmers switched their tobacco fields to but many smaller landowners either started growing wine grapes or sold their land to people who did the farmers didn't become the winemakers but the land subsequently became available for wineries as North Carolina became known as a wine producer it started drawing the attention of wealthy investors experts say that's essential to the industry's growth J raffle Dini is one of those investors right now I currently work on Wall Street he planted a vineyard in Ronda in 2001 and opened raffle Dini Vineyards and Winery in 2004 I was this New Yorker coming down and it was just few that I didn't know what I was doing but winemaking has been in raffle Dinis family for more than 600 years he says the climate here is like his family's native Tuscany so the history of wine growing is here and the climate is here Ravel DD says the most important thing to have is long term vision just like any successful Wall Street investor we're always working to BlackBerry's walk-in ahead that even if you lift your head up you can see the horizon and you're able to make better decisions because of that so what's on the horizon for North Carolina's wine industry who's to say that thirty years from now that one of the best wines in the world can't be from North Carolina to learn more about the WRAL documentary grape expectations and North Carolina's wine industry visit wral.com and type WRAL doc in the search box [Music] as North Carolina's wine industry grows so does its economic impact it's now about a 1.3 billion dollar industry it employs 7600 North Carolinians and it generates about 51 million dollars in local and state tax revenue talk about five different types of quarks not all of that business is just wine production this is the hydraulic press Gill Owens runs Carolina wine supply in Yadkinville it's right in the heart of wine country he sells everything from crushers to quarts everything used in a winery this is one of dozens of businesses that have sprouted with the growing wine industry first for five years we more than doubled in size each year like the grapes they grow wineries thrive in bunches because the more wineries the raw the more attracts people to come to visit the wondrous we have 31,000 people come through the door last year we have visitors who have been here from every state in the United States and several foreign countries taste everything today so you're gonna test your palates out the state's new wine tourism industry has hatched businesses like Yadkin Valley wine tours we are a pure tourism company here at Childress there's a multi-million dollar facility tour customers are driven to four wineries they get free tastings lunch and an education in wine we consider ourselves a wine education class on wheels anybody who has any interest in doing anything entrepreneurial in this area has the opportunity comfortable chip and sandy Thomas saw an opportunity to open a bed-and-breakfast in Yadkinville it caters to wine tourists probably 75% of our marketing is toward that they named their B&B the vintage in just kind of fit their inns guests are very close to the Yadkin Valley's 34 wineries they'll get up and have my breakfast of course and then they'll start tour in the turn wineries and typically they'll do three to four Suites Shelton vineyards Shelton vineyards built its own Hampton Inn Italian restaurant and gas station and convenience store just down the road from its winery it's all to serve the increasing number of tourists visiting its winery and others in the valley if you build it they will come mmm and that's what will happen here but it's not all rosy for our state's wine industry it faces challenges if it wants to continue to grow one is large wine producers from California South America and Australia filling grocery store shelves with wine that costs less than $10 a bottle we are small family-owned wineries so we can't sell it at $3 a bottle or $5 a bottle it's been aged in French oak for two years Steve Sheppard is not only the president of the state's wine Growers Association he's also the general manager and winemaker at raelynne vineyards in Mocksville he says more North Carolinians buying more North Carolina wine could really help the industry grow we're producing the wines right here and we're providing jobs right here I mean it's something that you know I think needs to be really can take into consideration when you're making your wine selections many winemakers say the quality of our state's wine is good and getting better every year many wine drinkers agree I like that including this couple from Napa Valley California who are here trying North Carolina why Fargo so far so good yeah North Carolina's wine industry needs that message to be heard through the grapevine it's not that difficult to grow grapes it's fairly straightforward to me the wine it's really hard to sell selling the wine is always going to be the biggest problem a California winemaker by the name of Robert Mondavi once had that very same problem he went
o New York and people laughed at him because he had California wine they don't laugh about California wines anymore and I see us doing the same thing with North Carolina wines those are great expectations for North Carolina grapes and wine [Music] [Music] you