Yadkin Valley Wineries

We were planning on visiting 5, but had to cut our trip short. We visited 3 wineries in the Yadkin Valley earlier this week.

Our first stop was The Old North State Winery. This winery is located in the heard of Mount Airy, also known as "Mayberry" to all of you Andy Griffith show fans. Old North State gets their grapes from various vineyards around the Yadkin Valley, they don't have their own vineyard. The building used to house dynamite and when they were re-doing the building to house the winery, they found a human arm in the basement. Creepy!

We were impressed with all of their wines and wish we had time to get a bite to eat in their restaurant. We bought 2 bottles of Restless Soul, a blend of Merlot, Cabernet and Chambourcin. This label features a skeletal arm and can be found in local stores. This would be an excellent wine to bring to a Halloween party. We also bought their 2005 38 vines Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine will go with anything.

Our next stop was The Black Wolf Vineyard. We had been told that this wine was not too impressive, but that they had a nice restaurant, so our expectations were already low. The vines looked lovely and the winery was housed in a log cabin with a pony grazing in front of it. When we walked in, it was completely empty. We waited, periodically asking if anyone was there. We proceeded to wander around the restaurant and went upstairs to find an office with some dude sleeping at his desk. We woke him up so he could give us a tasting. Home Slice looked like he should have been surfing or picking up chicks at a gym, not tending to a winery, but whatever. I wouldn't let this affect my judging of the wine. The wine was okay, not great, but would serve well as table wine. Home Slice didn't seem to know too much about the wines, so I don't have anything interesting to say about them. We had planned on going to restaurant for lunch, but decided against it. We bought a bottle of their Cabernet Sauvignon and left. We have no intentions of going back.

The final and best winery we went to was Ragapple Lassie. Ragapple Lassie is named after the owner's award winning pet cow. When you enter the winery you can see pictures of Ragapple Lassie with her owner, Frank. Ragapple Lassie has since passed on and is buried on the vineyard grounds.

We were especially lucky to have Frank give us a tasting. You would see a twinkle in his eye when he told us about his beloved pet cow. When he found out that Jim was a Geologist he plopped two large jars of arrowheads that were found on the grounds. They found enough arrowheads to full 15 jars!

Most people know the Ragapple Lassie wines by their interesting shaped bottles:


Frank's wife chose the bottle by ordering samples from all over the world. She lined them up and smashed the ones she didn't like until their was only one left. This bottle came from Italy.

All of their wines were fantastic, but we purchased a bottle of their Kaleidoscope Red, Kaleidoscope Gold and their Pinot Gris. The Kaleidoscope wines are blends, as you could probably guess. They experienced a freeze and had a limited supply of grapes, so they just blended everything together. The result is divine!