The tobacco crop from Frank Hobson’s farm.
I’m driving with 67-year-old Frank Hobson through numbered rows of Zinfandel whose seeds aren’t dark enough yet to indicate full ripeness. (“Another three weeks,” says Frank.) We pass ridgelines dense with red-brown pinot gris and roll slowly past fields of marsanne, syrah and cabernet sauvignon. “Mmm, that’s good,” he says, stopping to savour a couple of chardonnay grapes and spitting out the seeds. “Won’t be long now.” It’s easy to forget he hasn’t always run a vineyard, until we pull up to a drying rack. “Put your face in there,” he directs, motioning to a stack of golden-leaf bundles. I breathe in the rich aroma of molasses. It’s Hobson’s remaining crop of burley and flue-cured tobacco – which is down to 25 acres’ worth from the 200 he cultivated in the mid-1990s.
Barrels of wine in the cellar at RagApple Lassie Vineyards.
For most of his life, Hobson has been a tobacco farmer, as passionate about the nicotiana leaf as he is about his new vice: grapevines. He began smoking when he was six and still smokes, but it hasn’t hurt his palate, which his wife, Lenna, says is better than hers. They are among the farm families here who survived the slow death of tobacco – with big companies now sourcing cheaper ingredients overseas – thanks to the rebirth of wine. The Hobsons’ RagApple Lassie Vineyards in Boonville, North Carolina, named for a pet calf who tagged along on Frank’s trips to the swimming creek when he was a boy, is one of 31 wineries in the Yadkin Valley appellation, stretching from the Piedmont to the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Already, RagApple was named a finalist for best new winery in the U.S. by the Wine Appreciation Guild.
Yadkin Valley soil – a deep sandy loam – is apparently as good for grapes as for tobacco. No surprise, considering that pre-Prohibition, North Carolina produced more wine than any other state. Neil Shore of Sanders Ridge vineyard and winery, a sixth-generation Yadkin Valley dweller and tobacco farmer for 40 years, points out that alcohol once spawned a thriving economy in these parts. His relatives shipped whiskey in barrels all over the country in the 1800s. “There were four stills in our family,” he says, “and one belonged to my great-great-grandfather,” whose homestead is across from Shore’s property.
At RagApple Lassie Vineyards, the petit verdot varietal grows right behind the farm’s tobacco plants. (Photo: Courtesy of RagApple Lassie Vineyards.)
From the porch overlooking the pond and fields at Sanders Ridge, I hear a chirp that turns out to be a computerized distress call. “It sounds like a bird saying, ‘He’s got me! He’s got me!” Shore mimics, pleased to scare away would-be moochers of his nine varietals. While tobacco and grapes require similar skills to cultivate – both are labour-intensive and demand plants of uniform size – vineyards have one problem tobacco didn’t: wild turkeys, birds, raccoons and bears. “We have all kind of critters here. Everything loves to eat the grape,” Shore says.
The restaurant and winery are a honeymoon project for Neil, who’s 60 but looks younger, and wife, Cindy, whose petite frame, long hair and glasses give her an Earth-mother vibe. She tends the farm’s organic vegetables, herbs and flowers, and plans nature walks for visitors on the property’s trails. While the Shores are helping customers, I watch the flash of bass, sunfish and crappie in the pond and the boy who’s trying to catch them. When I step into the mountain lodge built of southern white pine timbers, I can’t decide where to go first. Choices include the gleaming stone fireplace and tasting bar, with Shore’s great-grandfather Sanders presiding in the photo above; the restaurant with fried green tomatoes, pulled pork and other enticements; and couches to sprawl upon after enjoying the first two spots. It’s too rainy today to soar through the air on the zipline outside, with platforms as high as 23 metres (note to self: do that before, not after, a wine tasting). As Shore, who’d like to add accommodations someday, puts it, “I’ve got all I want to say grace over right now.”
In nearby Hamptonville, perched at the tasting bar at Laurel Gray Vineyards, I eye the tongue-and-groove pine of the loft ceiling in what was once a milking parlour and think of the surprise that awaited farmers Kim and Benny Myers when they began renovations. As they ripped out the lowered ceiling, old Schlitz Malt Liquor cans rained down on their heads. The past owners had been teetotallers, but the farmer did his books in the milking parlour attic.
The original farm where the Shores once grew tobacco and still live.
Kim Myers sets out the first taste of the morning, a dry-as-drought pinot gris. But since it’s only 10:41 a.m., I’m glad we quickly move onto a fruity viognier and am grateful for the squares of rustic Amish bread baked nearby. Myers suggests pairings like a trusted friend: Try the buttery chardonnay with crab; Sultry, a spicy, peppery vintage, with North Carolina barbecue; Scarlet Mountain, a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc and chardonnay, with chicken and tomatoes. The noise level in the room rises as some of us sneak a few more tiny spoonfuls of “dessert,” Laurel Gray’s chocolate sauce with cabernet and caramel sauce with chardonnay.
Cindy and Neil Shore of Sanders Ridge vineyard and winery.
Myers’ husband, Benny, earned his first $5,000 from two acres of tobacco when he was only 12, and she worked tobacco fields as a teenager. But their grown children are the first of the Myers family in 150 years who didn’t want a livelihood from tobacco. So Kim and Benny planted grapevines at Laurel Gray, named for their son and daughter, in 2001. By 2009, they had won the Winegrower of Excellence award from the North Carolina Winegrowers Association. Their hope? That a new family tradition will take root.
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