Shelton Vineyards

Three months ago, we had planned to attend an event at Shelton Vineyards, a 1000-acre estate in Dobson, NC, organized by Our State Magazine.  I only recently learned that the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina has become an increasingly well-known area for growing wine and for wine tours: “You don't have to fly five hours and spend thousands of dollars to experience fine wines and scenic vineyards. The Yadkin Valley lies in the Piedmont and Foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Experts in the disciplines of Viticulture and Enology have compared this area to France’s Burgundy and Italy’s Piedmont.” 

Unfortunately, our plans were disrupted when Hurricane Ian blew through North Carolina, and not being eager to drive four hours in hurricane-force rain, we cancelled and took a partial refund – a rain check, you might say.  Winston-Salem is not very far from Dobson, and Martha had organized a visit to the vineyard which featured a wine tasting, a stay at the only Hampton Inn in the country with a wine bar, and a New Year’s Eve dinner and party at the vineyard’s Harvest Grill restaurant and The Barn.  We had avoided most of the heavier rain the previous day, and the drive to Dobson was an interesting one through a part of rural North Carolina we had not yet visited, a little south from Mt. Airy and Pilot Mountain, and through Elkin, where we stopped for lunch at an interesting place called Angry Troll Brewing, located in a huge building that was formerly a tobacco barn, wand here the pizza and beer were equally good.

I noticed that all of the wait staff were wearing identical T-shirts, which said that the brewery had an intriguing claim to fame.

The hostess explained to us that the major business in Elkin prior to the brewery (aside from tobacco, I presume) was a blanket factory, which no doubt went the way of so many textile industries in the south which closed down, leaving behind huge abandoned buildings and dying towns.  Elkin had done pretty well for itself, it seemed, and it did not hurt that it was also capitalizing on the Wine Tour industry.  It had a pretty little downtown area and Main Street with some nice shops.

We drove north from there through increasingly dense fog to the Hampton Inn in Dobson, where we boarded a shuttle to the tasting room a couple of miles down the road.  Our driver, Lynn, was a laconic older man born in the area who looked like he had grown up growing tobacco and who seemed to know the roads like the back of his hand.  The tasting room was in a beautiful building surrounded by 120 acres of vines, the oldest ones planted in 1999, and a friendly young lady gave us a tour of the facilities before we went in for a tasting.

We sampled the wines on a “wine tree,” which is something we had never seen before, five glasses arranged like a circular staircase on a little stand.  The wines were very good, especially an Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, and all of the grapes were grown on-site.

We returned to the hotel to freshen up, and then Lynn one again showed up to drive us and several other New Year’s Eve couples to the Harvest Grill for dinner.  It was very good, accompanied by a Shelton Vineyards wine, and beginning with an amuse bouche, a small plate containing those time-honored good-luck foods:  pork belly, collard greens, cornbread, and black-eyed peas.

After dinner, the shuttle bus arrived and took us to The Barn, an event venue that for tonight was filled with New Year’s Eve decorations, including nets in the ceiling holding at bay dozens of “2023” balloons ready to drop on revelers below at midnight.  It has been a long time since we made it ‘til that hour, however, and so in a little while we were again standing outside awaiting Lynn, whose arrival was a welcome one, and we returned to the Hampton Inn, grateful that Lynn knew these roads well because the fog had grown thicker and thicker as the evening progressed.  On the way, Martha heard Lynn receive a text message, and becase we were in the front seat and it was written in very large type (was Lynn far-sighted?) she was able to read it:  You hauling them drunks?  We were by no means drunk, having left the festivities early, but we were thankful that Lynn was driving.

Back in our room, we celebrated a tradition we began several years ago, reading through all of the comments we had taken turns writing on our little blackboard in the kitchen for 2022, ending with, “The Ocean is Calling.”

Happy New Year!