Winery Visit - Shelton Vineyards

This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Shelton Vineyards in Dobson, NC. It is in the Yadkin Valley AVA, which was the first AVA established in North Carolina.

Me at the sign for the Tasting Room at Shelton Vineyards

We got there around lunch time, so we started out in the little restaurant that they have at the vineyard. A nice little place with a great view of rows upon rows of vines. Food was good too!

Harvest Grill at Shelton Vineyards
The windmill-looking thing is a device used to keep
frost from setting on the vines. 

Now on to the main event. We walked over to the tasting room to start our tour. We walked over a bridge past the koi pond and through the trees to get to the massive wooden doors of the building. Truly a beautiful and impressive place.

Signpost showing distances to famous wine locations

Shelton Vineyards tasting room

 We went inside to begin our tour. The tour guide, Linda, took us through some doors and up some stairs to a glass case filled with trinkets. She explained to us a bit of the history of the vineyard and how it came to be. The vineyard is owned by brothers Charlie and Ed Shelton. They originally worked in construction, but always had an interest in wine. They bought the land in 1994 and started planting grapes on the vineyard in 1999. The case was filled with many family heirlooms, such as a set of miniature figurines, old barber tools from one of their grandfathers, and a clock that used to sit on the mantel in their childhood home.

Case filled with family heirlooms

Next, we moved to an adjacent room and Linda talked about the vines themselves and how they grow. She had a case that showed a vine and then a cross-section of the root system below. She talked about how the tap root of the vine goes deep into the ground. The vines at this vineyard are all European vines grafted onto American root systems so that they can grow in the soil in the area.

Linda explaining vines and how they grow

We walked up some more stairs and outside to talk more about how the grapes are harvested and made into wine. Outside, we caught a glimpse of just a small part of the vineyard. Linda told us that they are the largest estate winery in the state, meaning that they pretty much grow all of their grapes here. The only wine that doesn't have all of its grapes grown on site it the Snow Hill White, which they bring in Concord juice from Niagra. They have about 136,000 vines spanning 145 miles and they harvest all of them by hand. It takes 3 people about 1 day to harvest 1 acre.

Some vines in front of the tasting room

The vineyard grows 10 grape varietals, including Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Tannat, Petit Verdot, and Claret. Each acre produces about 3 to 4 tons of grapes. The grapes are collected in huge bins which are then weighed on the scale shown below.

Scale used to weigh grapes.
More of the vines can be seen in the background.

After the grapes are weighed, they are ready to start getting processed. There are slight differences in processing the grapes depending on if they are making red/rose or white wine. If the grapes will be making a red or rose wine, they go into the destemmer first, which then mashes everything together so that the juices can mix with the skins to get the color of the wine. If it is a white wine, then the grapes go into a machine that separates the juice from the skins and stems of the grapes. 

Destemming device used to process grapes for red wines

Device used to process grapes for white wines

After getting juiced, each type is fed through hoses into the building to be mixed with other grapes, if necessary, and put into fermentation tanks. 

Stainless Steel Fermentation tanks

Some wines age in the stainless steel, others move into barrels. 50% of their barrels are American oak and the other 50% is a mix of French and Hungarian oak. For their port, they use old brandy barrels and age them 5 and 1/2 years. They also have an "Adopt-a-Barrel" program where people can adopt a specific barrel and get their name on a plaque on the barrel. They then receive a case of wine every year for four years and then on the fifth year, they can take the barrel home! A pretty fun way to help the winery pay for and rotate out their barrels. 

The Barrel Room that holds the adopted barrels.
Right now they are holding their Estate Chardonnay. 

Finally, we got a glimpse of the bottling process. They were not in the actual process of bottling, but we watched a short video and looked at the equipment. Their equipment was made in Italy and can bottle 52 bottles per minute. The entire process is automated with the exception of the corks needing to be fed into the top by hand. 

Bottling machinery

At last, we reached the end of the tour and the wine tasting began. The tour cost $6 per person and included 5 tastings and a glass to take home, but we were told to try as many wines as we wanted. Linda even let us try some of the Estate Port  from the Reserve list (usually only for special, more expensive tastings). Here are the wines that I tried: 

Estate Chardonnay, Double Gold  in NC Commercial wine competition - This was an oaked chardonnay that definitely had those vanilla, oaky, buttery notes brought on by the oak. It also had some hints of spice. I'm learning that chardonnays are ok, but sort of not my thing.

 Sauvignon Blanc,  Gold in Pinehurst Wine Competition - A dry white with a lot of fruity flavors. Smelled some generally citrusy flavors. It tasted like grapefruit with some other soft fruit flavors. This one was ok, but usually I like my dry whites to be a little more fruity.

Madison Lee Red, Silver Mid-Atlantic Southeastern Wine Competition - This wine is named for the grandfathers of the owners. It is a blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Malbec. It was a dry, medium-bodied red with dark fruit and a hint of vanilla. 

Estate Cabernet Franc, Double Gold/Best of Class in Wines of the South Competition - Smelled a little bit smoky with a lot of cherries. Tasted a lot of cherries as well with some vanilla. 

Estate Merlot, Gold/Best of Show in Wines of the South Competition - This wine is made of 100% Merlot. Smelled like spices and vanilla and tasted like plum with a hint of chocolate and vanilla along with spices and a little smokiness.  

Yadkin Valley Riesling, Double Gold in Tasters Guild International Wine Competition - This was a very light, semi-sweet wine. It smelled fruity with a hint of flowers. It tasted like sweet peaches and honeysuckle. It reminded me of summers at my old home in Virginia when my brother and I would drink the nectar from honeysuckle flowers. I enjoyed this wine. 

Salem Fork Blush, Gold in NC Commercial Wine Competition - This blush is made from Merlot grapes. The name "Salem Fork" is a nod to the Salem Fork community near the vineyard. It had hints of the Merlot I tasted earlier, but just a little sweeter and a little lighter. Still had that fruity plum flavor with a little extra acidity.

Salem Fork Snow Hill Peach - This wine is made from Chardonnay and infused with peaches. It smelled very strongly of peach and tasted of peach as well. This one was a little different from other peach wines in that it was more of a tart peach flavor instead of a syrupy sweet flavor. I still enjoyed it.   

Estate Port - This wine is from the reserve collection and is usually part of a $25 tasting (as opposed to the $6 tasting we paid for), so it was a treat to sample some of this. This wine is made from Cabernet France and aged 5 and 1/2 years in It came in a smaller bottle, which was understandable once I tasted it. It was very viscous and sweet with a lot of dark fruit. It would have gone perfectly with a piece of dark chocolate. I can understand why people only drink a small amount at a time, aside from the alcohol content. 

I really enjoyed my trip to Shelton Vineyards and I look forward to visiting more wineries in this area. The wine industry is fairly new to the North Carolina area, and I'm excited to see where it goes!