Winery Visit - Davesté Vineyards

Me at the entrance to Davesté Vineyards 

In the same weekend that I visited Shelton Vineyards in North Carolina, I also stopped by Davesté Vineyards. This vineyard is in the Yadkin Valley AVA, which as mentioned in my previous post, was the first AVA to be established in North Carolina. It is owned by Dave and Ester DeFehr (Dave + Ester = Davesté) and was the first winery in Iredell County. The land was purchased in 2004, four acres of vines were planted in 2005 and the first harvest in 2006 produced 500 cases of wine.

This winery is much smaller and newer than Shelton, which was kind of nice. It was cool to see the similarities and differences between a large and a small winery. The first difference was that this winery was visibly smaller. I'm not sure the exact areas, but I could see the whole vineyard standing at the tasting room at Davesté, whereas I'm sure I only saw a fraction of the vineyard at Shelton. The second difference was that Shelton had tours leave every half hour all day, whereas Davesté only had tours at 2:30 and 4:30. Unfortunately, my parents and I got to the winery too early and we didn't have time to wait around for the tour. Fortunately, the small size of the vineyard meant that everyone does everything. This means that Jamie, the girl who poured our wine at the tasting room, also worked on all the other parts of the wine-making process and was able to answer all of our questions while we sipped on our samples.

The tasting room at Davesté Vineyards

Jamie did a great job answering our questions and telling us about the winery and vineyard. First, they grow a lot of their grapes on site, but not all of them. They grow Rkatsiteli (a local varietal, but unfortunately they were out), Traminette, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Chambourcin. They used to grow Malbec, but unfortunately the vines were not producing so they had to pull them up last year. The rest of the grapes that they used are bought from other wineries and vineyards in the area.

A portion of the vines 

After the grapes are grown or purchased, everything is processed and bottled on site. They only produce about 1500 cases per year. Because of this small rate of production, they don't sell in any retail stores. They make their wines available in restaurants, at weddings, and at some small wine specialty stores, but about 90% of their bottles are sold at the winery. They don't even print bar codes on their bottles.

All of their red wines are oaked and the Reserve Chardonnay is the only white that gets oaked. They use one year old French barrels, since the French have a rule about only using barrels for a year. Davesté uses them for 3 to 4 years and burn the insides to refresh the oak. They cellar their wines for 4 to 6 months, depending on the tastes of the wine maker. 

This three story barn houses the winery, bottling process, and also the brewery. 

They bottle on site in the white building pictured above, which is also the building that the wine is made in. Their machine can bottle four bottles at a time (compared to Shelton Vineyard's, which bottled 52 a minute). Just another sign of the smallness of this particular vineyard. They plan on expanding a little bit, but not too much in the near future. They also recently started brewing beer in the past few months.

A flight of four of their five beers made in house.
Too bad they were out of the IPA!

My dad decided to sample their flight, being the beer connoisseur he is. He was bummed that they were out of their IPA (that's his favorite) but I think he enjoyed the rest that they offered. It was interesting learning about the challenges of making wine and beer on the same property. One of them being that sometimes the yeasts can mix and create funky, mostly unwanted, flavors in both beverages. Care has to be taken to prevent these interactions between the two processes, which is especially difficult on such a small property. Right now they brew in the same white house that they make the wine in, but they are going to add a new wing soon to add more separation.

They also recently opened up their vineyard as a wedding venue. They can host weddings up to 250 people if they do some creative planning. They are adding a deck onto the current reception area to accommodate more tables.

Many wedding ceremonies are held by this waterfall.

Now on to the main event: the wine tasting. The wine labels are pictures of paintings by local artists, mostly by Ester, one of the owners. We paid $5 to sample 6 wines of our choice and here are the ones I tried:

Reserve Chardonnay 2012 - As previously mentioned, this is the only white that is oaked, and you can tell. It smells creamy and oaky for sure with a hint of fruit. When I tasted it, again there was vanilla, creaminess, and also pear and green apple. Still not a huge fan of Chardonnays, but they're ok I guess.

Chardonnay 2013 - This is the unoaked Chardonnay that is aged in stainless steel. Jamie said that the 2013 year had a lot of rain, so this wine is extra fruity. She was right. This one was similar to the Reserve, but without the creamy, vanilla, and oak. Definitely way more pear and apple and a little lighter in general. I liked this one better than the Reserve, but I'm still not big on Chardonnays.

LaBrisa 2014 - This is a white that is 100% Riesling. It smelled very fruity with just a touch of flowers. When I tried it, it tasted a little sweet with peaches and some other fruits. there was a little floral honeysuckle component as well. I really liked the light, fruitiness of this wine.

Silhouette 2013 - This is a red blend of Chambourcin and Merlot. Since this came from the same 2013 rainy vintage, the fruit flavors of the Chambourcin were extra prominent. This wine was all about the dark fruits, especially sour cherries. It reminded me of the canned sour pie cherries that I use when I make cherry pie. There was also some blackberry and spice thrown in there. I enjoyed this one as well, since I do love cherry pie.

Malbec 2013 - I've sort of started to develop a taste for Malbecs since starting this class, so I was interested to try this one. It had the dark fruitiness with a hint of spice that I've gotten used to, but it also had some flowery notes that were new to me. There were some tannins, but they were soft and didn't overwhelm me. Not my favorite Malbec, but I liked it enough to confirm that I do enjoy Malbecs in general.

Portrait 2012 - This wine is their "Bordeaux Style" blend, meaning they use four of the five wine varietals grown in the Bordeaux Region. This wine is a blend of 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Cabernet Franc, 18% Malbec, and 10% Merlot. It was a dark, full-bodied wine with raspberries and dark fruit. There also was a little taste of chocolate. It was a little too much for me, but my dad enjoyed it enough to buy a bottle for $20 to take home.



Overall, I thought this was a nice little winery to visit. Maybe I'll come back some day and take an actual tour. But for now, I'll just wish I was back on their porch enjoying a glass of peach sangria in the warm sun while listening to acoustic covers of pop songs as a waterfall babbles on down the hill in the background.

Some delicious sangria