The Hendersonville wine region of North Carolina, also known by the American Viticultural Area (AVA) designation of “Crest of the Blue Ridge”, recently welcomed two new wineries to the region: Marked Tree Vineyard and Stone Ashe Vineyards. As of the Summer of 2020, this makes a total of 5 active wineries in the immediate Hendersonville area. It increases the number of active wineries in or around the Asheville area to about 15 depending on which areas you want to include. However you count them, whether “in or around Asheville”, the number of wineries in the area are growing making an Asheville wine tour or Hendersonville wine tour both significant and respectable! With the recent growth, a winery tour in the area may take two days.
Van in Black Receives Small Business Relief Grant
We were pleasantly surprised this week to learn that Van in Black was a recipient of the Small Business Relief Grant that was provided by Facebook. This was a program put together by Facebook where they offered up 100 million dollars to support small businesses who have experienced operating challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. To be eligible, a company had to operate in or near a location where Facebook operates. Luckily for us, this happens to be the case since Facebook maintains a data center in our home county of Rutherford, NC. There were some other restrictions as well:
Asheville Spring Adventures
The adventure season in and around Asheville will soon be kicking into high-gear since Spring is just around the corner. While Spring officially starts on March 19th of 2020 in the Northern Hemisphere, the weather usually tends to start warming up around the end of February (although we have seen snow as late as May in North Carolina!). It also doesn’t hurt that daylight savings time kicks in around the same time (Sunday, March 8th if you are wondering) providing more daylight late into the evening hours. With the additional daylight and warmer weather comes adventure, as more and more people, locals and visitors alike, take advantage of many things to see and do in and around Asheville and Western North Carolina. So what are some of our favorite springtime adventures? The options are definitely numerous…
Food Options on Tours
On most of our tours; whether it is a winery tour, pub crawl, or scenic tour, eventually the same question usually comes up: What are the food options…Where can we eat? A perfectly reasonable and understandable question; especially if you have been out drinking for awhile on a winery or brewery tour. On these types of tours food is definitely a good thing! Stopping to enjoy a good meal helps to slow the pace and intake of alcohol (since you are eating and not drinking) and makes the overall experience much more enjoyable. It is true that variety is the spice of life and if you are going to enjoy a bunch of different wines or beers, you need to pace yourself and enjoy some food too along the way.
Asheville Wine Tours
Asheville is quite possibly the quintessential city for Western North Carolina experiences. The location is perfectly situated in the mountains and is either the direct host of the experience(an Asheville wine tour!) or the perfect gateway to it. When it comes to wineries, Asheville is both! While it doesn’t host too many wineries, and none of them have vineyards attached to them, Asheville does directly host two wineries inside the city limits; one which has the unique distinction of being the most visited winery in America (more on this later). Asheville is also the gateway to a number a quality wineries and vineyards that are all less than an hours drive from the city. At the time of this writing, late 2019, there are at least ten quality wineries that are viable options for any Asheville wine tours. So if you are in Asheville and want to checkout the winery scene, there are some options to definitely consider.
Can’t wait to get started on your wine tour? Then click here:
Holiday Lights and Wine Tour!
As the holiday season approaches and you’re looking for fun festive things to do with your family and friends, why not consider a chauffeured holiday lights tour? For some, viewing the extravagant light displays put on by small towns has become an annual tradition. There are so many great locations to choose from! You could load up the family car as usual or this year, try something different, hire a transportation service, the Van in Black, to drive your group to and through any number of these great locations. A few of our favorites include:
Yadkin Valley Overview Trail
The winery industry in North Carolina is large and still growing! There are so many high quality wineries and vineyards in the state that as a transportation company that provides winery tours as a service, it can make it very difficult to come up with suggestions when asked by clients – “What do you recommend?”. When faced with this question the first thing that needs to be determined is the region that the customer would like to visit. Sometimes this decision can make the job in answering this question easy as there may be a limited number of wineries in that specific region. That is NOT the case with the Yadkin Valley. There are a ton a wineries! And they are all great places! Furthermore, one gets to know a lot of the owners and people that work at each of the wineries. The Van In Black would like to visit all of them with every tour but unfortunately one has to choose and unfortunately some get left off the list. The list, however, does change with each tour and we try to mix it up a bit. If people have already visited one area or some of the wineries suggested, we can easily recommend others. So, with all of that being said, this list is by no means the definitive “Yadkin Valley Trail”. It is just one of the many options and varieties of trails that can be put together for a custom tour of the area. There are so many other great winery trails that we will also be describing in future posts. For now, though, we will go with what we are calling the “Yadkin Valley Overview Trail“.
Hendersonville Winery Tours
Another great wine trail that is primarily associated with the Asheville and Greenville/Spartanburg areas is located in Hendersonville, North Carolina. This “Hendersonville Wine Trail” is host to three quality wineries along with with a companion cidery. Cider is just apple wine….right? This region is conveniently located less then an hour from Asheville, North Carolina and Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina making it a great option for anyone looking for a winery tours departing from these regions. The wineries are relatively close to one another as they are all located in Hendersonville East of Interstate 26. Once you arrive in the area the commute time between wineries isn’t too long which makes for a fun day. This is an important benefit of a winery tour that many people don’t think about, but having a short commute between wineries makes for a fun day! So, which vineyards make up the Hendersonville Wine Trail?
A Hendersonville Pub Crawl
The town of Hendersonville, North Carolina is a great place to visit. It is one of those places that is neither too small nor too large; it is just right. It is large enough to offer great restaurants, shopping, and culture but not so large that it loses its small-town charm. The downtown area is absolutely beautiful and is a great place to visit just about any time of the year. Walking up and down Main Street is always a wonderful experience and Main Street is a great place to start for the first time visitor. Despite the small-town charm, Hendersonville is large enough to boast a number of breweries within the city. Great breweries that are all making great beer that can go head-to-head against any beer from the “big city” breweries. This is not to put down the big city breweries but more to build up these smaller breweries. Their beers are good! If you want to visit Hendersonville and check-out some of these small pubs, here are four that we think make for a great pub crawl:
Tryon Winery Tours
One of our favorite regions for a winery tour is the Tryon Foothills of North Carolina. The reason for this is twofold; one is that these are our local wineries and the second is that they are producing really great wine; close to home and great wine, you can’t beat that! The North Carolina winery industry as a whole is amazing and there are many great wineries within the state. We will definitely be highlighting more of our favorites in future blog posts but for now we are starting with some of the wineries in our neighborhood.
The Tryon region has a total of five wineries in a tight cluster which at the farthest point, are only 8 miles from one other. These five wineries are (with pictures!):