Wine Trails

Western North Carolina currently has a unique opportunity for a wine tour and the Van in Black can deliver on it.  With the introduction of the latest American Viticultural Area (AVA) in North Carolina, which occurred in the Summer of 2019, the “Crest of the Blue Ridge” AVA currently has six wineries around Hendersonville, NC that can technically be visited on a single wine tour.  We fully acknowledge that visiting six wineries in a single day is a lofty goal, but with the hours that the wineries are open during the busier months, it is entirely possible for the responsible drinker.  How you say?  We are glad you asked!

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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.

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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“.

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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?

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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!):

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