It is a beautiful summer day and your wine racks are getting empty, so what do you do?  Well if you are like us, you use it as an excuse for a Wine Tour Road Trip.  Here in the greater Charlotte area we are blessed  with the proximity of several good wineries and vineyards.  Some I visit regularly, some I have yet to try. 

Today our road trip focuses on the wineries of the Uwharrie region.  The Uwharrie Mountains were formed some 500 million years ago and reached a peak of over 20,000 feet above sea level.  Now after half a billion years of erosion and tectonic drift, the peak of Uwharrie's highest mountain, High Rock Mountain, is a mere  1,119 feet.  In truth the Uwharrie are not really mountains at all, not in the strictest geological sense.  They are technically "Inselbergs", the remnants of an erosional upheaval on a massive scale that took place on an ancient volcanic peneplain of the Miocene.   Um, ok.  What does that mean?  It means the area's terroir has a unique soil type for this part of the continent that the grape vines love. 

We begin our journey in Monroe.  We set the GPS for our first destination and off we go.  "Ms. G.", our pet name for the Garmin Nuvi GPS sets our course and we head up State route 601 for Midland, NC.  A few twists and turns and "voila!", we have arrived.  Fortune favors us today as there is a festival in full swing at our first stop, Rocky River Vineyards.  A band is setting up under the covered patio and artisans are set up all around the pavilion.  We restrain ourselves a bit and visit the artisans before going to the wine tasting stations.  We talk with a potter from Seagrove for a moment before being dazzled by a collection of vases made by covering simple fabrics with a hardening polymer.  Ultra light in weight, high in tensile strength and beautiful.

This is all very nice but we came here for wine.  We enter the pavilion and begin our circuit of the many tasting stations.  After many samples we finally decide that the White Gold, a sweet muscadine white wine is our favorite.  Muscadine is a varietal that is indigenous to the South-East and thrives on our long hot summers.  It is of a different sub-genus than most of the common wine varietals.

Having sampled all we can, we depart for our next destination. We program "Ms. G" with the address of our next stop and we are off for our favorite local vineyard, Uwharrie Vineyard.  We arrive to see that here too the vines are looking very well.  We know that the largest part of Uwharrie's vineyards are miles from the winery and tasting counter, but it is still good to see vines so close to where we tip our glasses. 

Remarkably we discover that Chad Andrews, wine maker extraordinaire of Uwharrie is away today.  There is only one wine that we have not sampled here, the newest member of the Uwharrie stable, the Autumn Blush, but we get the full tasting anyway.  In all truth we had sampled the Autumn Blush months ago straight from the tank when it was still being developed.  But it was a different wine then than now. As usual I prefer the reds while Chris prefers low oak reds or whites, but we both love the new Autumn Blush and our mutual favorite is the Muscat.  After finishing our samples plus a glass each, we bought a mixed case of our favorites, and headed off to our final destination.

Once again we relied upon "Ms G." to guide our way.  After giving her the address for our final destination, we were on our way to Stony Mountain Vineyard.  Stony Mountain is always my final destination on my local wine trips because the quality of the wine is matched by the spectacular view.  The vineyard is planted on the side of a steep hillside of the Uwharrie Mountains, with the winery itself perched upon its top.  This allows for a spectacular view of both vineyard and valley.  Unfortunately the frost of the 2007 Easter weekend decimated the fragile vines.  They have all been replanted and will once again grace the landscape in full bloom in a few years.  Once again we do the full tasting and each of us chooses a glass of our favorite before  settling out on the back balcony to enjoy the wine with the view.  It is truly fantastic here.  We finally make our take home selections and program "Ms G." to take us back home.  The day is over and we much regret that the fun is finished for the day.  Now I have to plan my next trip in the  relentless quest of visiting all of North Carolinas wineries.