Homegrown Vintage
The introduction of the NC State-licensed Brickyard red wine blend in partnership with Shelton Vineyards in Dobson, North Carolina, is a tribute to the state’s agricultural past and a significant driver for its future.
In the first quarter of the 21st century, North Carolina’s traditional agriculture industries have grown through their challenges with technology and innovation.
然而，在国家西北象限的Yadkin山谷，然而，也从快速增长的现金作物中迁移，使这个郁郁葱葱的地区闻名，以获得几个世纪以来，有利于返回该州的第一个栽培作物：葡萄。
Because of it, this sector of North Carolina’s winemaking industry is a thriving hive of vines and fermentation.
它是一个成熟的州所有行业，提供了近20亿美元的经济影响，以及大约10,000个工作岗位，更不用说两百万的年度游客，为一些国家最农村地区带来旅游资金。
What they have created is a farm-to-table-to-玻璃enterprise.
North Carolina’s diverse landscape makes it possible to grow all varieties of classic European grapes, with wineries around the state specializing in French-, Italian- and German-styled vintages, along with dozens that produce wine made from North Carolina’s two native grapes, muscadine and scuppernong.
Winemaking, with more than 400 vineyards and some 200 wineries, is a leading part of North Carolina’s fermentation and distilling economy that also includes almost 100 distilleries and more than 300 craft breweries, all with close connections to and input from NC State’s researchers and the NC State Cooperative Extension programs throughout the state.
因此，本周介绍了NC国有牌式砖石红葡萄酒红葡萄酒融合，与北卡罗来纳州多博森的谢尔顿葡萄园合作，是对国家农业的过去和未来的重要司机致敬。在未来几年，国家委员会国家将在全国各地的更多葡萄酒厂合作，以在NC状态神圣的地方收集生产额外的葡萄酒，突出这些葡萄酒生产商并将其与来自州最大的大学的选定图标配对。
数控状态hopes to launch officially licensed wines with North Carolina vineyards in other categories as well, including one celebrating the university’s unique and historic ties to the muscadine grape.
酿酒历史
Tucked between the mountains and the Piedmont plain, it could be said that the Yadkin Valley is North Carolina’s Napa — except for the fact that North Carolina preceded California as the heart of the U.S. winemaking industry by more than two centuries.
Purportedly, the first cultivated grapevine in North America was discovered on Roanoke Island near Manteo in 1524, initially nourished by Croatan Native Americans and members of the Lost Colony. (The Mother Vine, by the way, is now about half the size of a football field, still maintained by private owners and is a popular source of cuttings to produce wine fromscuppernong grapes，北卡罗来纳州的国家果实。）
北卡罗莱纳的大部分two dozen earliest vineyards, the first of which opened in Halifax County in 1825, were destroyed during the Civil War, either from neglect, lack of workforce or bankruptcy. Winemaking steadily returned after some regulatory retribution during Reconstruction – just in time for North Carolina to become a dry state in 1908 and for Prohibition to begin nationwide in 1920.
酒精生产的时候是合法的in 1933, most of the nation’s wine production moved west and North Carolina turned its focus to other less time-consuming cash crops like tobacco, cotton and soybeans. The wine industry returned on a limited basis after World War II, but it wasn’t until after the 1998 U.S. Master Tobacco Settlement, which diminished the state’s most famous agricultural sector, that winemaking accelerated in the Old North State.
That’s about the time that brothers Charles and Ed Shelton, successful residential builders and real estate developers in Winston-Salem, purchased a 300-acre former dairy farm at auction in their native Surry County and planted their first grapes, a cabernet variety they still grow on their expansive vineyards.
由于2000年装瓶了他们的第一个复古，因此Shelton Vineyards现在是该州最大的家族拥有葡萄园，最大的葡萄园之一，最大的东海岸之一。他们是有助于与酒精和烟草税和贸易局合作，以创建国家第一个美国葡萄栽培区（AVA），这是七县地区，位于宇航的飞行员山的影子。
从那时起，北卡罗来纳葡萄生长和酿酒厂已经爆炸，四个额外的AVAS指定在该州。总而言之，北卡罗来纳州的100个县是大约400个葡萄园和200个葡萄酒厂的所在地。
北卡罗来纳州现在在葡萄酒生产中排名第10。
家庭经营
After the Shelton brothers established the family business in their 60s and then retired, Charles’ children took over daily operations. Siblings Amanda Shelton Houser, a graduate of Raleigh’s Meredith College, and Charles M. “Chip” Shelton, who spent two years at NC State before graduating from closer-to-home High Point, took over the Shelton Companies.
“My dad and uncle saw that tobacco farming was waning,” says Houser. “I think they were at the point where they wanted to give back to the community and state that had given so much to them.
“他们觉得他们可以让一个新的行业呼吸到该地区的生活，然后将烟草田地变成葡萄。”
Their nicotine-into-wine vision has become a reality, not only on their property but at dozens of other vineyards in the Yadkin Valley. The Sheltons have a restaurant, a 102-room hotel and other amenities that enhance tourism from nearby Interstate 77, a North-South artery that runs from Cleveland, Ohio, to Columbia, South Carolina. They’ve also developed a burgeoning event and wedding business because vineyards provide scenic outdoor spaces, particularly in the era of COVID restrictions.
就像国家的大多数葡萄酒厂一样，这是一个效果大的小企业。七位全职员工单独葡萄酒生产，葡萄园每年生产约25,000例。
North Carolina’s rolling foothills are ripe for growing, whether it is the 10 varieties of grapes at the Shelton Vineyards or the chef’s garden that fills the table at its on-site restaurant. That happens to be one of the few places in the state to get an authentic fruit sonker, a traditional Yadkin Valley dessert that is a bit soupier version of a fruit cobbler.
“What they have created is a farm-to-table-to-玻璃为整个社区提供服务的企业，“福斯特·奥布莱恩说，第二代NC国家毕业生，以西班牙语和企业家精神，为谢尔顿公司指导营销。“这实际上是农业的行动。”
NC州复古
Working with Shelton Vineyards to license The Brickyard blend is a plum partnership for the red-and-white university, which plans to highlight many of its selected Hallow Places in coming years.
For the Sheltons, partnering with the university helps further the founders’ vision of improving education in their community and in their state. Proceeds from the sale of The Brickyard and other coming vintages will go to the NC State general scholarship fund.
“由于NC状态为北卡罗来纳州的农业以及所得款项所做的事情，这是对我爸爸和我的叔叔都很重要的事情，”Houser说。“我父亲只有一天去大学，那就是拿回他的钱。但他总是为他人而爱过奖学金。“
The brothers helped fund the nearby community college’s degree program in viticulture and enology, the only such programs in the state and one of the few places in the country to offer an associate degree in winemaking.
That funding has come back to benefit the winery since Ethan Brown, Shelton’s winemaker, is a graduate of the Surry County viticulture program with a bachelor’s degree from Appalachian State.
He oversees the production of Shelton’s standard, reserve and top-tier wines, from grafting the 72 acres of vines to labeling the bottles and everything in between. From the crush pad at the top of the winemaking building, he uses the gravity-flow system to store some 100,000 gallons of juice in stainless steel tanks for fermentation, then directs its transfer into oak barrels, where it will age in two climate-controlled storage rooms for more than two years.
He hand-picked the different varieties of wine for The Brickyard blend, with the grapes being harvested in 2017 and the wine bottled in 2019.
它在水果口味沉重，有一点香气，橡木和皮革 - 所有传统的高端红酒的传统描述符。它由赤霞珠，梅洛，Tannat和Malbec葡萄在谢尔顿葡萄园种植。现在可以在谢尔顿品酒室和葡萄园提供online store.
