Shelton Winery, music, Holly Ridge
October 11, 2009

Moving pretty slowly this weekend and fine with it. Following a recommendation for winery tours, we wended our way over to the Shelton Winery on Saturday. It seems the norm on this kind of random wandering trip that we land in a place the week before, after or near an event, but seldom at the correct time to enjoy a scheduled concert, fair or event, but this time was different.

Thinking we were only going to have a tour of the winery, we drove into a gargantuan fall festival at an incredible vineyard - a nice score. The tours were free; the wine tastings were free; the rotating bluegrass bands’ music was free; the hayride was free; even the popcorn was free.

The Shelton Winery is totally impressive: 600 acres of parkland, gorgeously landscaped and maintained, with 150 acres of grapes and a goal to have 150 more planted. Everywhere were vast rolling lawns, waterways, bridges, attractive landscapes. The winery is huge to accommodate the quantity of grapes. There is an onsite restaurant, great gift shop and of course, many wines with large tasting bars - a separate one for each of red, white and sweet wines.

The tour detailed the process from destemming the grapes to their oak barrel storage in a manufactured cave.

We just partied around there all afternoon, got to talking with quite a few very nice people who were set up as vendors - some wonderful, unique craftspeople - while enjoying the music by bands who were set up in the impressive outdoor bandstand. The grounds are so inviting that people use the place like a park, enjoying and picnicking there even when no events are scheduled.

What a beautiful setting with the Blue Ridge in the background.

The day was a little rainy, giving way to Sunday’s gray leaden low sky all day. Then suddenly about 4 p.m., everyone was surprised and pleased to see the clouds part and move away, allowing the sun to do what the sun does best. We had already eaten. After all, might as well try out new recipes and eat early when it looks so dreary out, so when the light came, we jumped up and ran on down to the river for some catfishing.























A couple of fish later, we wound it up and came home to plan tomorrow.

Holly Ridge has turned out to be a super place to stay. Many of the trailers here are utilized as vacation cabins, resulting in an atmosphere in which lots of the folks know each other and have for years. There are usually a bunch of folks sitting on the front porch at the office, visiting and laughing. Surprisingly, many of them keep golf carts or ATVs here for getting around the grounds.

Last night, Chris set up the keyboard outside to play for a bit and we ended up with three golf carts, one pickup and four pedestrians stopping to enjoy the music. It was very fun. One of the men who sat in told me about a hot springs near Asheville. Anything about hot springs gets my attention, so I looked it up today (love that internet!). The result is that we changed our plans to detour up to Hot Springs (also the name of the town) for a couple of nights before going back to Flat Rock and Tryon.