McRitchie Winery and Ciderworks

By: Daniel Hoey

Sean McRitchie was born to be a winemaker.

Sean and Patty McRitchie His father was a winemaker in California and Oregon and Sean literally grew up in the wine industry.  Remember your first “summer job”?  Sean’s was getting knee deep in grapes, cleaning barrels – all of the behind-the-scenes grunt work it takes to make wine.  “I remember a Saturday and it was pouring down rain,” Bob McRitchie said. “We were digging a ditch for the wastewater to go underneath the road and into a holding tank. This was Sean’s first job in the wine business.”

Sean’s early wine career took him all over the world – starting in Willamette Valley, Oregon and moving on to many premier regions including Alsace Lorraine, Napa Valley and Australia.  In 1998 he decided to become a part of the Yadkin Valley’s embryonic wine industry and became the first winemaker at Shelton Vineyards; having grown up watching the Willamette Valley develop a world-renowned wine industry from scratch the challenge of being a pioneer in a new, aspiring wine region appealed to him.  

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Thanksgiving Wine Pairings

By: Daniel Hoey

Choosing the right wines for your Thanksgiving feast

Thanksgiving is upon us, and there is no better time to start selecting wines to complement the feast. It’s also a good time to buy the wine if you don’t have something already stored away that you want to drink, as many wine stores have sales the week before Thanksgiving.

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About The Grape

Mark Terry of Westbend Vineyards

On a return trip to the Yadkin Valley wine region in North Carolina I spent a delightful afternoon at Westbend Vineyards with owner Lillian Kroustalis and winemaker Mark Terry.

Prior to coming to Westbend, Mark had been in the wine industry in Long Island for 19 years. During the last few years of his tenure at one of the pioneers of the Long Island wine region, Mark developed a side career selling oak wine barrels.

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The basics of decanting old and young red wines.

Decanting has two purposes: The first is to remove the sediment from a wine, and the second is allowing the wine to breathe. This typically applies to red wines as white wines do not usually need to be decanted.

Learn About the Grape with winemaker Matthew Loso

We were in Walla Walla, Washington right after a harvest that was sped along dramatically by a frost the previous week. I met with Matthew Loso, award-winning Washington state winemaker, and talked with him about harvest – the “crush”.

Top Ten Wine Destinations for 2012

Where people are planning to wine tour and taste in the coming year

A recent survey of U.S. respondents found 48 percent planned to visit a U.S. vineyard in 2012. The top ten planned destinations were:

How to Pair Wine with Chicken

When pairing wine with food, it is much more critical that you think about the sauce than the particular kind of meat. For example, because chicken is a light white meat...