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  • Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery: Orchard-Grown Cider in a 1920s Barn Near Hendersonville, NC

    Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery: Orchard-Grown Cider in a 1920s Barn Near Hendersonville, NC

    Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery sits on Chestnut Gap Road outside Hendersonville, NC, in the middle of a working apple orchard — the kind of place where the cider you’re drinking was pressed from apples grown a few hundred feet from where you’re sitting. It’s operated by the same family behind Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards, and it occupies a barn that took two years of renovation to turn from an old apple-storage building into a working cidery and tasting room.

    An Apple Barn Reborn as a Cidery

    The building at the center of Appalachian Ridge is a 1920s apple barn that the Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards family spent roughly two years renovating and preserving before opening it as a dedicated cidery. Henderson County has been apple country for generations, and Appalachian Ridge leans into that history directly: the operation describes itself as honoring farming traditions that have existed in Henderson County for centuries, and its owners say they regularly travel to Normandy, France — where hard cider originated — to learn from cidermakers there and bring techniques back to the orchard on Chestnut Gap Road. According to the North Carolina Wine & Grape Council’s description of the property, some of the orchard’s apple trees were themselves transplanted from the Normandy region.

    What to Taste

    Appalachian Ridge makes its ciders using what it calls a “cider as wine” approach, treating the beverage less like a quick commercial product and more like something meant to develop layers of apple flavor over time in the way a wine develops complexity. All of the apples used are grown, pressed, and bottled on site. Alongside standard ciders, the cidery also produces pommeau, a traditional French blend of cider and apple brandy, and a range of apple spirits. Per the cidery’s own site, most of the lineup is gluten-free, vegan, and no- or low-carb. As with any small producer, the exact list rotates, so it’s worth checking directly with them or the Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards website before you go if you have a specific cider in mind.

    The Setting and the Experience

    The scenic back deck at Appalachian Ridge looks out over the orchard, and both the deck and the barn’s interior are set up for sipping rather than a quick tasting-and-go. The cidery regularly hosts live music — often several nights a week during warmer months — paired with food trucks on site, so checking the event calendar before you visit can turn a simple stop into more of an afternoon. It’s a relaxed, working-farm atmosphere rather than a polished event venue, which is a large part of the appeal for people who want cider tasting to feel connected to the orchard itself rather than staged for visitors.

    What Else Is Nearby

    Appalachian Ridge shares ownership and a website with Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards, its sister property nearby, so pairing the two in the same day is a natural option if your group wants both wine and cider on the same trip. Hendersonville’s walkable historic downtown, with its shops and restaurants along Main Street, is also close enough to fold into the same day if you want to add a non-tasting stop to the itinerary.

    Planning Your Visit From the High Country

    Hendersonville is roughly 90 to 95 miles from Boone by road, which typically works out to somewhere around two and a half hours each way depending on route and traffic through the Asheville area — this is squarely a full-day private trip from the High Country, not a quick afternoon outing. Days and hours have varied by season in the past, and live music and food truck schedules change regularly, so confirm current hours and events directly with the cidery (or the Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards site) before you go. Given how far south this sits relative to Boone, most High Country groups will want to combine a stop here with one or two other Hendersonville- or Asheville-area wineries to make the long drive worthwhile.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Barn Door Ciderworks · Biltmore Winery · Addison Farms Vineyard — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • Addison Farms Vineyard: Four Generations of Family Farming in Leicester, NC

    Addison Farms Vineyard: Four Generations of Family Farming in Leicester, NC

    Addison Farms Vineyard sits on a 55-acre family farm on New Leicester Highway, about 17 miles northwest of downtown Asheville in Leicester, NC. It’s a small, quiet, working vineyard rather than a polished tasting-room complex — six acres of vines at roughly 2,250 to 2,300 feet elevation, run by the same family that has owned this land since 1937. For a group willing to make the drive down from the High Country, it’s a good example of what a genuinely small NC mountain winery looks like up close.

    A Farm That’s Been in One Family Since 1937

    The Frisbee family’s connection to this property goes back to Addison Farmer, whose parents bought the land in 1937. Three generations later, his daughter Maleada and her husband Jeff Frisbee — along with family members Eddie and Dianne — started Addison Farms Vineyard as a way to keep the farm working and in the family rather than selling it off. They planted their first acre of vines in 2009. The first vintage, in 2010, was made from grapes purchased from other North Carolina growers while their own vines matured; by 2011 they were making wine from their own fruit, and the tasting room opened in December 2012. Today the vineyard is planned to grow to about 10 acres, with roughly six planted now, and the farm also works with partner growers at Spring Branch Vineyard to round out production, which runs in the range of 600 to 800 cases a year — genuinely small-batch by any measure.

    What’s in the Glass

    As of last year, Addison Farms had five grape varieties planted on site: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Sangiovese, Petit Verdot, and Petit Manseng — an unusual, ambitious lineup for a vineyard sitting above 2,000 feet in the Blue Ridge, since Petit Manseng in particular is a grape more associated with warmer growing regions that also happens to do well in cooler mountain sites. The winery’s own description emphasizes small-batch production made with traditional winemaking methods rather than a large commercial operation. Exactly which wines are pouring at the tasting bar shifts with vintage and season, so it’s worth checking their current list before you go rather than planning around a specific bottle.

    The Tasting Room Experience

    Addison Farms offers two ways to taste: a Guided Tasting where a tasting room host walks you through several current wines and talks about the growing season and the stories behind them, and a Winemaker’s Tour led by owner and winemaker Jeff Frisbee himself (or occasionally another family member), which includes a behind-the-scenes look at the vineyard and cellar plus the Guided Tasting. The winemaker tour has typically run on Saturday afternoons. Reservations aren’t required for a regular visit, but the winery recommends booking ahead for groups of six or more so the tasting room can make sure there’s room. The property is dog-friendly for well-behaved, leashed dogs kept outside, and it’s family-friendly — kids are welcome. They keep a rotating selection of local charcuterie and snacks on hand, guests can bring their own food, and there’s occasionally a food truck or pop-up chef collaboration on weekends.

    What Else Is Nearby

    Leicester is a rural, low-key stretch of Buncombe County rather than a tourist strip, which is part of the appeal — it’s genuinely quiet out here. Because Addison Farms is only about 17 miles from downtown Asheville, it pairs naturally with a day that also includes Asheville itself: the River Arts District, the Biltmore area, or one of the other wineries and cideries scattered around Leicester, Fletcher, and Hendersonville to the south. Given the distance from the High Country, most groups from Boone or Banner Elk will want to treat a visit here as part of a broader Asheville-area day rather than a quick stop.

    Planning Your Visit From the High Country

    Addison Farms Vineyard is roughly 85 to 90 miles from Boone by road, which typically runs about two to two and a half hours each way depending on route, traffic through Asheville, and the season — this is a full-day trip, not an afternoon errand. Hours have changed seasonally in the past (the tasting room has operated on different day/time schedules depending on time of year), so confirm current hours, tasting prices, and reservation policy directly with the winery before you go. Given the drive, most High Country groups pair a stop here with at least one other Asheville-area winery or cidery to make the most of the day, which is exactly the kind of multi-stop routing a private driver is useful for.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Addison Farms Vineyard

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Addison Farms Vineyard from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Addison Farms Vineyard trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Addison Farms Vineyard tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Biltmore Winery · Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery · Barn Door Ciderworks — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • Wehrloom Honey & Meadery: A Beekeeping Family’s Taproom in Robbinsville, NC

    Wehrloom Honey & Meadery: A Beekeeping Family’s Taproom in Robbinsville, NC

    Wehrloom Honey & Meadery started with two beehives given as a Christmas gift, and it grew into one of far-western North Carolina’s most distinctive tasting-room stops: a family honey business that turned its harvest into mead. The flagship taproom sits at 257 Willie Colvin Road in Robbinsville, deep in Graham County near the Nantahala National Forest, with a second location in nearby Bryson City. It’s not a vineyard pour — it’s honey wine, made from bees the family has kept for more than a decade, and that makes a visit here genuinely different from any other stop on a High Country wine trip.

    From a Christmas Gift to a Family Business

    Aron and Jessica Wehr moved to Robbinsville in 2010 with their daughters Anna and Abby, expecting it to be a brief stop. According to the family’s own account on their website, it became home instead, and not long after the move, Aron gave Jessica a pair of honeybee hives as a Christmas present. Those two hives became twenty, then a hundred, then hundreds scattered across the Appalachian hillsides. What started as a backyard hobby outgrew the family’s kitchen shelves, and the Wehrs began selling jars of raw, lightly filtered honey at local farmers markets and festivals. In 2013 they officially founded Wehrloom Honey. As their harvests grew, they branched into beeswax candles and a line of skincare products Jessica originally made for her own family, and eventually into mead — fermenting their honey into a lineup of honey wines and building a taproom to introduce visitors to it. Today Wehrloom Honey & Meadery runs two brick-and-mortar locations, in Robbinsville and Bryson City, with hives spread across Graham County. (Source: Wehrloom’s own “About Us” page.)

    What to Taste

    Wehrloom’s menu is built entirely around mead — fermented honey wine — rather than grape wine, and the lineup covers a surprising range of styles. “Home Sweet Home” (9.0% ABV) is a traditional mead made with sourwood honey, a regional specialty the family calls their favorite for its light, almost buttery flavor. “Black’bear’ry” (6.9% ABV) is a melomel — a fruit mead — made with blackberries, lavender, hibiscus and vanilla. “Everybody Loves a Ginger” (5.5% ABV) is a metheglin steeped with fresh ginger, green tea, lemon and lime. “‘Apple’achian Cyser” (8.0% ABV) swaps most of the water for fresh, unfiltered apple juice and adds cinnamon, orange peel and cloves. There’s also “BeeWizer,” a lightly hopped mead the family names for the queen bee; “Pretty in Peach,” a peach-ginger melomel; a coffee-and-chocolate mead called “Not Yer Mama’s Chocolate Milk”; a “Hard Honey Seltzer”; a strawberry lemonade mead; a kitchen-sink metheglin called “Yardsale”; and a cherry-lime “Cherry Sour.” All of it is built on what Wehrloom calls their “Appalachian Mountain Honey,” harvested from hives kept largely on national forest land so the bees forage on wild mountain nectar. Because it’s a small, hand-poured operation, the exact taproom pours can shift, so it’s worth checking their current menu before you go. (Source: Wehrloom’s Robbinsville mead menu.)

    The Setting and the Experience

    This is a working honey operation first, and the taproom experience reflects that. The Wehrs describe keeping their bees as close to their natural state as possible, and that care for the hives is the thread that runs through everything they make — honey jars, candles, skincare, and mead alike. The family has grown from a two-person hobby into a small team that harvests, pours and packages every product by hand. Visitors coming for a tasting are getting a honey-focused stop rather than a vineyard walk: there’s no rows of grapevines to wander, but there is a story about bees, land, and a rural Appalachian county that’s easy to get invested in over a flight of mead. Wehrloom also sells its honey, skincare line and mead by the bottle to take home, so a stop here doubles as a place to pick up gifts.

    What Else Is Nearby

    Robbinsville sits in Graham County, at the western edge of the North Carolina mountains, and it’s the gateway to some of the region’s best-known scenery: Lake Santeetlah, Fontana Dam (the largest dam east of the Mississippi), the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest old-growth stand, the mile-high Cherohala Skyway, and the twisting stretch of US-129 riders call “The Dragon” (Source: Graham County Travel). Wehrloom’s second location in Bryson City puts it a short drive from the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, which runs scenic and themed excursion trains out of its downtown depot (Source: Great Smoky Mountains Railroad). If your group is making a full day of it, pairing a Wehrloom tasting with a scenic drive on the Cherohala Skyway or a stop in Bryson City’s small downtown is an easy way to fill out the afternoon.

    Planning Your Visit

    Be honest with yourself about the drive: Robbinsville is roughly 175–180 miles from Boone, which is a genuine cross-state trip rather than an afternoon errand — figure on 3.5 to 4-plus hours each way on mountain roads, more if you’re routing through Asheville traffic or slowing down for the Blue Ridge Parkway (Source: TravelMath driving distance calculator). That distance is exactly why this is a trip best planned as a full-day private outing rather than a quick tasting-room stop, and it’s also why having a single vehicle and one dedicated driver for the whole group matters even more than usual — nobody wants to be behind the wheel for four hours each way after tasting mead. Wehrloom has two locations (Robbinsville and Bryson City), so confirm which one you’re headed to and check current hours directly with Wehrloom before you go, since small tasting rooms often adjust their schedule seasonally.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Wehrloom Honey & Meadery

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Wehrloom Honey & Meadery from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Wehrloom Honey & Meadery trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Wehrloom Honey & Meadery tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Deep Creek Winery · Valley River Vineyards · Shooting Creek Vines — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • VISUALS Wine: Natural Wine and Cider from Burial Beer on Asheville’s South Slope

    VISUALS is the natural wine, cider and aperitif project from the people behind Burial Beer Co., poured seasonally at the VISUALS Rooftop Bar atop Eulogy Music Hall at 10 Buxton Ave, on Burial’s South Slope campus in downtown Asheville, NC. It’s an unusual entry in a wine-tour lineup — no vineyard rows, no rural drive — but for a group that wants something genuinely different from a standard tasting room, an open-air rooftop pouring native-fermented wines and ciders is exactly that.

    Born Out of a Brewery

    VISUALS grew out of Burial Beer Co., which was started in Asheville in 2013 by Tim Gormley and Doug and Jess Reiser, transplants from the Pacific Northwest craft beer scene who opened their first brewery and taproom in a converted transmission shop on South Slope. Burial’s co-founder and creative director Tim Gormley — whose background includes sour beer production — built VISUALS around a similar mixed-fermentation approach applied to wine, cider and aperitifs rather than beer. The wine program’s grape wines are made in Geyserville, California, largely from Sonoma and Mendocino County fruit, under head winemaker Evan Lewandowski, using minimal-intervention techniques and native yeast fermentation. The ciders, by contrast, are produced in Asheville using mostly North Carolina apples. VISUALS’ production and winery operations are based at Burial’s Forestry Camp location at 10 Shady Oak Dr., which opened in 2019 on the historic grounds of a former Civilian Conservation Corps property and also houses Burial’s production brewery. (Source: Burial Beer’s own site.)

    What to Taste

    VISUALS’ lineup spans wine, cider, and an aperitif program Gormley describes as built on a long-running fascination with aromatized wine and amaro — herbaceous, bittersweet sippers meant for before or after a meal, some blended with neutral spirit infused with dozens of botanicals. Recent releases have included a Rosé of Grenache, a carbonic red, a Chardonnay, a Gamay, and a Nebbiolo, alongside seasonal one-offs tied to the calendar. As with any small-batch, vintage-driven program, exactly what’s pouring changes constantly — check VISUALS’ current list before you go rather than planning around a specific bottle. The rooftop bar also serves craft cocktails, locally sourced snacks, and a curated list of guest wines for anyone in the group who wants something outside the house program.

    The Setting and the Experience

    The VISUALS Rooftop Bar is open-air, perched above Eulogy Music Hall, and built specifically as a space for what the brand calls “education and socialization” around natural wine — a noticeably different vibe from a typical vineyard tasting room, closer to a stylish rooftop lounge than a rural winery. It operates seasonally, and recent listed hours have run Tuesday through Sunday afternoons and evenings, with weekly deals that have included half-priced bottles and pre-show can specials timed to Eulogy’s concert schedule. The rooftop is also available for private events and gatherings, with a range of package options. No pets are allowed on the rooftop.

    What Else Is Nearby

    Because VISUALS sits on Burial’s South Slope campus, it’s a natural stop to combine with Burial’s original South Slope taproom at 40 Collier Ave, just a short walk away, or with any of the other breweries and taprooms packed into the same few blocks. This is a case where a private vehicle really pays off — you can start the evening on South Slope, work your way through a few stops on foot, and not have to think about who’s driving home.

    Planning Your Visit

    Asheville is roughly 86 miles and about 2 hours 8 minutes from Boone via US-221, and a comparable distance from Banner Elk or Blowing Rock — plan this as a full-day trip rather than a quick evening out, factoring drive time both ways into your schedule. Because VISUALS operates seasonally and its hours and rooftop calendar shift, confirm current hours, age requirements and event schedules directly with Burial Beer before you go.

    Wine Tour Transportation to VISUALS Wine

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to VISUALS Wine from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our VISUALS Wine trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your VISUALS Wine tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Urban Orchard Cider Co. · DSSOLVR · Biltmore Winery — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • Valley River Vineyards: A Family Farm Winery on Martin’s Creek Road Near Murphy, NC

    Valley River Vineyards: A Family Farm Winery on Martin’s Creek Road Near Murphy, NC

    Valley River Vineyards sits on Martin’s Creek Road outside Murphy, NC, in the far southwestern tip of the state — closer to Georgia and Tennessee than to almost anywhere else in North Carolina wine country. It’s a small, family-run vineyard and winery that describes itself as “A Taste Of Southern Appalachia,” and that description fits: this is a working farm winery built around picnic tables, a creek, and a slower pace than you’ll find at more commercial tasting rooms.

    A Small Family Vineyard Since the Late 1990s

    Valley River Vineyards describes itself as a small family vineyard and winery located in western North Carolina, with vines planted in 1997 producing a mix of Vinifera and North American grape varieties along with fruit supplements. That’s a long history for a winery that still runs like a genuinely personal, family-scale operation — the kind of place where the person pouring your wine may well be the person who grew it. (Source: description on Valley River Vineyards’ High Country Wine Tours profile, courtesy of the North Carolina Wine & Grape Council.)

    What to Taste

    Because production is small, the wine list shifts with what’s currently available — Valley River has listed a red called Mattie Hatchet Red, a Chardonnay, a semi-sweet Blackberry wine, and has previewed a Peach and Apple wine as an upcoming addition on its own site. Treat any specific bottle as a snapshot of what’s pouring right now rather than a permanent menu, and check with the winery directly for what’s currently in stock before you visit. (Source: Valley River Vineyards’ own website.)

    The Setting and the Experience

    This is a destination built for lingering rather than a quick tasting-and-go. The property includes picnic tables, wildlife watching, walking trails with what the winery describes as unbeatable views, a pond for stargazing at night, and a community firepit at dusk. There’s disc golf and cornhole on site, and a clubhouse with a large TV, pool table, a beer-and-wine bar, and grills guests can use to cook their own food. Valley River also offers creek-side tent camping for small and large groups, letting visitors pitch a tent near the vineyard and wake up already there for the next day’s tasting. The winery keeps a running events calendar with things like cookouts, bottling-party weekends, a planting party, and seasonal gatherings tied to holidays and college football season — it’s worth checking their current calendar if you want your visit to line up with something specific. Valley River has also been featured on WRCB-TV’s local news out of Chattanooga, Tennessee, which visited the winery in November 2022. (Source: Valley River Vineyards’ own website.)

    What Else Is Nearby

    Murphy sits in Cherokee County at the western tip of North Carolina, near the Nantahala National Forest and within a reasonably short drive of other small producers in the region’s far-western wine and cider scene. If you’re making the drive out this far, it’s worth building a longer weekend around the trip rather than treating Valley River as a single stop — there isn’t a dense cluster of tasting rooms immediately nearby the way there is in Asheville or Hendersonville, so plan for a slower, more spread-out day.

    Planning Your Visit

    Be realistic about the distance here: Murphy is roughly 195 miles from Boone and about 4 hours 26 minutes by car via US-19 and US-74 — genuinely one of the longest drives in this region’s wine country, and one that deserves an honest conversation with your group about whether it’s a single very long day or an overnight trip. From Banner Elk or Blowing Rock, expect a similarly long haul. Valley River’s hours vary by season — recent listings have shown summer weekend hours of 1pm to 8:30pm and more limited hours by appointment in the off-season — so confirm current hours, camping availability and what’s currently pouring directly with the winery before you go.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Valley River Vineyards

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Valley River Vineyards from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Valley River Vineyards trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Valley River Vineyards tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Nottely River Valley Vineyards · Wehrloom Honey & Meadery · Shooting Creek Vines — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • Urban Orchard Cider Co.: Asheville’s Original Craft Cider Taproom on South Slope

    Urban Orchard Cider Co.: Asheville’s Original Craft Cider Taproom on South Slope

    Urban Orchard Cider Co. runs its headquarters, production and taproom out of 24 Buxton Ave on Asheville’s South Slope — a neighborhood packed with breweries and taprooms, where Urban Orchard has carved out its own identity as one of the city’s original modern cider producers. If your group wants to taste something other than beer or wine on an Asheville trip, this is the place that’s been doing craft hard cider here the longest.

    From West Asheville to South Slope

    Urban Orchard got its start in what was then the up-and-coming edge of West Asheville — an area now generally referred to as East-West Asheville. A local family of six started the company with a plan to change how craft cider was made in America, using local apples from Hendersonville, NC, and creative farm-to-table ingredients. Nearly five years after opening, the company outgrew that original space: in October 2019, Urban Orchard moved its production and opened its current taproom on the South Slope, where it now generates roughly 10,000 gallons of fermented base cider every four to five weeks during fall production. (Source: Urban Orchard’s own “About Us” page.)

    What to Taste

    Every Urban Orchard cider is aged a minimum of eight months, made from Hendersonville, NC apples, and fermented with a range of yeast strains to give each one a distinct character. The South Slope taproom’s tap list has included staples like Arid Apple (a bone-dry cider fermented with white wine yeast), Dry Ridge (green apple and tropical fruit notes), Ginger Campaign (effervescent and ginger-infused), Highland Cider (pear, elderflower and wildflower honey), Mountains to Sea (light and crisp), the habanero-and-vanilla Sidra Del Diablo, the strawberry-basil Sunglasses at Night, and a traditional unfiltered Sweet English. That list rotates with the seasons — check Urban Orchard’s current on-tap list before you go — but it’s a genuine range from bone-dry to semi-sweet, and the taproom recommends starting with a flight if it’s your first visit. They also pour wine and local Asheville beer for anyone in the group who isn’t drinking cider.

    The Setting and the Experience

    Urban Orchard’s South Slope taproom is built around 20 taps and a deep small-batch rotation, in a space the company describes as meant to foster conversation as much as drinking — comfortable enough to settle in with a book as much as a group of friends. The company has picked up national recognition for its cider program, including a #1 ranking as Best Place to Drink Cider in America from Food & Wine Magazine in 2017 and a #1 Best Cider Establishment in the Southeast from the United States Association of Cider Makers the same year. The taproom also functions as an event space — roughly 4,000 square feet that can hold 20 to 200 guests with seating for up to 100, available for rehearsal dinners, receptions, and corporate gatherings, with outside caterers allowed.

    What Else Is Nearby

    South Slope is one of Asheville’s densest concentrations of breweries and taprooms, all within walking distance of each other — which makes Urban Orchard an easy stop to pair with other South Slope stops on the same visit rather than a single destination requiring its own dedicated trip. It’s the kind of neighborhood where a private vehicle earns its keep: you can work through several stops without anyone needing to track how much they’ve had before getting back behind the wheel.

    Planning Your Visit

    Asheville is roughly 86 miles and about 2 hours 8 minutes from Boone via US-221, and a similar range from Banner Elk or Blowing Rock — this is a full-day trip from the High Country, not a quick run down the mountain, so plan accordingly and build the drive time into your schedule. Urban Orchard now ships cider nationwide and offers monthly cider subscriptions if your group wants to keep tasting after the trip home. As always, confirm current hours and tap list directly with Urban Orchard before you go, since both change seasonally.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Urban Orchard Cider Co.

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Urban Orchard Cider Co. from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Urban Orchard Cider Co. trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Urban Orchard Cider Co. tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: VISUALS Wine · DSSOLVR · Noble Cider & Mead — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • Stone Ashe Vineyard: Bordeaux-Style Wine on a Hendersonville, NC Bluff

    Stone Ashe Vineyard sits on a mountain bluff at roughly 2,700 feet in elevation on Green Mountain Road outside Hendersonville, NC, in the far southwestern corner of the state’s wine country. It’s a serious estate winery in a genuinely dramatic setting — rows of Bordeaux-cloned vines running down steep slopes, a modern tasting room, and long views out over the ridgelines of the Blue Ridge. This isn’t a casual roadside stop; it’s a destination people plan an afternoon around, and it rewards the trip.

    From Dentistry to a Bordeaux-Style Estate

    Stone Ashe was started by Craig and Tina Little, who shared a vision in 2010 to build an estate vineyard modeled on the great growing regions of France. After successful careers in dentistry, they spent three years searching for the right site before finding land rich in what they describe as “stony ashe” soil — providing internal drainage, steep slopes suited to high-density planting, and a micro-climate that supports efficient photosynthesis and balanced fruit. That soil is where the winery’s name comes from. Stone Ashe has since become something of a family affair, and the winery’s own site describes an ongoing evolution as they continue building out the estate. (Source: Stone Ashe’s own “About” page.)

    What to Taste

    Stone Ashe planted classic Bordeaux varietals — Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot — alongside Chardonnay and Riesling, chosen specifically for the terroir of the Crest of the Blue Ridge AVA. The winery has described its goal as producing wines meant to compete on a world stage rather than simply serving tourists passing through. As with any small-production winery, the exact pours change with vintage and season, so treat any specific bottle list as a snapshot rather than a promise — check Stone Ashe’s current offerings before you go. Visitors must be 21 or older, and the winery also runs a biannual wine club with spring and fall allocations that include early releases and wine-club exclusives.

    The Setting and the Experience

    What sets Stone Ashe apart is the site itself: a working vineyard on a steep bluff, with the tasting room built to take advantage of the elevation and the views. The winery hosts periodic events tied to new releases — recent examples on their calendar have included the debut of a crisp white blend called “Tether” alongside a lightly oaked Merlot rosé called Primrose, a hands-on Wine Blending Workshop where guests blend four estate-grown varietals into their own Bordeaux-style red, and seasonal gatherings like a Harvest Party and a Spring Wine Dinner. Groups larger than six are asked to make weekend reservations given the winery’s modest production and intentionally intimate setting, and an automatic 20% gratuity applies to parties over six. No outside food is permitted and there’s no smoking or vaping anywhere on the property.

    What Else Is Nearby

    Stone Ashe sits in Hendersonville’s wine and cider corridor, an area with a genuine concentration of small producers within a short drive of one another — part of what makes it worth building a full day around rather than a single stop. Downtown Hendersonville itself, with its historic Main Street of shops and restaurants, is a reasonable add-on before or after a tasting if your group wants to stretch the day.

    Planning Your Visit

    Be honest with your group about the drive: Hendersonville is roughly 95 miles and about 2.5 hours from Boone by car via US-221, and a similar stretch from Banner Elk or Blowing Rock — this is a full-day trip, not a quick afternoon detour, and it makes far more sense as a planned outing than a spontaneous one. Stone Ashe’s own site lists hours as Thursday, Sunday and Monday from 12 to 6pm and Friday–Saturday 11am to 6pm, though hours, tasting fees and reservation policies change, so confirm directly with the winery before you go. One detail worth knowing before you book any transportation: Stone Ashe has specifically told visitors that Uber and Lyft pickups from the property have been unreliable, and asks guests to plan accordingly — which is exactly the kind of problem a scheduled private vehicle solves, since your ride is arranged and waiting rather than hailed on the spot from a mountain bluff with patchy cell service.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Stone Ashe Vineyard

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Stone Ashe Vineyard from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Stone Ashe Vineyard trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Stone Ashe Vineyard tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards · Jeter Mountain Farm · Bold Rock Cidery — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • Souther Williams Vineyard: A 200-Year-Old Family Farm Growing European Wine Grapes in Fletcher, NC

    Souther Williams Vineyard: A 200-Year-Old Family Farm Growing European Wine Grapes in Fletcher, NC

    Souther Williams Vineyard sits on Hoopers Creek Road in Fletcher, NC, about 20 minutes from both Hendersonville and Asheville, on a 35-acre property that’s remained in the same family for more than 200 years. The tagline the winery uses — “where the mountains meet the vines” — is more literal than most marketing lines; the open-air pavilion tasting room looks straight out over rows of cool-climate European grape varieties with the Blue Ridge rising behind them.

    A Bicentennial Farm Becomes a Vineyard

    The land traces back to a roughly 10,000-acre 1800s property that made up much of what’s now the Hoopers Creek valley; the 35 acres that remain today form the original homeplace, and remnants from that earlier era are still visible on the property. Owners Ken Parker and Angela Adams — who spent their careers in banking and technology before turning to wine full time — named the vineyard for Ken’s grandparents, Carrie Souther and JK Williams, and opened it in 2016 after first running a wine-and-cigar venture called The Highlander Cigar Club. Their granddaughter Ashleigh has been involved in building the vineyard from the ground up and, according to the winery, plans to study fermentation science with the goal of becoming their winemaker. (Source: Souther Williams’ own “Caretakers” page.)

    What to Taste

    Souther Williams specializes in cooler-climate European vinifera not commonly seen in the Southeast — grape varieties that originate in Austria, Germany, Eastern Europe and Russia, chosen deliberately for the vineyard’s higher elevation and shorter growing season. The current planting includes three whites (Grüner Veltliner, Riesling and Vidal Blanc) and five reds (Cynthiana/Norton, Blaufränkisch/Lemberger, Regent, Saperavi and Cabernet Franc), with roughly an acre of each variety across 8 of the property’s 35 acres. At full production the winery expects to make 1,500–2,000 cases a year. Because the lineup is built from these less-common grapes rather than the usual Merlot-and-Chardonnay list, it’s worth going in curious rather than expecting familiar names.

    The Setting and the Experience

    Tastings happen in an open-air pavilion overlooking the vineyard, with a few different formats: a walk-up four-wine flight with no reservation needed, a hosted five-wine flight with a private guide, a “Hike and Sip” tour that combines a roughly 75-minute walk through the hillside vines with five wines along the way ($50/person, offered Friday–Sunday at 11 a.m. or by private appointment), and an “Owner’s Tasting” hosted by Ken Parker himself on the estate farmhouse deck for four to eight people ($135/person, three days’ advance reservation required). The property also features a carved wooden sculpture called “Amara, Lady of the Vines,” created by artist Mountain Mike Ayers in a red oak tree on-site in August 2023 — the winery has built a folklore-style legend around the piece as part of its brand storytelling, which is presented explicitly as a created legend rather than local history.

    What Else Is Nearby

    Fletcher sits directly between Hendersonville and Asheville, so a Souther Williams visit pairs easily with either downtown — Hendersonville’s walkable Main Street or Asheville’s broader restaurant and gallery scene — without adding much drive time. Souther Williams itself also offers helicopter tours, luxury picnics, and hosts private events on-site, so some groups treat the vineyard as the whole afternoon rather than one stop among several.

    Planning Your Visit

    From Boone, Souther Williams is about 93 miles and roughly 2 hours and 18 minutes by car — the shortest drive of the far-western wineries in this area, but still a full-day trip once you add tasting time, a meal, and the return drive. The vineyard’s posted hours are Thursday through Monday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. (with Sunday specifically 12–6 p.m.), closed Tuesday and Wednesday — confirm current hours and reservation requirements directly with Souther Williams before you go, especially if you want the Hike and Sip tour or Owner’s Tasting, both of which need advance booking. If your group is combining the vineyard with time in Hendersonville or Asheville, having one driver for the day keeps everyone together and means nobody has to sit out the tasting to handle the drive home on mountain roads after dark.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Souther Williams Vineyard

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Souther Williams Vineyard from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Souther Williams Vineyard trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Souther Williams Vineyard tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Sawyer Springs Vineyard · Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards · Jeter Mountain Farm — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • Slanted Window Tasting Station & Senamore Vineyard: Wine and Farm Life Near Franklin, NC

    Slanted Window Tasting Station & Senamore Vineyard: Wine and Farm Life Near Franklin, NC

    Slanted Window is the wine brand behind Senamore Vineyard & Farms, a vineyard tucked into the Nantahala Mountains near Franklin, NC, paired with a lively downtown tasting station and restaurant on Harrison Avenue. It’s a two-part experience: a working farm and vineyard for tours, and a full restaurant-and-bar tasting room in town for anyone who just wants a glass, a flatbread, and some live music.

    A Farmhouse Window with a View

    The winery’s name comes from a literal discovery. In 2011, while restoring an 1878 farmhouse on the property, the owners uncovered a distinctive slanted window on the second-floor porch that had been covered over with siding for years. From behind it, they found a view of the sky and the vineyard below — and built the brand’s whole framing around that idea of “a different perspective,” the same shift in view that winemaking and wine tasting ask of a person. The vineyard itself, Senamore Vineyard & Farms, sits in the Nantahala Mountains near Franklin and is described by the winery as Macon County’s only vineyard that bottles its own wine. (Source: Slanted Window’s own website.)

    What to Taste

    Slanted Window’s current list includes reds like Tahlequah (blackberry, dark cherry, oak) and Tellico Tuscan, a fruity, full-bodied red with cherry, coffee, vanilla and spice notes that has picked up medals at NC Wine competitions — the winery’s press page cites a silver medal for Tellico Tuscan plus two bronze medals in 2024. Beyond the reds, the list runs to a Sangiovese-based rosé, a Pyment (honey co-fermented with grapes), a Mele Melée made from local red gala and golden crisp apples, and a 100% Chambourcin called Mambo Chambo. Wines are sold in limited quantities at the winery and at the Tasting Station, so availability shifts — check what’s currently pouring before you plan around a specific bottle.

    Two Ways to Experience It

    The Tasting Station and Restaurant on Harrison Avenue in downtown Franklin is open Wednesday through Sunday, serving wine, beer and bourbon tastings alongside sandwiches, charcuterie boards and flatbreads, with live music Friday and Sunday evenings and occasional special sets on Saturdays. If you want the farm itself, Slanted Window offers a private vineyard tasting and tour by appointment only, with a six-person minimum, priced at $100 per person with a 50% deposit; tours run 2 to 2.5 hours and the winery asks guests to dress for farm conditions with closed-toe shoes. Both experiences are worth knowing about before you go, since they’re in different locations — the restaurant in town, the vineyard tour out at the farm.

    What Else Is Nearby

    Franklin is known regionally for gem mining, waterfalls including Cullasaja Falls, Dry Falls and Bridal Veil Falls, and hiking access into the surrounding Nantahala National Forest — Southern Living named it among “The 15 Best Things To Do In Franklin, North Carolina” in a September 2024 feature. It’s an easy town to build a full day around beyond the winery itself.

    Planning Your Visit

    Franklin is roughly 152 miles from Boone, about 3 hours and 33 minutes by car — a legitimate full-day trip rather than a quick jaunt, and one that’s easiest to enjoy without anyone in the group needing to focus on the drive. If your plan includes the vineyard tour specifically, book well ahead since it’s by appointment only with a group minimum; if you’re aiming for the Tasting Station, note it’s closed Monday and Tuesday. Either way, with several hours of driving on both ends of the day, a private vehicle for the whole group means everyone can actually enjoy the tastings, the waterfalls, or the live music without worrying about who’s driving home.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Slanted Window Tasting Station-Senamore Vineyard & Farms

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Slanted Window Tasting Station-Senamore Vineyard & Farms from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Slanted Window Tasting Station-Senamore Vineyard & Farms trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Slanted Window Tasting Station-Senamore Vineyard & Farms tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Valley River Vineyards · VISUALS Wine · Nottely River Valley Vineyards — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery

  • Shooting Creek Vines: A 170-Year Vineyard Legend in Hayesville, NC

    Shooting Creek Vines: A 170-Year Vineyard Legend in Hayesville, NC

    Shooting Creek Vines is a small family-owned winery in Hayesville, NC, tucked at the foot of the Nantahala National Forest near the North Carolina–Georgia line. This is about as far west as High Country wine touring gets, and the payoff is a genuinely rural, working-vineyard experience built around one specific piece of land and a 170-year-old local legend.

    An Unremembered Englishman’s Vines

    Shooting Creek Vines was founded in 2017, when the family planted nearly 2,500 vines in four red varieties — starting with a cornerstone block of Syrah, followed by Merlot, Zinfandel, and Cabernet Sauvignon planted across the creek. A block of Chardonnay and Traminette followed in 2018. The name and story go back further: while researching why several nearby geographic features carry “Vineyard” in their name, the family found a single historical account of an “unremembered” Englishman who settled in the Shooting Creek community — founded in 1849 — and planted several small vineyard plots across the mountainside sometime between 1850 and 1870, only to disappear from the historical record a few years later without success. The winery has since gone looking for any surviving original vines in the surrounding terrain, hoping to graft and reproduce them as a link back to that earlier attempt. (Source: Shooting Creek Vines’ own “Our Story” page.)

    The Land Itself

    Shooting Creek’s owners are unusually specific about their soil and geology: they describe a “tate loam” and “french fine sandy loam” mineral soil full of quartz, marble, granite, limestone, and rounded river stones, which they collect and place beneath the vines so the rocks can absorb daytime heat and radiate it back at night — a practice they say produces spicy, full-bodied reds and crisp, semi-dry whites. They note the soil composition most closely resembles that of the southern Rhône region of France near Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The winery leans into growing European vinifera rather than easier hybrid grapes, which it frames as a deliberate choice to chase a more classic wine style.

    The Setting

    The vineyard sits at the coordinates the winery proudly cites on its own homepage — 35°02’20” N, 83°39’49” W — with a view of Vineyard Mountain and Vineyard Creek running through the property. It’s a real working vineyard with over 2,500 vines rather than a large event facility, and the tasting room is sized to match: modest, unhurried, and focused on the wine itself.

    What Else Is Nearby

    Hayesville is the seat of Clay County and sits on Lake Chatuge, a Tennessee Valley Authority reservoir created in the early 1940s by the Chatuge Dam — an earthen dam that was the tallest of its kind in the world until Egypt’s Aswan Dam was completed in 1964. The dam itself was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017. Downtown Hayesville has a town square and the Peacock Playhouse, the only community theater in far-western North Carolina, founded in the 1980s. If your group is making the long drive out, building in time on the lake or around the Hayesville square rounds out the day.

    Planning Your Visit

    Be honest with yourself about the distance: Shooting Creek Vines is roughly 187 miles from Boone, about 4 hours and 20 minutes by car. This is not a spontaneous afternoon trip from the High Country — it’s a full-day (or overnight) excursion best planned well in advance, with the drive itself treated as part of the experience rather than an obstacle. The winery is open Friday through Sunday, noon to 6 p.m., from March through November, and by appointment only (call ahead) December through February — confirm current hours directly with Shooting Creek before you commit to the trip. Given the distance and the narrow, winding mountain roads on the way in, having one private vehicle and driver for the whole group is less about convenience and more about making a trip this long actually feasible.

    Wine Tour Transportation to Shooting Creek Vines

    Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Shooting Creek Vines from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Shooting Creek Vines trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.

    Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Shooting Creek Vines tour or call (336) 484-1350.

    Other High Country wineries we serve: Sawyer Springs Vineyard · Nottely River Valley Vineyards · Valley River Vineyards — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.

    Explore More from Ashe County Livery