Author: Ashe County Livery

Lazy Elm Vineyard & Winery: A Family Farm Turned Yadkin Valley Retreat

Lazy Elm Vineyard & Winery sits on a 43-acre farm on Danner Road in Mocksville, North Carolina, just three miles north of I-40 and a mile east of Highway 601 — close enough for an easy detour, yet quiet enough that you would never guess an interstate is nearby. The winery takes its name from the shade tree at the heart of the property: the invitation here has always been simple — grab a couple of glasses and a bottle, find a spot under the elm, and slow down for a while.

Roughly 5.5 acres of the farm are planted in vines, mostly French and Italian varietals, set within the Yadkin Valley AVA — North Carolina’s first federally recognized grape-growing region. In recent years, Lazy Elm has also sourced additional Yadkin Valley AVA fruit from a vineyard in neighboring Surry County to round out its lineup. The tasting room offers both indoor and outdoor seating, and the winery has always encouraged guests to bring snacks and settle in rather than rush through a tasting. It is a smaller, low-key alternative to some of the Yadkin Valley’s larger estate wineries — the kind of place where a Saturday afternoon can disappear without you noticing.

The Wines of Lazy Elm Vineyard & Winery

Lazy Elm specializes in dry red wines, alongside a rotating selection of rosés and fruit wines. The estate lineup has included varietal Cabernet Franc and Merlot, along with the winery’s signature house blend, Damn Yankee — a Cabernet Franc and Merlot blend whose proportions shift from vintage to vintage at the winemaker’s discretion, so no two bottlings taste quite the same. Lazy Elm also makes a limited-production Dry Rosé, produced by drawing off juice from red grapes at crush time rather than pressing whole clusters — a technique that lets the winemaker dial in exactly how much color and body each vintage gets. Beyond the core red and rosé lineup, Lazy Elm has released small-batch fruit wines over the years, including a sweet apple wine made entirely from North Carolina-grown apples, sourced in years when supply allowed. It is a lineup built around approachability: pours meant for relaxing under the elm rather than working through a formal tasting flight.

Planning Your Visit

Address: 523 Danner Road, Mocksville, NC 27028
Hours: Currently open the second full weekend of each month, Saturday and Sunday, 12pm – 6pm; outside of those dates, visits are by appointment only

Lazy Elm changed its operating schedule as of January 2026, so this is one stop where checking the calendar before you go really matters:

• Second-weekend tastings — Lazy Elm now opens to the public only on the second full Saturday and Sunday of each month, 12pm to 6pm.
• By appointment — outside of those dates, the winery will do its best to accommodate visitors who call ahead.
• Indoor & outdoor seating — bring snacks and settle in at a table inside or out under the shade of the namesake elm.

A practical note we have learned from bringing groups here: because Lazy Elm’s public hours are now limited to one weekend a month, we always confirm the current schedule and call ahead before building a route around this stop, and we recommend groups do the same. When the timing lines up, budget at least an hour to an hour and a half here — long enough to work through a flight and enjoy the shade without feeling rushed.

Where Lazy Elm Fits in Your Tour Route

Lazy Elm sits in Mocksville, in Davie County, close to the Davidson County line — the same general cluster as RayLen Vineyards, also in Mocksville, and Junius Lindsay Vineyard and Childress Vineyards, both a short drive away in Lexington. That makes this a natural anchor for a southeastern Yadkin Valley route rather than a stand-alone stop, and it is easy to pair a visit here with one or two of those nearby tasting rooms on the same afternoon.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time, and because Lazy Elm’s hours are limited to one weekend a month (or by appointment), we recommend building your itinerary around Lazy Elm’s open dates first, then filling in the rest of the route around it.

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• Request a free quote — or call (336) 484-1350

Junius Lindsay Vineyard: A Family Farm’s Last Great Chapter

The story of Junius Lindsay Vineyard (JLV) in Lexington, North Carolina starts more than a century before the first grape was planted. The Zimmerman family has farmed this land in Davidson County since 1896, when Junius Lindsay “Lindsay” Zimmerman and his wife Beatrice Estelle Evans first worked the soil, growing wheat, corn, and sweet potatoes across four generations. It was Lindsay’s grandson, Michael Zimmerman, who reimagined the family farm as a vineyard. After a sixteen-year career as a U.S. Foreign Service diplomat — postings that took him through Ethiopia, Ghana, Mexico, and Sweden — Michael fell in love with the wines of France’s Rhône Valley during his travels through Europe. He returned to the family farm in 1996, planted two acres of Viognier in 2004, and named the resulting vineyard after his grandfather.

In 2008, Michael built the vineyard’s now-signature open-air tasting room, designed by architect Don Ruth — still the only open-air tasting room in North Carolina. Michael passed away in 2024, and his twins, Aaron Zimmerman and Mercedes Zimmerman Davis, have carried the estate forward as co-proprietors in its fourth generation. In 2026, the family announced that JLV is winding down operations and will close permanently at the end of the year, closing out a twenty-two year run and a family farming legacy that dates back to 1896. For anyone who has wanted to visit, this is genuinely the last window to do so.

The Wines of Junius Lindsay Vineyard

JLV built its reputation on old-world, Rhône-style wines — a rarity in the Yadkin Valley, where French and Italian varietals more common to Bordeaux and Tuscany tend to dominate. Michael’s early plantings of Viognier expanded to include Syrah, Petite Sirah, Roussanne, and Grenache, all varietals rooted in the Rhône Valley of Southern France. The vineyard’s Triomphe, a blend of Petite Sirah and Roussanne, pays tribute to the Northern Rhône tradition of blending red and white grapes together — a technique Michael discovered on his travels and wanted to bring home. Other estate wines include the white blend Second Leaf (Sauvignon Blanc and Vidal Blanc), the off-dry Forget-Me-Not (Roussanne and Viognier), sparkling and still rosés, and the Petite Sirah/Roussanne red blend Metro. JLV’s wines have been featured by CBS 17 at a Luxe Chef Gala and covered by Town Carolina magazine as part of Yadkin Valley’s “new Napa” story.

Planning Your Visit

Location: Lexington, NC, on the Southern Gateway Wine Trail of the Yadkin Valley AVA — North Carolina’s first federally designated grape-growing region
Tasting Room Hours: Friday, 1pm – 8pm; Saturday & Sunday, 1pm – 5pm

A few things make a visit to JLV distinct from most Yadkin Valley stops:

• Open-air tasting room — North Carolina’s only one, with ceiling fans for warm months and vinyl curtains with heating added for fall and winter visits.
• Pet- and family-friendly — well-behaved, leashed pets are welcome throughout the grounds, and children of all ages are welcome, with games and coloring books on hand.
• Bring your own picnic — guests are invited to pack a picnic and relax on the grounds when a food vendor is not scheduled (outside alcohol is not permitted per NC ABC rules).
• Music in the Vineyard — a live music series that runs February through November, alongside a rotating calendar of seasonal events.
• Private events — the tasting room and grounds can be booked for engagements, bridal showers, and micro weddings, with signature packages built around exclusive access to the estate.

A practical note we have learned from bringing groups here: JLV asks that larger parties traveling together reserve at least two days ahead of a visit during regular hours, so we always confirm the date and headcount with the vineyard before finalizing a tour stop here. Because the open-air room and grounds invite lingering — especially with live music playing — we recommend budgeting at least an hour and a half to two hours at JLV, more if you want to picnic or catch a set from the Music in the Vineyard series.

Where Junius Lindsay Vineyard Fits in Your Tour Route

JLV sits on the eastern side of the Yadkin Valley AVA, in Lexington, the same Davidson County town that is home to Childress Vineyards and Weathervane Winery — making this corner of the valley an easy cluster to visit in one day without long stretches of driving between stops. Because JLV only opens Friday through Sunday afternoons, it pairs best with a weekend itinerary built around one or two nearby tasting rooms.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time between stops, and check each winery’s current hours before you finalize a route — hours and availability change, and with JLV winding down through the end of 2026, this is one stop worth confirming and booking sooner rather than later.

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• Request a free quote — or call (336) 484-1350

Jones von Drehle Vineyards: A Family Estate on 65 Blue Ridge Acres

Jones von Drehle Vineyards & Winery is a true family affair. Co-owners Chuck and Diana Jones, along with Diana’s sister Ronnie von Drehle and her husband Raymond von Drehle, began searching for the right property around 2007 and established the farm in 2008 on 65 acres of former pastures and woodland tucked into the south-facing foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Thurmond, North Carolina, just northwest of Elkin.

The winery itself was built in 2012, and the tasting room and patio look out over the estate’s 30 acres of vines — every bottle Jones von Drehle produces is grown on this single property, not sourced from outside fruit. It has become known around the Yadkin Valley for quality, dry, European-styled wines, many of which are poured in finer restaurants across North Carolina. The setting itself is part of the draw: the property rises along a south-facing slope of the Blue Ridge foothills, giving the vines strong sun exposure and giving visitors long mountain views from the patio and the amphitheater below the tasting room.

The Wines of Jones von Drehle

Of the estate’s 65 total acres, 30 are planted in classic Vitis vinifera varieties, including Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier, Malbec and Petit Manseng. The winery leans into structured, food-friendly dry wines rather than sweeter styles, which is part of why its bottles have found their way onto restaurant wine lists well beyond the Yadkin Valley.

Because everything is estate-grown, the vineyard team controls the fruit from planting to bottle — each variety was placed in the section of the property best suited to it, a detail the winery is quick to point out when talking about its approach to quality. It is the kind of hands-on, single-site winemaking that tends to reward repeat visits, since vintages and small-lot releases can vary from year to year.

Planning Your Visit

Address: 964 Old Railroad Grade Road, Thurmond, NC 28683
Tasting Room Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 11am – 5pm; Sunday, 12pm – 5pm; closed Monday & Tuesday

A visit to Jones von Drehle typically includes:

• Tasting room pours — a seated or standing tasting through the estate lineup, on the patio overlooking the vines whenever weather allows.
• The Stage @ Jones von Drehle — an outdoor amphitheater carved into the ridge just below the tasting room, used for concerts and events; check the winery’s own site for the current show schedule.
• Snacks and food trucks — light snacks are typically available, with food trucks on-site occasionally, particularly around concerts.
• Chloe Hall — an on-site special events venue for weddings and private gatherings, a nice option for High Country couples looking for a Blue Ridge backdrop within driving distance of home.

A few practical notes we have learned from bringing groups here: children and pets are welcome, but are asked to stay on the patio rather than inside the tasting room, so plan accordingly if you are traveling with kids or a dog. Reservations are recommended, especially if a concert is scheduled at The Stage, since those dates draw a crowd and parking fills up fast. Between the tasting, the patio views, and the amphitheater grounds, we recommend budgeting at least ninety minutes to two hours here — longer on concert nights, when it is worth simply staying through the show rather than trying to fit in another stop afterward.

Where Jones von Drehle Fits in Your Tour Route

Jones von Drehle sits at the northwestern edge of the Yadkin Valley wine region, on the rising slope of the Blue Ridge foothills near Thurmond and Elkin. It groups naturally with the small cluster of Surry and Wilkes County wineries in this corner of the valley, rather than with the bigger-name estates further south and east near Dobson and Yadkinville. For High Country groups, this corner of the valley is also the closest to home, which makes it a convenient first stop before continuing deeper into the Yadkin Valley or a relaxed standalone half-day trip on its own.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time between stops. Because this stretch of the valley is more spread out than the Dobson wine cluster, we typically build a Thurmond/Elkin day around two or three wineries rather than four or five, so nobody feels rushed between the mountain scenery and the tasting rooms.

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Hidden Vineyard: A Spontaneous Dream on Nine Acres Near Pilot Mountain

Some wineries take a decade of planning. Hidden Vineyard took two days. As the story goes, a group of wine enthusiasts were sharing a glass of wine when they decided, on the spot, to go buy a vineyard — and by July 5, 2017, they owned one, a small farm tucked between Dobson and Pilot Mountain in the heart of the Yadkin Valley AVA. What started as an impulsive weekend decision has grown into one of the most laid-back, welcoming stops on our Surry County wine tours.

The nine-acre property sits along a quiet road called Hidden Vines Lane, and the name fits: this is a working farm-turned-vineyard, not a polished estate, and that is exactly its appeal. The tasting room has an industrial-farmhouse feel with big windows and a porch full of rocking chairs looking out over the vines, with the peak of Pilot Mountain visible in the distance. It is part of the Surry County Wine Trail, a cluster of small, independently owned wineries scattered across the rolling farmland northwest of Winston-Salem, and it has built a reputation less on formality and more on being a genuinely relaxing place to spend an afternoon.

The Wines of Hidden Vineyard

Hidden Vineyard farms roughly nine acres of Vitis vinifera and French-American hybrid grapes, growing eight varieties: Chardonnay, Petit Manseng, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Chambourcin and Pinot Gris. That lineup leans toward Bordeaux-style reds and structured whites rather than the sweeter muscadine wines found at some Yadkin Valley stops, and the winery describes its own lineup on its website as “award winning wines.”

Beyond the tasting room pours, Hidden Vineyard runs a quarterly wine club (around $69.99 per quarter plus tax and shipping) for regulars who want their favorites shipped or held for pickup. Wines are available to taste and purchase on-site, and through an online store that also carries HV-branded merchandise for visitors who want to take a piece of the vineyard home.

Planning Your Visit

Address: 125 Hidden Vines Lane, Dobson, NC 27017
Tasting Room Hours: Thursday, 11am – 6pm; Friday & Saturday, 11am – 8pm; Sunday, 12pm – 6pm; closed Monday – Wednesday

A visit here is less about a formal, scripted tasting and more about spending an afternoon on the property:

• Guided tastings — walk-in tastings through the current lineup, poured in the farmhouse-style tasting room or out on the porch.
• Vineyard walk — an open trail runs right through the middle of the vines, with a view toward Pilot Mountain, plus a “kid’s silo” play area for younger visitors.
• Food trucks and snacks — rotating food trucks and pizza are typically on-site, so you can make an afternoon of it rather than just a quick pour.
• Live music — regularly scheduled on the property, especially on weekends.
• The Tobacco Cabin — a renovated 1890s tobacco barn on-site operates as an overnight rental just steps from the tasting room, for groups who want to stay over.

A few practical notes we have learned from bringing groups here: this is a family- and pet-friendly winery, and dogs are welcome both on the grounds and inside the tasting room, so it is a good stop if anyone in your party is traveling with a four-legged companion. Reservations are recommended for groups of six or more. Because there is no formal seated tasting to rush through, and the grounds genuinely invite lingering — the porch, the vineyard trail, the food trucks — we recommend budgeting at least ninety minutes to two hours here, longer if you catch live music or want to eat.

Where Hidden Vineyard Fits in Your Tour Route

Hidden Vineyard sits in Surry County on the Surry County Wine Trail, between the towns of Dobson and Pilot Mountain, which puts it within easy reach of several other Surry County wineries in one loop. It pairs naturally with a day built around Dobson-area stops rather than the wineries further east near Elkin or Yadkinville, and its casual, come-as-you-are atmosphere makes a nice contrast if you are also visiting one of the larger, more formal Yadkin Valley estates the same day.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time between stops. Because Hidden Vineyard’s hours run later than most Yadkin Valley tasting rooms — open until 8pm on Friday and Saturday — it also works well as a relaxed final stop on a Surry County wine tour, after other tasting rooms have already closed for the day.

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• Request a free quote — or call (336) 484-1350

Zimmerman Vineyards: Randolph County’s First Commercial Vineyard

Zimmerman Vineyards opened its doors to the public on June 1, 2007, becoming Randolph County’s first commercial vineyard. The winery is family owned and operated, now managed by siblings Lauren, Shane and Adriaan Zimmerman along with their respective spouses, Megan Zimmerman and Alex Myers. While the wine itself is made off premises, it is produced exclusively from grapes grown on the estate — the fruit is entirely their own.

The winery’s wine labels carry a distinctive image: Sisyphus, the Greek mythological King of Corinth condemned to push a great boulder uphill for eternity. It is a deliberate, self-aware choice — the Zimmermans describe their own effort building the vineyard as mirroring Sisyphus’s struggle, with one important difference: their work has been goal-driven, and it has led them to the realization of a dream rather than an endless, fruitless task.

The Wines of Zimmerman Vineyards

Zimmerman’s estate-grown lineup carries the Sisyphus mythology through its names. On the white side, Sisyphus itself is a Bordeaux Blanc-style blend — crisp and neutral, with light acidity and flavors that lean toward lime or apple — while Persephone blends their white varieties into a table wine with citrus notes and a hint of sweetness. Rosé Rush is a light, effervescent rosé with citrus and red fruit character and a dry finish.

The reds follow the same Bordeaux-inspired approach: the red Sisyphus is a true Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, while Heir of Hypnos is a light-bodied, unoaked red blend built to showcase pure red-fruit character. The red Persephone is a semi-dry blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot, best served chilled, and Aegina rounds out the lineup as a dessert wine with tropical fruit notes.

Planning Your Visit

Address: 1428 Tabernacle Church Road, Trinity, NC 27370
Hours (March – November): Saturday 12pm – 6pm, Sunday 1pm – 6pm
December – February: Closed for winter break

Zimmerman sits among the Uwharrie Mountains, and the flagstone terrace is the heart of a visit — from there you can take in the vines, gardens and surrounding mountainside while you taste. From April through October, the winery hosts “Songwriter Sundays,” with live original music from local musicians between 3 and 5pm alongside a glass of Zimmerman wine or a local Goose & The Monkey beer.

• Terrace Tasting — taste the estate lineup on the flagstone terrace overlooking the vineyard.
• Songwriter Sundays — live music April through October, 3–5pm.
• Charcuterie Boards — Goat Lady Dairy cheese, meat, crackers and grapes, available to pair with your tasting.
• Picnics Welcome — bring your own food to enjoy on the grounds during normal business hours.

A few practical notes we have learned from bringing groups here: Zimmerman only operates Saturdays and Sundays, and closes entirely for winter break from December through February, so this is very much a warm-weather stop to plan around rather than a year-round option. Leashed pets are welcome on the terrace and grounds (with proof of current vaccinations) but not inside the tasting room, and outside alcohol is not permitted since ABC regulations prohibit it — though the on-site Goose & The Monkey beer selection covers anyone in your group who prefers beer to wine. We recommend budgeting at least ninety minutes here, longer on a Songwriter Sunday when the music makes it easy to linger.

Where Zimmerman Fits in Your Tour Route

Zimmerman sits in Trinity, in Randolph County, which puts it closer to the Lexington-area wineries than to the Surry County cluster most High Country wine tours focus on. Childress Vineyards and Junius Lindsay Vineyard in Lexington, and Weathervane Winery a short drive north, all sit within easy reach of Zimmerman — making this eastern corner of the region its own natural mini-route.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time between stops. Because Zimmerman is only open Saturday and Sunday afternoons (and closed entirely in winter), we recommend confirming it is in season before anchoring a whole day’s route around it.

Zimmerman also hosts weddings on the property, with a package that includes fourteen hours of venue use plus a two-hour rehearsal window, bride and groom suites, a 20′ x 40′ event tent with string lights, and room for up to 100 guests — something to keep in mind if your group is scouting Piedmont wineries for an upcoming celebration rather than just a tasting day.

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Younts Wine Farm: A Tobacco Field Becomes a Family Vineyard

Younts Wine Farm grew out of a very personal story. As a child, Tina Younts spent years helping her family raise tobacco on the same land outside Walnut Cove, North Carolina, that now supports the vineyard — and years later, she found herself living in the old farmhouse where she was raised. In the 1980s, Tina and her husband Bruce took a trip to Europe that exposed them to wine culture for the first time, and they came home with an idea: rather than let the family land grow over, they would plant a vineyard and build something that could stay in the family for generations.

The first Chardonnay vine went into the ground in the spring of 1996, with additional varietals added acre by acre in the years that followed until there was no more room to plant. In its early years, Younts Wine Farm sold its grapes to other North Carolina wineries; only later did the family build a small, garagiste-style winery on the property, working with local custom-crush facilities before eventually moving the whole process — harvest through bottling — onto the farm itself.

The Wines of Younts Wine Farm

Younts Wine Farm is a private vineyard and winery expanding across ten acres, planted with several French varietals. The vineyard is now managed by Tina and Bruce’s youngest son, Eric Younts, whose history with the land goes back to when the first vines were planted — he was four years old at the time, and he spent his childhood summers working the vineyard alongside his parents. Eric now oversees everything from pruning through harvest and leads the winemaking process himself, while continuing his formal education in Viticulture and Enology at Surry Community College, the same program behind the Surry Cellars label elsewhere on the Yadkin Valley Wine Trail.

Younts Wine began selling at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market, and today its wines can be purchased online and at Daily Basket in Germanton, North Carolina. The family has said they are actively looking to expand into more retail locations, so the list of places to find a bottle may grow over time.

Planning Your Visit

Location: Fowler Road, Walnut Cove, NC 27052, just off Main Street

Younts Wine Farm is a private, family-run vineyard rather than a winery built around daily walk-in tastings — we were not able to confirm regular public visiting hours or an on-site tasting fee in our research, so we recommend reaching out to the family through Facebook or Instagram before planning a stop here specifically.

• Reach out ahead of time — message Younts Wine Farm on Facebook or Instagram to ask about current visiting policy for groups.
• Buy the wine locally — Younts Wine is sold at Daily Basket in Germanton, NC, and online, if a farm visit does not line up with your schedule.
• Combine it with a Stokes County stop — Walnut Cove sits close to several other northern Piedmont wineries worth pairing on the same day.

A few practical notes we have learned from planning trips through this part of Stokes County: because Younts Wine Farm operates more like a small family vineyard than a public tasting room, we treat it as a “confirm first” stop rather than one we build a fixed itinerary around. If the family can accommodate a visit on your date, wonderful — but we always have a backup plan among the area’s other wineries in case the farm’s schedule does not allow for guests that day.

Where Younts Wine Farm Fits in Your Tour Route

Younts Wine Farm sits just outside Walnut Cove in Stokes County, close to a small cluster of wineries around Madison and Mayodan, including Dragon Glass Winery and Gioia dell’Amore Cellars at Autumn Creek Vineyards, with Old Homeplace Vineyard in Winston-Salem also within reasonable reach. This part of the state sits apart from the denser Surry County winery cluster, so we usually build a route around Stokes and Rockingham County stops together rather than mixing in wineries an hour away near Dobson or Elkin.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time between stops, and check in with Younts Wine Farm ahead of your trip so you know whether a farm visit is part of the day or whether you will simply pick up a bottle at Daily Basket along the way.

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Windsor Run Cellars: Grape to Glass, and Glass to Spirit

Along the Swan Creek Wine Trail in Hamptonville, Windsor Run Cellars describes itself simply: creativity is king. It is a fully integrated “grape to glass” operation — the estate grows, produces and sells its wine all under one roof (well, under two roofs, since the grapes themselves grow outside). Owner Chuck Johnson, a former logistics industry executive who has served on the NC Winegrowers Association board, also owns nearby Shadow Springs Vineyard, and the two properties share a winemaking team and an events calendar.

What makes Windsor Run especially interesting for a wine tour stop is what happens after the wine is made: the WRC Distillery, open for tours and tastings on-site, takes the same grapes and turns them into brandy and spirits. It is a genuinely rare chance to see the full production chain — from vine, to wine, to spirit — in a single visit.

The Wines of Windsor Run Cellars

Windsor Run’s lineup is unusually wide-ranging: estate reds and whites, rosé, sangria, meads, and fortified wines and brandies made in-house. The Yadkin Five is a dry white blend of five different varietals sourced from five different Yadkin Valley vineyards, while Fieldstone blends Valvin Muscat and Albariño into a lower-acid white with citrus and stone-fruit notes. On the red side, Ember is a young-style, minimally oaked Malbec meant to be served chilled, and Resolve is their dry, barrel-aged wine with bold tannin.

The fortified and specialty wines are where Windsor Run really stands apart: Midnight Run, a port-style wine made from Chambourcin and Petit Verdot and fortified with their own brandy, and the 2016 Midnight Run Grand Reserve, aged since 2016 at 18% alcohol. There is also an Apple Mead fermented with cider, honey and cinnamon, muscadine wines like Snow Cream and Plum Crazy, and even a G&J — a wine cocktail built around gin botanicals and Seyval grape juice. Windsor Run also runs a custom-crush program, making wine for other producers under its Vine to Wine Custom Crush service.

Planning Your Visit

Address: 6531 Windsor Road, Hamptonville, NC 27020
Tasting Room Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm
Sunday: 1pm – 5pm
Distillery: Open Saturdays and Sundays; closed major holidays

No reservations are required for groups of six or fewer walking in for a standard tasting. For a more immersive visit, Windsor Run offers The Grand Tasting Experience — a reservation-only, 2 to 2.5 hour guided journey across all three of Chuck’s properties (Windsor Run Cellars, Windsor Run Distillery, and Shadow Springs Vineyard), including curated flights, a behind-the-scenes production tour, locally sourced charcuterie, and a keepsake Riedel wine glass, for $95 plus tax per person. It is limited to one session of four to eight people per weekend, so it needs to be booked well in advance.

• Standard Tasting Room Visit — walk-in friendly for groups of six or fewer, no reservation required.
• The Grand Tasting Experience — reservation-only, across all three Windsor Run/Shadow Springs properties, $95+tax per person.
• Distillery Tour — open weekends, showing how the same grapes become brandy and spirits.
• Annual Herb Festival — a Mother’s Day weekend event across four participating Swan Creek Trail tasting rooms, with wine, food and herb pairings ($35 per ticket, good for two people).

A few practical notes we have learned from bringing groups here: because Windsor Run operates both a winery and a working distillery on one property, it is worth allowing extra time if your group wants to see both sides of the operation rather than just the tasting room. We generally recommend budgeting at least ninety minutes for a standard visit, and the better part of an afternoon if you book the Grand Tasting Experience across all three properties.

Where Windsor Run Fits in Your Tour Route

Windsor Run sits right on the Swan Creek Wine Trail in Hamptonville, in the same small cluster as Shadow Springs Vineyard (under the same ownership) and Dobbins Creek Vineyards and Laurel Gray Vineyards nearby — making this corner of the Yadkin Valley one of the easiest to string together into a single day without long drives between stops.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time between stops, and consider grouping Windsor Run with its Hamptonville neighbors rather than trying to combine it with wineries on the far side of the valley.

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Weathervane Winery: Named for the Force Behind Every Vintage

Weathervane Winery takes its name from the single biggest variable in winemaking: the weather. From the earliest stages of grape development through the final phase of fermentation, weather shapes what ends up in the glass — and the Lexington, North Carolina winery built its identity around that idea, treating every vintage as a record of the season that produced it. It is a fitting name for a winery on the eastern edge of the Yadkin Valley wine region, close enough to Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point and Charlotte to draw visitors from all four cities for an afternoon.

What sets Weathervane apart from larger production wineries is the hand-made approach: nothing here is mass produced, there is no filtering, and there are no oversized storage tanks for aging. Everything is done by hand, from crush through bottling, with the goal of making sure every bottle delivers the best possible taste rather than the most efficient one.

The Wines of Weathervane Winery

Weathervane’s portfolio runs to 19 wines across dry whites, dry reds, rosé, fruit wines and sweet styles, so there is genuinely something for every palate in your group. On the white side, look for Ionosphere, their take on a Pinot Grigio with floral notes and a crisp, dry finish, and Evening Breeze, a Riesling and Semillon blend that is bold and fruit-forward. Harvest Moon, an estate Rosé made from the Chambourcin grape, is light, crisp and fruit-forward, while Cirrus White, their estate Traminette, is balanced with a pleasant lingering finish.

Tastings are guided by staff who walk you through each wine’s aromas, flavor profile, sweetness and body, along with food pairing suggestions — a nice touch whether you are a longtime wine drinker or trying your first flight. The winery describes its lineup as award-winning, and the range is built deliberately: dry reds and whites for guests who want a serious pour, plus fruit and sweet wines for anyone easing into wine tasting for the first time. After your tasting, the on-site gift shop and online wine shop make it easy to take a few bottles home, and Weathervane’s Wine Club offers regular pickups and discounts for repeat visitors.

Planning Your Visit

Address: 1452 Welcome Arcadia Road, Lexington, NC 27295
Tasting Room Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 5pm
Sunday: 1pm – 5pm

Weathervane keeps tastings simple and affordable: a guided flight of five wines is $16 including tax, or $20 if you want to keep the glass. Walk-ins are always welcome during regular business hours, and reservations are recommended only for large groups or private events.

• Guided Wine Tasting — five wines, walk-in friendly, with staff walking your group through aromas, flavor and pairings.
• Wine-Down Fridays — seasonal live-entertainment events at the winery; admission varies, and wine club members and a guest are admitted free.
• Event Center Tour — Weathervane’s 2,400-square-foot event space seats 125–175 guests and is available Tuesday through Sunday, 9am – 10pm, for weddings, showers, and private parties.

A few practical notes we have learned from bringing groups here: because Weathervane welcomes walk-ins for regular tastings, you generally do not need to lock in a reservation the way you might at wineries with seated, appointment-only experiences — but if your visit lines up with a Wine-Down Friday or another live event, it is worth checking ahead, since those nights draw a bigger local crowd. We recommend budgeting about an hour to ninety minutes here, longer if your group wants to relax on the patio or browse the gift shop.

Where Weathervane Fits in Your Tour Route

Weathervane sits on the eastern edge of the Yadkin Valley wine region, closer to Lexington and the Piedmont Triad than to the Surry County cluster of wineries most High Country groups think of first. That makes it a natural stop to pair with other wineries in the Lexington and Trinity area — including Childress Vineyards and Junius Lindsay Vineyard in Lexington, and Zimmerman Vineyards a short drive south in Trinity — rather than trying to combine it with wineries an hour or more away near Elkin or Dobson.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time between stops. Because Weathervane’s tasting room opens at 11am most days (matching most of the Yadkin Valley), it fits comfortably into a route that starts around late morning and works its way through two or three eastern Yadkin Valley stops in an afternoon.

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• Request a free quote — or call (336) 484-1350

Surry Cellars: North Carolina’s Teaching Winery

Surry Cellars is unlike any other stop on a Yadkin Valley wine tour, because it is not a family estate or a commercial winery at all — it is the wine label of Surry Community College’s Viticulture & Enology Technology program, based at the college’s main campus on South Main Street in Dobson. The wines poured and bottled under the Surry Cellars name are produced as part of the coursework that trains the next generation of North Carolina winemakers, right in the middle of the state’s most concentrated wine-growing region.

Surry Community College sits in Surry County, which is itself part of the Yadkin Valley AVA and home to one of the highest concentrations of wineries and vineyards in North Carolina. The college’s program has become a quiet but important part of the region’s wine industry — several winemakers and vineyard managers working at other wineries on this list have come up through Surry’s viticulture and enology classrooms, and a number of them mentioned that training when we talked with them about their own wines.

The Wines of Surry Cellars

Because Surry Cellars is a teaching label rather than a single estate with its own vineyard acreage, its wines come from student and faculty winemaking projects rather than one fixed vineyard site. Currently, Surry Cellar wines can be purchased at a number of locations around the region rather than exclusively from the college itself. We were not able to verify a current, detailed list of varietals, vintages, or specific retail locations at the time of writing — that information changes from year to year as new student classes come through the program — so we recommend checking with Surry Community College or the NC Wine & Grape Council directly for the current lineup before you go looking for a bottle.

Planning Your Visit

Location: South Main Street, Dobson, NC (Surry Community College’s Dobson campus)

Because Surry Cellars operates inside a college program rather than as a standalone tasting room, we were not able to confirm regular public tasting-room hours, a tasting fee, or a walk-in visiting policy in our research. If a public tasting or event is part of your group’s plan, we recommend confirming current details directly with Surry Community College before building it into your itinerary.

• Confirm before you go — call or check with the college’s viticulture and enology program for current tasting availability, hours, and where the wine is being sold locally.
• Pair it with a Dobson-area stop — Surry Cellars sits in the same small city as several other Yadkin Valley tasting rooms, so it is easy to build a route around it even on a day when the college program itself is not open to visitors.

A few practical notes we have learned from planning trips through this part of Surry County: because Surry Cellars’ schedule follows an academic calendar rather than a typical winery’s daily hours, it is the one stop on this list where we always confirm details with the college directly before a group’s tour date, rather than assuming it will operate like the family-run wineries nearby. If you are set on tasting Surry Cellars wine specifically, budget some flexibility into your day rather than counting on a fixed visiting window.

Where Surry Cellars Fits in Your Tour Route

Surry Cellars sits in Dobson, in the same small city as Stony Knoll Vineyards and several other Surry County tasting rooms, which makes it easy to fold into a Dobson-focused day even if its own hours do not line up with your visit. Surry County has one of the densest clusters of wineries anywhere in the Yadkin Valley, so this is a part of the region where you can move between stops quickly.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time for the tasting rooms on your itinerary, and treat Surry Cellars as a bonus stop to check on the day — if the program has a tasting or event open to the public, it is worth the short detour; if not, Dobson still has plenty of family-run wineries to fill your day.

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• Request a free quote — or call (336) 484-1350

Stony Knoll Vineyards: A Century Farm Turns From Tobacco to Wine

Stony Knoll Vineyards sits on a North Carolina Century Farm that has been in the same family since 1896, when the ancestors of Kathy Coe bought a tract of land in southern Surry County. For most of the twentieth century the farm’s cash crop was tobacco — cleared by hand tools and domesticated animals in the early 1940s, and worked that way until the early 1980s, when the family shifted to cattle and hay. It was Van Coe, in the late 1990s, who had the idea to put the land into a very different kind of cultivation, with an eye toward preserving the farm for future generations.

In April 2001, 5.25 acres of grapevines went in where tobacco once grew — Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Syrah, Cabernet Franc and Niagara among the first plantings — and the tasting room and winery opened in 2004. Today Stony Knoll still describes itself simply as a multi-generational family farm that converted from tobacco to grapes, and that heritage is very much part of the appeal: this is a working Century Farm in the Yadkin Valley AVA, not a manufactured attraction.

The Wines of Stony Knoll Vineyards

The vineyard has grown from that original 5.25-acre planting to 10 acres of vines today, adding Merlot, Chambourcin, Viognier, Arandell and Corot Noir alongside the original varietals. The lineup spans dry whites, dry reds and sweet wines: a no-oak Stainless Steel Chardonnay and a Barrel Fermented Chardonnay split between neutral French and new American oak, a 2023 Viognier with honeysuckle and pear notes, and the Vintner’s Bliss Rosé made from 100% Chambourcin.

On the red side, the Chambourcin, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon anchor the dry lineup — the Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are both aged three years in French oak. For guests who prefer something sweeter, Stony Knoll also pours a semi-sweet Red Table Wine, the strawberry-and-cherry Patricia Pink, and Ardella, a soft white table wine made from the American Niagara grape and named for a member of the family.

Planning Your Visit

Address: 1143 Stony Knoll Road, Dobson, NC 27017
Tasting Room Hours: Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10am – 6pm
January & February (Winter Hours): Friday & Saturday only, 10am – 6pm

Tastings at Stony Knoll are simple and reasonably priced: a wine tasting or flight is $15, or $20 if you want to keep the glass, and wine by the glass runs $6 (the Cabernet Sauvignon is $8, and their limited-release MEBOS is $12). Cases are discounted 10% off regular pricing.

• Guided Tasting/Flight — sample the dry whites, dry reds, and sweet wines at your own pace.
• Wine by the Glass — a relaxed option if your group just wants to settle in on the property.
• Picnic on the Grounds — bring your own lawn chairs and a picnic; Stony Knoll also keeps a limited selection of snacks for purchase.

A few practical notes we have learned from bringing groups here: this is a farm first, so hours are tighter than at some of the larger Yadkin Valley wineries — note that Stony Knoll is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and January/February hours shrink to weekends only, so it is worth confirming the calendar before you build it into a tour date. Dogs are welcome on the property on a leash but not inside the tasting room. We generally recommend budgeting about an hour here, longer if your group wants to spread out a picnic and enjoy the farm views.

Where Stony Knoll Fits in Your Tour Route

Stony Knoll sits in Dobson, in the heart of Surry County and a genuine cluster of Yadkin Valley tasting rooms — it pairs naturally with other Dobson-area stops rather than requiring a long drive between wineries. Because its hours are more limited than most, we like to anchor a route around Stony Knoll’s open days and build the rest of the day’s stops around it.

Plan on roughly 1.5 hours per winery plus drive time between stops, and confirm Stony Knoll’s current open days before locking in your itinerary. Because the tasting room here is smaller and more personal than some of the Yadkin Valley’s larger estates, we like scheduling it earlier in the day, when there is more time for the family running the tasting room to talk through the property’s history and the differences between the older varietals planted in 2001 and the newer additions.

For groups planning a full day of tasting, Dobson’s cluster of wineries means you can visit two or three stops without much time lost to driving between them — a real advantage over parts of the Yadkin Valley where wineries are spread farther apart. That makes Stony Knoll a good anchor stop for a Surry County-focused itinerary rather than a single stand-alone destination.

Explore More from Ashe County Livery

• Yadkin Valley Wine Tours — Explore NC’s premier wine region
• High Country Wine Tours — Mountain winery service
• Wedding Transportation — Luxury transportation for your big day
• Airport Transfers — CLT, AVL, GSO & TRI
• Request a free quote — or call (336) 484-1350