Divine Llama Vineyards
We go out to eat hotpot with Brendan's friend Jason and his wife Brittany about once a month, so when Brittany mentioned that there was a vineyard near Winston-Salem called the Divine Llama Vineyard, we knew we had to plan a trip there. It took another couple of months, but we finally scheduled the journey for June 1st!
The vineyard was about 2.5 hours away, about an hour outside of Winston-Salem. We left at 10 in the morning on a Saturday to get there just as they opened. Brittany grew up in the area, and told us all about the various wineries in the Yadkin Valley area (one of the best places in NC to grow grapes).
When we first turned in to the property, we were immediately surrounded by rows of trellises, lush with early summer leaves. A little ways in is a charming farmhouse, where we started the day off with a wine-tasting. For $10 each, we tasted five wines and got to keep the wine glass we used. Our group picked three whites and two reds to try, marking down which ones we'd be interested in buying on a small piece of paper.
The first wine, called Traminette after the newish variety of grapes used, reminded me of a Reisling, and none of us were huge fans.
Next up (and Brendan's favorite) was a semi-dry white blend called Mustang Sally. I'd put it in my top three of the five we tasted, which isn't really fair to it as it's the only one I liked that didn't have some percentage of fruit juice mixed in.
Third was Versailles, a blend of 90% Traminette and 10% peach juice. I'm a sucker for peach-flavored things -- my mom used to buy me bottles of Peach Cider from the farmer's market as a special treat -- so this was clearly a winner in my book. Jason and Brittany brought a bottle of this to one of our Game of Thrones nights earlier that spring, re-initiating the discussion of a day trip to the vineyards!
After savoring the Versailles, we moved on to the reds with Merlina, a mix of 95% merlot and 5% blackberry juice. Overall, this was my favorite wine we tried that day, perfectly tart with just a hint of sweetness.
The last wine was In a Heart Beat (also a llama name), a tasty all-around good red blend aged in oak. We bought a bottle of this for Brendan's mom (and helped her drink it a few weeks later).
After the tasting, we decided to split a bottle of Merlina between the four of us and headed out to visit the llamas. Brendan carried the bottle of wine in his cargo shorts as we walked along the gravel road to the llama enclosures.
There were four or five small huts that people could walk into, with llamas able to walk up to the fence to greet them, if they so chose, or roam around freely in a large open area. Each enfenced area had 5-10 llamas, and we must've come right around lunch time for them as they were all gathered around, looking expectantly at us before realized we had no food.
We kept walking around, visiting the miniature horses and chickens (Brendan and Jason really connected with the one donkey they had), until we eventually circled back to the llamas, most of them still uninterested in us. One or two let us get close enough to pet them!
We made it back to the patio area in front of the farmhouse just as it started raining. Luckily, there was enough tree cover to keep us dry, and we sipped our delicious wine with the sound of rain pattering lightly above us.Somewhere in there, Jason and Brendan grabbed hot dogs and fries for lunch from the food truck there that day before we went back inside to buy wine to take home.
In the end, Brittany and Jason took home four bottles, and we took a Merlina and a Mustang Sally for us, along with the In a Heart Beat for Sheila. Brendan drove us home, with a stop for cupcakes in Winston-Salem from the bakery that did Brittany and Jason's wedding cake. A completely tasty day, completed.