Cavender Creek Grape Farm Wines

 Winery Owners Raymond & Donna Castleberry

On their way to visit some of North Georgia's more famous wineries, tourists have discovered Cavender Creek Vineyards, a little gem of a winery that's producing some of the area's better wines. Cavender Creek Vineyards, Dahlonega's newest winery, produces a line of white and red wines, including best sellers Donkey Hotie Red, Dulcinea White, One-Eyed Jack and Jack Ass Red wines.

While the wine names and the donkey-design bottle labels are whimsical, the wines are serious, delicious, and destined to join the long list of award-winning wines produced in the Dahlonega region. The winery's labels have become so popular that last year four of the ten labels sold out before the end of the season.

The Cavender Creek winery, about eight miles from downtown Dahlonega, is more of a grape farm than a vineyard, says the owners Donna and Raymond Castleberry. The couple, both retired Gwinnett County school teachers, hand-craft their wines, using an old fashioned approach. All the wine making, bottling and labeling take place in the wine cellar below the vineyards' rustic tasting room.

Built next to a centuries old log cabin, now guest house, the tasting room is at the end of a country road off Cavender Creek Rd. As visitors wind down the single-lane dirt road to the tasting room, they drive by acres of grape vines, including the hard to grow petit manseng grapes vines, and a equipment-littered, neighboring farm.

Once inside the Cavendar Creek winery, wine tasters can walk up to the oversize bar for a free wine tasting where knowledgeable wine servers pour tastings and provide detailed descriptions of the wines.

Off the tasting room is a large deck with a view of fields and woods. Here visitors can sip wine and look for the owner's pet donkey( the inspiration for the winery's unique label.) Also on patrol at the winery (and warmly welcoming guests) are the Castleberry's two beautiful white Great Pyrenees.

Sad Day for Ga. Wine Lovers

Blackstock Vineyards, the oldest winery in Georgia, is closing. In an email to customers and winery friends, owner and founder David Harris announced that the Dahlonega winery was shuttering its doors.

"Exceptionally warm winters and early bug-break" were among the reasons he attributed to the winery's closing. And the rough economy North Georgia has experienced definitely didn't help either.

Harris was a seasoned vintner when he started developing Blackstock in 1994, way before any other award-winning Dahlonega winery ever opened. The winery and vineyard setting were picture perfect. Grape vines are planted on rolling hills for as far as the eyes can see...not quite Napa Valley, but definitely not what the average wine lover expects to see on his first trip to North Georgia.

Blackstock was on D&B's list of places to take family and friends. In fact, the winery was one of the first spots we visited when we began our home-hunting in the Dahlonega area. One of my favorite memories is a Labor Day barbecue at Blackstock where we listened to bluegrass music, drank wine, took in the gorgeous views, and vowed that we wanted to move to the mountains.

Closing of Blackstock is a loss...a loss of jobs for those who worked there, a loss of a dream for its owners, a loss for Georgia's agritourism, and definitely a loss to those who support and love Georgia wines.