Wine Weekend Through Northern Georgia

Over labor day weekend 2023, we decided to do a little wine weekend through northern Georgia. We left from Anderson, SC and traveled to Chattooga Belle Farm for our first stop. Here we did a small wine sampling, but the main event at this stop was the distillery. We tried all of their different liquors, which can be found on their website. I think my favorite was probably the Spirit of Oconee, a 3-year old Apply Brandy. It was nice and crisp, perfect as a fall sip.

Next, we traveled to Tiger Mountain Vineyards (TMV). TMV is beautiful. They have a very nice tasting room, directly to the right as you enter the drive-way, and also a barn area. The barn area is where their café is and they also have some nice outdoor seating that is shaded with umbrellas. TMV has a lot going for it, but first impressions left a bad taste in my mouth. When we do something like this, we like to do a tasting, figure out what we like, and enjoy a bottle (maybe 2 :) at the winery. Upon entering the tasting room, we were informed that it is $25 to taste four 1oz pours of wine. (btw...a typical class of wine is 5oz) So, it would be $25 to taste less than one glass of wine. Having been on numerous wine tastings throughout the US and Europe, this was very shocking. We decided against doing this as it would have been $75 for the 3 of us. After looking over the menu, we asked about one or two of the white wines and they gave us a brief description of them. After thinking we had decided on one, I asked if there was anyway to get a tiny sip before buying the bottle, since it was offered by the glass. They were not too friendly when I asked this, but they finally gave us the sample. I'm glad we were able to try it because we were not a fan of this wine. We decided to get a different bottle (Rabun Rose) and we enjoyed it at their barn area seating. This wine was nice and dry, very enjoyable on a warm day. Later, we also wanted to eat here, but that became a whole other issue. We really liked where we were sitting, the view, it was comfortable, and there was a nice umbrella for shade. We did not need any table service as we just wanted a flatbread and their brie puff pastry. Unfortunately, they would not let us order anything unless we were sitting at a table with full service. Since we were hungry, we gave up our nice, comfortable seats and went to a table for lunch. The service was incredibly slow as there were not enough servers for the amount of people wanting to eat. Our server was super nice, but just couldn't keep up. The food was good and we enjoyed a second bottle of wine (Viognier). The Viognier was another dry white wine that we enjoyed while having some snacks. Either way, we made the best of the situation. But, with all of this happening, I would not go back here or recommend it.

After TMV, we went to Stonewall Creek Vineyards (SCV). At SCV, all 3 of us did a different wine flight tasting. The flight was four 3oz pours of the wines of our choice for $21. So we got 12oz of wine for $21, essentially 2.5 glasses of wine. This was far more reasonable than TMV. Since we were able to enjoy almost 2.5 glasses of wine here, we did not purchase any bottles. I am mostly a dry white wine drinker and so I ordered Yukari, Sorelle, Petit Manseng, and Atlantic Amber. I enjoyed all of these that I tried.

We left SCV and travelled to Hightower Creek Vineyards (HCV). At HCV, I enjoyed the classic tasting which included 5 different wines for $14. We had 2 whites, a blush, and 2 reds. The last red we were able to try by itself and then with a piece of chocolate. It was very interesting to see the difference the chocolate made for the taste of this wine. Shockingly enough, we decided to get a bottle of the Dueling Banjos Peach wine. This was on the A Touch of Sweet tasting, that my mom did, but it was dry enough for me to enjoy it as well.

We finished our evening with dinner in Hiawassee and made our way to our AirBNB for the night. The next morning we went to brunch at The Oaks Lakeside Kitchen and enjoyed their brunch buffet. I'm not usually a fan of a buffet, but this was good, quality food for a buffet. We also ordered a bottle of sparkling wine to make mimosas, but unfortunately, we didn't know it was not a brut (very dry sparkling wine). This made for some super sweet mimosas, but that was totally our fault and nothing the restaurant did wrong.

After brunch, we made our way to Crane Creek Vineyards (CCV) for our first stop of the day. The grounds and tasting room of this vineyard are beautiful. We decided to share 1 tasting here and we tried the Enotah, Zusa, Old Man Rose, and Sassafras Bubbly. After trying these four, we decided that the Zusa was our favorite and shared a bottle of this.

On to our next stop, we made our way to Odom Springs Vineyards (OSV). This unassuming and small vineyard was surprisingly our favorite stop of the weekend. The staff here were phenomenal and so friendly. Again, we split a wine flight of 4 different wines for $12.95. We decided to try the Just Loaferin', Sharptop Seyval, Tribute Chardonel, and They Lord. They Lord was our favorite, so we decided to get a bottle of this to enjoy on their deck overlooking the vineyards. I would highly recommend a trip to this vineyard if you're in the area.

Lastly, we made our way to Living Water Winery (LWW). LWW seems like a very new place that is very nice. The staff were nice and the wines were good. We split another flight here of the Caregiver, Prodigal, Revelation, and Rose. After trying these, we got a bottle of the Prodigal and enjoyed it in the shade of their 2 story deck. It was nice to find a table under this deck to get out of the sun. This winery had a beautiful view of the mountains.

Overall, we had a very nice weekend traveling between the different wineries and trying new wines. If you're ever in Northern Georgia and have the opportunity to stop into these places, I definitely recommend giving them a try.