RV Trip To Roan Mountain – Wineries And Stuff

Our plan was to stay at the campground Mon-Wed nights and come home Thursday, but we were having such a good time, we checked and found our site was available another night and we snapped it up – ain’t retirement great. 

There was a restaurant in Banner Elk that I’d researched and sounded good and the two Wineries that we’d stopped by an hour before they opened the previous day.  So we decided to hang around the campground until late morning, then head for Banner Elk for our fourth visit to the town, but first stop.

We first went to the Banner Elk Winery about a mile east of town and had a great visit – I’d figured a 30 minute stop and we were there nearly two hours.  This is part of the grounds.

The tasting with our hostess and a young American now living in Australia - the hostess was from Buckhannon, WV and we had several familiar things to discuss.

We bought a case of their wine including six bottles of Chianti that was made by a local first generation Italian-American from Sangiovese grapes imported from Italy, using an old family recipe and just bottled and sold for the first time by the winery.

The next stop was the Painted Fisherman Café and Beer Bar where we all had delicious lunches of creative sandwiches and I enjoyed a glass of Dales Ale.  In the interest of space, I won’t go into the details, but it was a place worth visiting with some very creative dishes such as sweet potato salad, which I really liked.

After lunch, it was on to the newly opened Grandfather Mountain Winery which had a vineyard reminiscent of some we saw lining the steep hills along Germany’s Mosel River. 

They had a nice tasting room and entrance patio and we thought a couple of their wines were pretty good but only bought a couple of bottles. 

From the winery there was one more stop for the power shoppers at the original Mast General Store in Valle Crucis, NC.  I’d never heard of them, but they are apparently becoming popular, with stores around the area, including Knoxville.  The original is 129 years old (and looks it) and has a selection of everything on the planet, as near as I could tell from my brief walk around – this is not my kind of place, but I could see a need to spend at least a day to see everything, including the annex a quarter mile down the road.

Here are some front, inside, and rear shots including the porch – my favorite part.

I had have to say we again got our money's worth from this day and after a stop at Smoky Mountain bakery the next morning to pick up the goodies we'd ordered, we headed home.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  None

Two years ago: A Hot Day Salad Ala Lea Ann

Larry

6/14/12 event date