My Vineyard Tour: The taste for adventure among the vines can be quenched with relative ease

What's the one thing that I insist on doing when we go on vacation, at least vacations near grape-friendly climes?

Visit wineries.

And what's one thing I never do on my own, when my time is mine and my house is empty of guests?

Visit wineries.

That's along with eating sugar cake at Old Salem's Winkler Bakery, smelling the roses at Reynolda Gardens and gawking at Biltmore's bling. I'm busy. I'm broke. These things are in my backyard. There's always tomorrow.

I guess it takes out-of-town visitors to actually see what's around me all along. Thanks to my father-in-law's recent visit and our jaunt to a trio of nearby wineries, I did.

I've been to a handful of the Yadkin Valley's increasing number of wineries for my day job as a reporter, but just once for pleasure.

A day trip among the vines is embarrassingly close to us. While not exactly Napa, you can't ignore that there are more than 20 wineries scattered around the area, all within reach and many of them along pleasant back roads. Some look like small houses. Some are equipped with large, nouveau-chateaux and villas with manicured landscaping that still looks out of place among the farm fields and weathered tobacco barns.

We stopped at three wineries, making a big circle from Shelton Vineyards near Dobson, McRitchie Winery and Ciderworks in Wilkes County, and finally, to Raffaldini, southwest of

Elkin (technically in the Swan Creek appellation, or wine-growing region, and most of Swan Creek is within North Carolina's better-known Yadkin Valley appellation).

It helped that my father-in-law drives a convertible, and it was a glorious June day, warm and breezy. Cows picturesquely munched their way in Technicolor green fields. Homemade pancakes were in my belly. The breeze ruffled our hair into new and interesting styles.

There were few cars in the parking lot at Shelton. I like being among the vines, and at Shelton it didn't seem to be encouraged -- though there is a "Slow, Grapes Growing" sign to calm traffic. We headed into the tasting room, beyond a heavy front door, where we were asked to spin a wheel -- a la Wheel of Fortune -- to determine our case discount, should we decide to buy one. We didn't buy one, but my discount was 16 percent.

While we were waiting for our tour to start, we browsed through a large gift shop, stocked with wine baubles and souvenirs -- a baseball cap declaring the wearer a "wineaux," an emergency cleaning kit for those pesky red-wine stains, wine-glass cozies, bottle stoppers, corkscrews and, because we're near Mt. Airy, Mayberry cookbooks. Shelton wine filled shelves at the tasting room's other end, and in between a glass chandelier dangled over a long bar and the airy, bright room.

I drink a lot of wine, but I still appreciate accessibility. Here's how far Shelton takes the notion: on the back of each bottle, there's a "Winometer" that indicates how dry or sweet the wine is, as well as its body, giving clues to the taste inside.

You get a sense of big and approachability on the tour, too. Our bubbly tour guide took us on the crush pad, past tanks, bottling equipment and pipes designating the winery's gravity-flow pumping system. Then it was down into a cool, darkened cave, where customers had "adopted" French, American and Hungarian oak barrels filled with aging wine to mark anniversaries and other special occasions. People have gone so far as to propose using messages engraved on barrel labels, the vineyard's president, George Denka, told me later.

We could have eaten lunch at Shelton's restaurant, the Harvest Grill, but instead we nibbled some of the oyster crackers that the winery gives away to clean your palate.

Next up -- getting lost in Wilkes County.

After the sheer grandeur of Shelton, McRitchie Winery and Ciderworks was a pleasant downshift. Simple numbers make the contrast clear: Shelton bottles 30,000 cases annually, while McRitchie, younger and smaller, bottles less than 2,000 cases.

But it wasn't easy to find, despite the billboard off U.S. 21.

There is apparently a Thurmond Road -- don't turn there! -- as well as a Thurmond Post Office Road. That's the way to the McRitchie's hillside farm, tasting room and winery. Sean McRitchie, the owner and winemaker, is from Oregon. He may have gotten his wine-making start in North Carolina at Shelton, but the vibe at his own tasting room couldn't be more different.

With wine stacked around a kitchen and a long, rustic wooden table circled by stools, the tasting room has the intimate feel of someone's house, not a business.

Well, maybe. The back patio was filled with a group of tanned, well-heeled and highlighted couples that my father-in-law quickly nicknamed "The Real Housewives of North Carolina."

The Real Housewives and husbands disappeared into their hired limo. We lingered on the patio. Two kids played on a wooden swing. One introduced me to the family dogs, Gracie and Fiona.

And the wine? This was the single winery of the three that we visited where I had to restrain myself. Personally, Shelton's whites lean a little sweet and flat for me -- without the aromatics and acidity to balance them out -- and the red a bit thin. At McRitchie, I bought one bottle; I wanted to take home a case. McRitchie's approach makes more sense to me, too -- a smaller, more hands-on operation. I can taste that care in their wine.

Though McRitchie's only wine made with estate-grown grapes is their chardonnay, their other wines are intriguing and tasty. So is their hard cider, made from Brushy Mountain apples -- tart, crisp and thirst-quenching.

My father-in-law -- a staunch drinker of syrupy, dark reds -- admired the dry, hard cider and a fruit wine made out of blackberries. I was smitten with the 2008 Pale Rider, a dry rose, and 2008 Fallingwater, an aromatic white blend made with riesling, chardonnay, Niagara and traminette, a gewurztraminer hybrid more common in the Finger Lakes.

As peaceful as it was on the McRitchie's patio, we pushed on. We pulled up to Raffaldini's stone Italian villa late in the afternoon. Cars packed the parking lot and a jazz singer crooned on a patio.

The views were stunning, a wraparound panorama of the Brushy Mountains, and lavender and rosebush-filled gardens.

Next time, I'll avoid big-winery events. Raffaldini was the host for an afternoon of live music and a winery full of people -- great for them, too busy for us. The guy pouring our wine knew a lot about each bottle, but with a line of people pushing with empty wine glasses, I felt that we picked the wrong day to linger at the bar asking questions.

Despite the rush, I liked Raffaldini's 2008 Fiori -- another white blend -- enough to bring a bottle home, and I should have brought home one of the 2007 sangiovese.

But the sun was dipping in the sky, and we were getting hungry.

I slipped the Pale Rider in the fridge that night.

While she was pouring wines, Patricia McRitchie said that she once served Pale Rider alongside a pea soup, made with bacon-tinged chicken stock. Next to it, the wine's berry, smoky flavors sang.

Inspired, we grilled spicy shrimp on long skewers for supper the next night, tucking bits of thick-cut bacon among the shellfish. We drained the bottle.

■ Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com