All roads lead to Ronda: Italian-style vineyards aim to put NC wine on map

In the tiny town of Ronda (population ~450 residents), an Italian-style winemaking movement seeks to restore the state’s fermented-beverage industry to its pre-Prohibition grandeur.

Four vineyards, located less than a mile from one another, hope to turn a unique viticultural region known as Swan Creek AVA into a top tourism destination, while helping to make the greater Yadkin Valley region synonymous with California’s Napa Valley.

Over the past 25 years, dozens of wineries have set up shop in the area west of Winston‒Salem.

“It was really just us over here and about three other vineyards,” said Kristava Raffaldini, director of wine club and hospitality at Raffaldini Vineyards, reflecting on the transformation.

Yet, unlike Italy’s warring city‒states, the Raffaldinis have actively encouraged — and even supported — the competition, seeing it as an opportunity to drive greater growth.

“By being able to bring in other people now, it kind of brings it into an industry where we’re able to have an experience for people to make a pilgrimage here for a weekend,” Kristava Raffaldini said.

FINDING THEIR ROOTS

In 2001, Kristava’s father, Jay, an investment banker from New York, bought an abandoned farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Although he and his sister/business partner, Barbara, had scouted spots in California and elsewhere, an East Coast location allowed the family to stay closer to home.  

“It was just the perfect kind of middle point,” said Kristava Raffaldini, who grew up primarily in Florida. “It really hit all the check marks with what we were looking for.”

The farm’s terrain, rich in minerals like mica and schist, likewise made it ideal for the cultivation of grape vines.

“We’re looking for something that’s going to [have] that rocky element because it actually helps our grapes thrive in a stronger way,” Kristava Raffaldini said.

“The reason why is that there’s a theory called the ‘struggling vine theory,’” she added. “The more a grapevine has to struggle and really push its roots down farther to receive that water and everything, the greater the outcome of the grape. Typically, the flavors are a little more pronounced, richer, bolder, and you really start to get more beautiful vines over the years.”

The Raffaldini family’s heritage traces back for centuries to Mantua, a northern Italian town near Verona, and their plan was to focus on planting grapes from their ancestral homeland. Those included Montepulciano and Sangiovese, both used to make robust reds like the ones found in Tuscany; and Vermentino, a dry white popular in the coastal regions on the Mediterranean.

“North Carolina happens to be on the same line as where you would find Tuscany and Italy,” Kristava Raffaldini said. “So, we’re actually able to produce the majority of these varietals due to us having very similar climate, the elevation, and being able to plant these successfully here.”

To adapt to certain environmental variances (North Carolina’s latitude is slightly farther south, in line with northern Africa) they began employing an appassimento process by drying the grapes to bring out their full potential.

“We are sweating out the grapes of a lot of that excess water, and it creates a deeper structure, more concentrated flavors,” Kristava Raffaldini said.

Although the dehydration may result in lower overall output, “we’re sacrificing that for much higher quality wine,” she added. “And so that’s why our reds are not thin. You know, they’re rich, and they’re bold, and they’re heavy. And it’s because of the appassimento process, we’re able to create those heavier, more tannic reds that emulate more of traditional Italian red wine.”

GROWING A COMMUNITY

Raffaldini Vineyards first opened its doors in 2005, with a small tasting room known as the “Fattoria” (Italian for farmhouse) able to accommodate up to 30 visitors at a time.

Within a few years, the Raffaldinis moved the tasting room to a large stonework villa made in the Tuscan architectural style. The COVID era led them to expand a tarp-covered patio overlooking the vines and rolling mountains beyond.

The estate now hosts some 30,000 visitors annually and produces around 72,000 bottles of wine, according to its website.

Despite its growth, however, it has no plans to ramp up distribution like major commercial wineries, including nearby Childress and Biltmore vineyards.

“In terms of selling on a larger scale, it’s not something that we’re interested in right now,” Kristava Raffaldini said. “We want people to come here for the experience.”

To that end, Raffaldini Vineyards has focused on hosting events, including performances and monthly cooking classes. And it has urged local businesses like restaurants, hotels and Airbnbs to think bigger.

Moreover, Jay Raffaldini was instrumental in bringing three other aspiring wine producers to split the original tract of land. Two of them, Piccione Vineyards and Castello Barone, also focus on using primarily Italian-style grapes and processes.

The Raffaldinis have made their lead winemaker, Chris Nelson, available to their neighbors for consultations and guidance if necessary.

“It is nice because we all support each other,” Kristava Raffaldini said. “That’s really what it is, you know, we’re all here to support each other and help us thrive because without each other, we’re on an island.”

A FULL SPECTRUM OF EXPERIENCES

One of the newest additions is Sotrio Vineyards. Florida couple Bill and Teresa Piastuch bought their 25-acre plot from the Raffaldinis’ estate in 2016. After several years of land-clearing and vine-maturing to produce a marketable vintage, the winery just celebrated its second official anniversary.

Although Jay Raffaldini encouraged the Piastuches to plant some European varietals, which they did, they were discouraged from putting their decidedly un-Italian name on the label.

But Bill Piastuch, a former IT manager for NASA, joked that acronyms came naturally, so his wife came up with one befitting their dream-chasing endeavor. The name is short for “Somewhere Over the Rainbow Is Ours,” he said.

Like each of its neighbors, Sotrio aims to create its own unique atmosphere.

“We are very interested in being your neighborhood low key,” Bill Piastuch said.

The Piastuches brought on their daughter Jamie to establish an onsite craft brewery, giving the experience an entirely different vibe than that of the typical tasting room.

“We have a big local following because of the beer, and they bring people who drink wine,” Bill Piastuch said. “So, we don’t just get the Charlotte crowd and the Raleigh crowd. We’re well known in the local environment, and that makes a big difference.”

He said he was eager to see Ronda’s tourism industry continue to boom, but for the time being he was more focused on developing Sotrio’s own identity and path forward.

“I frequently tell people I’m surrounded by millionaires and we’re hundredaires,” he said. “So, I believe I’m going to have to leave it to people who have more wherewithal than our family to do that [promote regional growth] — but there’s plenty of opportunities. There’s land around. There’s certainly, I think, an unfulfilled need.”

RIPE FOR REBIRTH

Nicole Chesney, executive director of the NC Wine and Grape Council and a leading authority in the state’s wine industry, said she believes current conditions make North Carolina due for a wine renaissance.

“We are a bona fide winemaking region in this country,” Chesney said.

Within the past few decades, the state has gone from around 20 vineyards to more than 180, returning it to a status it once held as a dominant player in US wine production.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, “We grew grapes out in Polk County — very famous Tryon grapes that were literally on the menu at the Waldorf Astoria in New York,” Chesney said. “At one time there was a wine here called Virginia Dare that was one of the most popular wines in the country.”

That changed in 1909, when North Carolina became the first dry state, a full decade before the 18th Amendment officially banned alcohol production nationwide.

“We were the most wine-producing state in the country pre-Prohibition,” Chesney said. “We were also the first state to adopt Prohibition, which effectively killed that. So, it’s always really interesting to think like, ‘Where would we be if that didn’t happen?’”

Nationwide, prohibition was repealed in 1933, but it took North Carolina four additional years to ratify the 21st Amendment. And while the ban proved a boon for bootleggers — whose souped-up autos were the early prototype for NASCAR — local viticulture has only recently begun to rebound.

“My No. 1 goal is to have people understand that they can come to North Carolina and have a phenomenal wine experience, and they don’t have to fly across the country,” Chesney said.

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Part of the challenge involves overcoming the perception that North Carolina is good only for producing sweet wines, like the muscadine-based varieties popular in eastern part of the state.

“It thrives in the humidity, and that’s all grown on the coastal portion,” Chesney noted.

Even though some wine purists may turn up their noses, the native grapes, which first greeted Sir Walter Raleigh upon his arrival in the new world, still hold a special place in the hearts of many locals.

More than the soil or climate conditions, it was consumer demand that afforded them their particular staying power.

“Muscadines are historically made in sweeter styles because that is what the palate in the state of North Carolina kind of dictated, right?” Chesney said. “We’re sweet-tea drinkers down here.”

But just as local residents have their preferred style of barbecue, Chesney said there was room for disagreement when it came to wine.

“I think that my favorite thing about North Carolina — it’s my tagline — is that we have a taste for everyone,” she said.

Some have even blended the two species of grape into hybrid varieties that are both complex and easy on the taste buds.

Chesney said hybrids offered added benefits to traditional vine-growers due to their fungal resistance and ability to flourish in warmer temperatures.

“I think hybrids are going to play a really key role in the future of North Carolina winemaking,” she said.

Although still committed to using Italian-style grapes, even the Raffaldinis have approached the sweet/dry dichotomy as an opportunity to spread their love of old-world winemaking to a new market. They recently began producing a line of lighter “botanical” wines in flavors like strawberry‒basil and watermelon‒mint, designed to appeal to wine neophytes.

Chesney said that as original vineyard owners handed the mantle to another generation, the possibility for greater innovation to meet the industry’s unique demands was limitless.

“I think that we have a better idea of what grows here,” she said. “And the second generation is really heavily invested — this is how they are providing a living for their families — and so they want to make the absolute highest quality wines that they can make, and they’re doing a great, great job of it.”

“All roads lead to Ronda: Italian-style vineyards aim to put NC wine on map” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.