Wine Lover's Favorite Grape Sells Out Before Next Harvest

The Rise of Vermentino in North Carolina

Vermentino was an experiment when Jay Raffaldini first planted that and Montepulciano on a hillside of North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley almost 20 years ago. Today, the owner of one of the state’s best-known producers is among its biggest fans, along with a significant portion of his clientele at the Wilkes County winery, northwest of Winston-Salem and Raleigh.

“Our rock star is Vermentino! We make 500 cases annually and it always sells out before the next vintage is ready so we are pushing to 600 cases, which is maximum where the vines are in their young life,” he wrote back recently to a question about the grape, which they sell as a Vermentino Superiore ($30) and Vermentino Rovere ($24, aged an extra 16 months). “All of my immediate neighbors have just planted it, so I think it could be the state flagship white in the fullness of time.”

Outside of the cluster of wineries that are opening in the Swan Lake American Viticultural Area (AVA) that Raffaldini also calls home, the grape native to the western Mediterranean, with strong roots in coastal Italy (Sardinia, Liguria, Tuscany) and southern France (Provence, Corsica), where it’s known as Rolle, is rare on America’s East Coast.

Expanding the Reach of Vermentino

At Virginia’s Barboursville Vineyards, winemaker and general manager Luca Paschina planted 9 acres of the grape in 2009, a couple of years after Raffaldini, and won a Governor’s Cup this year with his 2023 vintage ($23).

New Kent Winery grows and makes it, as does another Virginia winery, Zepheniah Farm Winery, in Leesburg. Tremain Hatch, the viticulture research and extension associate at Virginia Tech and viticulturist at his family’s Zephaniah, said they planted three-quarters of an acre in 2014.

“I worked at Barboursville in 2010 and was quite interested in the variety after working with it. Unfortunately, we saw quite cold (-4F) temperatures the winter of 2014/15, and we lost a good portion of the Vermentino vines to cold injury,” said Hatch, the Virginia Vineyards Association’s Grower of the Year in 2024.

Today, he said, they produce about a half-ton every year from the quarter-acre of the grape that survived.

“This fruit is made separately but then blended in with other wines for bottling,” he said. “We bottled Vermentino as a nonblended wine in 2020. In 2021, we started making an amber wine with vermentino. We made two batches that were bottled by themselves and now we blend this lot into our rose wine.”

Vermentino retains good name recognition in the tasting room, he said, but the fallout from the freeze that killed many of the vines dissuaded them from planting any more.

Challenges and Opportunities

A susceptibility to cold temperatures, said Raffaldini winemaker Chris Nelson during a recent conversation, is about the only negative he expressed about the grape.

“What I would say, from a winemaking perspective, is, and in general, from a vineyard perspective, it grows really well in North Carolina,” adding that they did pull out almost 2 acres of the 8 acres of Vermentino they were growing after determining that they were growing in a frost-prone area of the vineyard.

“On top of the fact it does grow well, it’s a pretty hearty producer,” he said, noting that in good years they’ll harvest around 3 tons an acre. “I think [that’s] a great number to be at from a quality vs. quantity standpoint.

“It’s one of the most reliable wines we make, like in terms of being submitted to competitions, it always does well. Always. We’ve kind of found the sweet spot of making that wine, where you could get around 21, not more than 22 brix, and just whole-cluster press, ferment. I like to use a yeast called Exotics Novello. ... It’s just my favorite.

“I think it fits our climate really well. When it’s hot outside ... a nice, refreshing, stainless-steel fermented white. It’s delicious. The one thing I’ll also say about Vermentino is [that it’s] not super racy, like, say, a Gruner Veltliner or something ... so it lingers really nicely without being heavy, is how I like to describe it. The grape itself has substance that is strictly from the varietal. ... It’s got a little body that’s really natural.

“I just tried it again this morning after filtering it, letting it sit overnight, and it’s the type of line that takes a little bit of time to develop. I’m keeping my eye on it. I prefer it to age three months in the bottle before release, but it depends when it’s ready.”

For those who savor the wine, that couldn’t come soon enough. Nelson said that the 625 cases that they made of the wine likely would sell out by the end of last week.

Exploring New Varieties

Meanwhile, much like Vermentino was a leap of faith back in 2007, they tore out about 6 acres of vines to plant some new and unusual varieties with the hope that they will give Raffaldini Vineyards a signature white wine blend.

Those include Garganega, which is the main grape in Soave, Ribolla Gialla, Muscat Gialla, Greco di Tufo, and an acre of Albarino. Those join Vermentino and 2.5 acres of Trebbiano as part of a more than 30-acre vineyard located at an elevation of around 1,200 feet.

Among the red grapes grown there, in addition to the Montepulciano, include Sagrantino, Teroldego, Petit Verdot and Sangiovese.

A Growing Industry

The last figures I saw show North Carolina ranked 10th in grape and wine production nationally, featuring around 250 wineries and six AVAs spread across the state. Raffaldini is among the most notable, along with JOLO Winery & Vineyards, Shelton Vineyards and Biltmore Estate Winery.

Featuring one of the best views in the state, Raffaldini is open Wednesdays through Mondays, and is best known for its annual Festa Italiana, held every September. The 20th annual two-day event took place a couple of months ago.

A majority of its wines range in price from $24 to $32, and topped by the Grand Reserva ($65, red blend of Montepulciano, Tannat, and Petit Verdot) and Patrimonio ($105, red blend of Sagrantino, Montepulciano and Petit Verdot).

And, of course, anchored by the Vermentino, which Nelson called the best grape they work with and make there.

“I take such joy in making Vermentino, because it really makes itself,” Nelson said. “I think the best word for it is the French word terroir. Vermentino is very much a representation of our vineyard, and it’s hands-off winemaking, just whole cluster press, fermented in stainless. Like I already cold-stabilized it and filtered it just yesterday. That’s what I was doing. So, like that wine will be ready to bottle in a month. Get released in March.”