NOTED: The Poster at the Pig

NOTED

The Poster at the PIG

The hunt for a long-forgotten advertisement celebrates the joy of friendship

by MATTHEW BUSCH

Raleigh was a smaller place when I was a kid. My best friend Jon Anderson and I grew up in Five Points, with the freedom to explore on our bikes. We blazed through the streets and left our signatures in the wet concrete of freshly paved sidewalks. We could get away with just about anything. Our parents trusted us — and they trusted the town, too.

But even with the power to go wherever we wanted, we somehow always found ourselves at the Piggly Wiggly.

Back in those days, the entrance to the grocery store had a “magic” black rubber mat that would trigger the automatic door to spring open and ding, testing the manager’s patience with every chime. The checkout clerk’s name was Pete, an old man with a red nose, tinted glasses, and grey combover. He’d stand in the corner of the store, by the kiosk that hid the safe, resting his chin on a broom. He never smiled, perpetually carrying a look of non-amusement — perhaps thinking about how to deal with us kids.

Then there was Richard Walker, the kindest employee at the store. Richard knew almost every customer, including how they preferred their groceries bagged and when they celebrated their birthdays. He was so famous that The News & Observer called him “the Bigwig at the Pigwig” in a spotlight on his 20 years of service as the store was closing. I distinctly remember Richard taking groceries to the car for the elderly woman with blue hair who taught music down the street.

Just inside the front door, to the left, were freezer bins with sliding glass tops, chock-full of ice cream. And above those bins was a poster of an advertisement with a captivating, old-fashioned photo of our Piggly Wiggly. It had an ominous blue sky and a pool of yellow light that fell from a streetlamp onto the brickwork and wet pavement, giving you the sense that a fall storm had just passed. I would stop and stare at that poster, incredulous that it featured the very store I was standing in.

Fast-forward about 25 years. Jon and I are still best friends and still in Raleigh. About two years ago, we sat down for a meal at NOFO @ The Pig, decades after the space had been sold and butchered into a low-budget mini mart, stripped from its classic Piggly Wiggly aesthetics. In those years, I stopped going — I couldn’t handle seeing the space like that. But then Jean Martin came along with her NOFO concept. Her vision of renovating the space reincorporated many of the things we had loved about

the grocery store. From the back of the restaurant, I glanced around, taking in the renovation, remembering where things used to be and noticing where some of the original Piggly Wiggly elements, like its old freezers, had been cleverly placed. Out of the corner of my eye, a large photo hung on the wall. It felt familiar, but I couldn’t place it. After thinking about it for some time, I called Jean to ask her about it. She explained that a neighbor had given her the framed photo when she opened NOFO. This neighbor, who had worked for the Durham-based ad agency McKinney-Silver (presently McKinney), had actually helped create that photo as part of the advertisement I used to look at in the 1990s. Remington Rifles, which was (and still is) headquartered in Madison, hired the agency to create the Thanksgiving advertisement. They dolled up our Piggly Wiggly to look nostalgic for the photo, placing hand-painted signs in the windows, leaning a classic bike against the brick, and parking an old-fashioned car at the curb. With that ad printed and distributed across the United States, our very own Piggly Wiggly had achieved secret celebrity status. (Despite not exactly being complimentary: the firearms maker urged readers to “leave the grocery shopping to the other guys” while they, presumably, caught their own meal themselves.) I had to find the ad. I called, emailed, and messaged all the companies involved, including the Remington Arms Museum in New York state. But I kept hitting dead ends; few sources were responding to my requests, and those that did respond didn’t have any more information for me. I began losing hope. I vented my frustrations to another longtime friend, Ben McLawhorn, over dinner one night. Ben has lived in Raleigh for 40-plus years, and we share a love for all things OId Raleigh. The next morning I had a text from Ben: he’d found the poster for sale on eBay. The seller lived in Pennsylvania and had been cleaning out an old gun shop after its owner had passed. He’d found this poster in the trash. I bought it immediately. A week later, the poster was delivered in a cardboard tube. As I unrolled it, I noticed how vibrant the colors were, how pristine the paper was. This poster had been tucked away in some closet or a drawer for 30 years. I didn’t expect the poster to transport me back to my youth, but it did. Would we have believed it, when we were riding our bikes down to the Piggly Wiggly, that today Jon would have a law office on the sidewalk just across the street — the same place where we’d carved our names into the wet pavement? Or that we’d manage to stay the closest of friends all these decades later? We were brothers in sports, best man in each other’s weddings; we’ve mourned together the loss of family and, recently, another dear friend, Frank Jolly IV. Just before Christmas, I dropped by Jon’s office toward the end of the day with the poster, framed and wrapped, in my hands. He had just locked up the door and was heading to his car. And when he opened the package, he had the same expression of excitement that I did when I saw the poster again. In these days full of work and family, it reminded us of a time when friendships were easy and hours seemed abundant. This Thanksgiving, I offer gratitude to dear friends, and to Raleigh, too — the small but growing city that has fostered these relationships.

Above: the advertisement. Below: Matthew Busch and Jon Anderson.

Matthew Busch is a father, teacher, and photographer. He enjoys contributing posts to oldraleigh.com, and cherishes his wife, Julia, and 1-year-old daughter Emerson.

Quarantine Haircut

by STEVE CUSHMAN

I’ve had hundreds of haircuts over the years but never one as intimate as the one Julie gave me yesterday, mid-quarantine, and my hair standing up and out of control and when she could take it no more she said sit down, Bozo. I happily complied, always eager for her touch. She stood over me cutting, clipping, and buzzing and I could feel her legs on mine, her forearm brushing my ears. But it wasn’t the physical touch as much as the proximity, breathing the same air like we used to do back when the sight of each other would result in clothes flying through the air, naked bodies moving together in rhythm, but this was a haircut, scissors, a misused beard trimmer, a memory of what was once there. When she asked why I was crying, I said Some hair must have irritated my eyes, and she didn’t press, only wiped it away, said you’re a fool and she was right once again.

illustration by ANGELA LOMBARDI

In her home and at the table, Eva Shockey invites the outdoors

NATURAL BALANCE

by AYN-MONIQUE KLAHRE photography by BRYNN GROSS

Eva Shockey has a reputation as an outdoorswoman — but it’s inside her home where she’s able to merge all the elements of her life. Shockey first hit the public eye as the daughter of Jim Shockey, a renowned big-game hunter and television personality. She took her platform and ran with it, as an on-air host herself (including of the Facebook Watch series “Eva Shockey’s Outdoor 101”), author of the the memoir Taking Aim, and, most recently, curator of her own marketplace for home and fashion accessories, Eva & Co, which launched in August.

In each of her ventures, Shockey emphasizes that hunting and the outdoors are part of a balanced life, one where family, food, and comfort intertwine.

And it explains why this Vancouver Island, Canada, native chose to make

North Carolina her home in 2016. She was already familiar with the area from the time her husband, Tim Brent, spent playing for the Carolina Hurricanes.

“We loved the Southern charm and that the people here are extremely friendly and generally active and outdoorsy,” she says. “We have such easy access to outdoor adventures either at the beach or in the mountains — it’s a beautiful place to call home.”

EARTH TONES

One highlight of the great room is the grand fireplace. Shockey and Brent worked with Stone Center of Carolina to design its natural stacked-stone facade. The 9-footwide mantel is a reclaimed wood piece that they found through Appalachian Antique Hardwoods. “My biggest goal was to make the indoor areas feel similar to being outdoors,” says Shockey. “I wanted everything bright and open with lots of windows and views of the beautiful trees and nature.”

Here, she and Brent are raising their daughter Leni Bow, son Boone, and pups Piper and Crockett. “I’d describe it as beautiful chaos,” she laughs. “It’s always extremely busy but also full of love and family time.” They custom-built their Apex space to capture that intersection of indoors and outdoors. “My family always says that nature is our cathedral — it’s where we feel closest to God, where we can take a breath and relax and connect with what’s important,” Shockey says. Down a gravel path, the trees open onto a gracious, farmhouse-inspired home. In the woods on their property, there’s plenty of space to practice with a bow or walk with the kids. “It’s peaceful, it’s safe, and my kids can run outside and explore and get dirty and use their imagination without being under a roof or in front of a screen,” says Shockey. Inside the home, the ode to nature continues with soaring ceilings and bright, open spaces for living and entertaining. “We used elements like the reclaimed 200-year-old beams, oak floors, and the natural stacked-stone fireplace to bring the outdoors in,” says Shockey. “My biggest goal was to make the indoor areas feel similar to being outdoors.” The crisp white palette serves this purpose, too, she says: “We kept the color scheme natural and neutral because the true beauty is the trees and wildlife outside the windows.” The star of the home may be the wall of windows with a 21-foot vault that one encounters just through the front door. “We wanted to be able to see to the very tops of the trees while we’re in the living room,” says Shockey. The shelves are full of family photos, potted plants, and decorative items collected over time. The wide-open spaces are offset by lots of storage (including a dedicated playroom and a generous pantry with a second refrigerator) that work for the busy day-to-day of parenting, cooking, and keeping up with work. “I struggle to find a good balance between family and work and everything else, but my number one priority is being a good mama,” says Shockey. “I know I’ll miss this time when the kids are older, so I try not to wish it away and just embrace the crazy.” Throughout the home, there are nods to the sporting life: from antler sheds arranged within a decorative bowl atop a table to the impressive moose skull showcased above the fireplace — one that Brent hunted in the Yukon with Shock-

ROOM WITH A VIEW

The 21-foot-high ceiling is designed to showcase the woods on their property. “We kept the color scheme natural and neutral because the true beauty is the trees and wildlife outside the windows,” says Shockey. She worked with her aunt, Cindy Shockey, a designer for Simply Amish, to choose many of the furnishings. Opposite page: Shockey and her dog Piper at the front door.

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

Shockey designed the open-plan kitchen — it looks out onto a dining and bar area, as well as the great room — to be a space for easy hosting. She typically serves up meals buffet-style, so the 10-by5-foot island is broad enough to hold a variety of dishes and seat four comfortably at the same time (though most days, two of the seats are rigged up with boosters for Leni Bow and Boone). The reclaimed barn wood around the vent home is from Appalachian Antique Hardwoods, and the pendant lights are from Circa Lighting. Opposite page: Shockey preps the meal with daughter Leni Bow and son Boone. Much of her dishware and serving pieces are white or white-washed, including solid maple charcuterie boards from her own Eva & Co. private label series. Her Elk Jalapeño Poppers (bottom left) are a go-to appetizer (find the recipe on page 62).

“My family always says that nature is our cathedral — it’s where we feel closest to God, where we can take a breath and relax and connect with what’s important.” — Eva Shockey

ey’s dad as his guide. “It was the biggest moose my dad has ever seen,” she says. “It always makes my dad slightly jealous when he comes over and sees it in person.” Speaking of, they ate “every piece” of meat that came off it, she says: “Moose steak, moose burgers, moose meatballs, moose everything!” Wild-caught game seamlessly finds its way onto the table — for holidays, entertaining with friends, or everyday dinner. “The nice thing about North Carolina is that hunting is such a common activity — everyone I’ve met respects the fieldto-table lifestyle,” says Shockey. “I’m often asked if I can give folks some wild game to try.” She counts herself lucky to have made some female friends who shared her passion right away. “I moved here when I was six months pregnant and knew no one, aside from my husband, and the first two girls I met here both happened to also be pregnant and both loved to hunt and shoot,” she says. “I felt like God was telling me that I had finally found my home base.” Since Shockey and Brent are both Canadians (he grew up outside of Toronto), American Thanksgiving is a newer holiday to them — but one they embrace for its emphasis on eating well, gathering with family, and putting down roots in their adopted home state. “My mom created so many incredible memories for me and my family around the holidays, I love being the one to create those for my kids now,” she says. “We’re forging our own traditions and memories.”

NEW TRADITIONS

Shockey and Brent love to entertain friends and family, and since moving to Raleigh in 2016 and starting their family, they’re working to create their own traditions. At the table, Shockey layers natural elements in neutral tones, much as she does in the rest of her house, including pieces from her Eva & Co. collection, like the whitewashed placemats and linen napkins. Opposite page: Rather than roasting it in the oven, Shockey cooks her turkey on her Traeger grill outside, which yields a nice golden crust on the skin and frees up the oven for other dishes. Shockey, Brent, Boone, Leni Bow, and Crockett the dog get ready to carve up a turkey at their dining table.

HERB-ROASTED TURKEY

Shockey roasts her turkey low and slow on the grill — a good option if your oven is already occupied with pies, stuffing, or a casserole.

8 tablespoons butter (softened) + 3 tablespoons butter, melted 2 tablespoons chopped herbs, such as parsley, sage, rosemary, and marjoram ¼ teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1 (12- to 14-pound) turkey, fresh or thawed Poultry seasoning blend (like Traeger Pork & Poultry Rub) 2 cups chicken or turkey broth

DIRECTIONS

In a small mixing bowl, combine the 8 tablespoons of softened butter, mixed herbs, salt, and black pepper and beat until fluffy with a wooden spoon. (This can be made ahead; cover and refrigerate, but bring to room temperature before using.) Remove any giblets from the turkey cavity (save them for gravy, if desired). Rinse the turkey, inside and out, under cold water. Dry with paper towels. Place the turkey on a roasting rack in a roasting pan. Tuck the wings behind the back, and tie the legs together with butcher’s string. Pour the chicken broth in the bottom of the roasting pan. Using your fingers or the handle of a wooden spoon, gently push some of the herbed butter underneath the turkey skin onto the breast halves, being careful not to tear the skin. Massage the skin to evenly distribute the herbed butter. Rub the outside of the turkey with the melted butter and sprinkle with seasoning. Preheat grill to 325˚F. Put the roasting pan with the turkey directly on the grill grate. Roast the turkey for 3 hours, or until a meat thermometer shows an internal temperature of 165˚F. When the turkey is done, carefully transfer it to a cutting board and let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes. Use the drippings that have accumulated in the bottom of the roasting pan to make gravy, if desired. Carve the turkey and serve.

ELK JALAPEÑO POPPERS

Shockey makes these poppers with elk steaks, but beef steaks are a substitute if you don’t have elk on hand. “The honey is optional, but I love how the sweetness balances the heat of the jalapeño,” she says.

4 elk steaks 1 cup Worcestershire sauce 1 cup fresh squeezed lime juice 1 cup soy sauce 20 medium-sized jalapeño peppers 10 slices bacon 12 ounces herb and garlic-flavored cream cheese (room temperature) Honey, for serving (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Mix the lime juice, Worcestershire, and soy sauce together in a large bowl or large resealable bag. Add steak, cover and let sit for at least 2 hours, or overnight. Preheat grill or oven to 350˚F. Remove the steak from the marinade and thinly slice into bite-sized pieces so they are approximately the same width and length as the jalapeños. Cut the jalapeños in half lengthwise. Remove seeds and center membrane, then set aside. Cut the bacon in half crosswise. Set aside. Spoon cream cheese equally into all jalapeño halves. Lay one slice of marinated elk on top of each jalapeño. Wrap each jalapeño popper with one piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick if needed. Place on grill or oven, cut-side up, for 10 to 15 minutes, or until elk is cooked and jalapeños are tender and lightly charred. Drizzle honey on poppers to serve, if desired.

AUTUMN GLORY A red maple glows along Lake Raleigh one brilliant fall day.

In celebration of the season’s colors around Raleigh

FALL The feel of

by AYN-MONIQUE KLAHRE photography by KATE MEDLEY

“Iam not a nature photographer, only because I find it incredibly difficult,” says Kate Medley. “To me, there’s nothing that can top the experience of seeing a scene in person.” Medley typically captures images for newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. But when WALTER asked her to spend a few days walking around the Triangle looking for fall leaves, it was, she says, the perfect antidote to the more serious fare she’d been photographing. “It was such a nice reprieve to go into the community simply to find beauty in it,” she says. In the Triangle, autumn leaves are in their full spectrum of crimsons, ochres, and umbers by early November. “Some trees, like tulip poplars and black gum, change early,” says naturalist Melissa Dowland, coordinator of teacher education at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. “The last ones are oaks and then American beech — their leaves turn a nice light tan and then hang on through winter.” For this project, Medley worked to find new vantage points for nature’s spectacle: “I try to get a different perspective on a scene you may already be familiar with — to climb up a hill, to step off the trail.” And in doing so, she herself gained perspective. “I was struck by how fortunate we are to live in an urban environment that has so much gorgeous wilderness right within the city,” she says. “Even in a well-used park, there’s still plenty of room for everyone to roam and find their own space.”

GOLDEN HOUR

Squirrels are busy hoarding nuts as they prepare to hunker down for winter. “They have an uncanny ability to find them, but usually miss a few — that’s why squirrels are so good at helping seeds spread,” says Dowland. Opposite page: American beech trees shine along a path in Ayr Mount, in Hillsborough.

COLOR SHOW

Open edges of the woods — like the bank of Lake Johnson here, or the side of the road — are often where you’ll find the brightest colors. “There’s more diversity of species, and some of the more vibrant changers, like maples and sweet gum, prefer the additional light along the edge,” says Dowland.

INTO THE MIST

Early morning at Historic Yates Mill County Park, where a blanket of mist hovers over the surface of the pond. As the temperature cools overnight, the water stays warm, which leads to condensation when the air hits the dew point.

SUNNY DAYS

In Pullen Park, an orange-hued bald cypress stands tall. “It’s a popular tree for landscaping, and unlike most conifers, it’s deciduous — it drops its needles in the fall,” says Dowland. Maples, with their brilliant orange leaves, are an “iconic” fall tree, she says. Opposite: A clear morning on Lake Raleigh, near North Carolina State University.

“How fortunate we are to live in an urban environment that has so much gorgeous wilderness right within the city.” — Kate Medley

Painter Damian Stamer combines realism and abstraction in his evolving work

THE BEAUTY OF CHANGE

by COURTNEY NAPIER photography by TAYLOR MCDONALD

Damian Stamer was born and raised in northern Durham County, right near a century-old Italianate-style brick building that once contained a prison camp, then a sanitorium for tuberculosis patients, and finally the WTVD Television Corporation (affectionately known around here as just “Channel 11”). Now on the National Historic Registry, this complicated structure is just the sort of thing that bemuses Stamer — and led him to explore its meaning through his paintings.

Stamer was introduced to the world of art in the 1990s as a student at Riverside

High School. Artist Helen Griffin, Riverside’s art teacher, taught with a contagious passion that transferred to Stamer. “It’s the first time I ever wanted to stay after school to work on projects,” he says. “The piece that I really remember impacting me was the famous Robert Rauschenberg piece with the JFK lithograph. A notion of realist ‘popular’ photographic imagery with his beautiful abstract marks was, to me, a poetic combination. I think I’ve been interested in that dynamic between abstraction and realism and combining them ever since.” Even as a teenager, he showed potential

for being an artist professionally, according to his former teacher. “Early on Damian understood the work commitment and risk taking required in art making,” says Griffin. “Some people do the bare minimum, but the minimum was never an option for him.” After graduating from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts high school program in Winston-Salem in 2001, art became both a form of self-expression and a form of self-exploration for Stamer. He traveled to Germany for a study abroad program at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, then went on to study fine art in Arizona and Hungary, before moving to New York City, where he split his time with North Carolina, working toward a master in fine arts at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, before settling back here in 2018. It was in New York City, among the frenetic yet isolating energy of the city, that Stamer began to reflect deeply on his roots. “Coming home for the holidays, I started taking pictures of the weathered buildings around town,” he says. The distance allowed him to see his home with more appreciative and curious eyes. He began to imagine the stories within the walls and beneath the vines of decaying structures. When he returned to the city, he began painting pictures of the scenes he captured. This study of the magic of time upon environments and buildings became a common thread through Stamer’s work. “Damian’s ability as a painter is profound in multiple ways,” says Dr. Jen Sudul Edwards, chief curator and curator of contemporary art at The Mint Museum in Charlotte. “His skill with paint and his confounding treatment of the surface brings a complexity and curiosity to the works, and his haunting subject matter — these abandoned spaces, hovels where nature assumes and consumes spaces once attended to by humans — compounds that disruption, all the while luring you in deeper because they are such stunningly beautiful, complicated compositions.” In a 2016 profile on PBS NC’s show My Home, NC, Stamer shares pieces from his

Scenes from inside Damian Stamer’s studio near Hillsborough, which is connected to the house where he grew up. This has been his full-time workspace since 2018.

Altered Land exhibition, a collection heavily influenced by his memories of the green and aging spaces in and around Hillsborough, near where he grew up. There’s a scene in which he and his twin brother, Dylan, drive to a nearby barn, which resembles a towering triangular bush with the overgrowth of vines that have swallowed the structure. “What’s so exciting about this place,” Stamer muses to his brother, “is that there is a whole unknown world inside. It’s like a treasure chest or a time capsule.” Stamer’s latest exhibit, and then it wasn’t, which will open at SOCO Gallery in Charlotte this month, is also a time capsule of sorts. Created over the course of the last year — against a background of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Movement for Black Lives following the murder of George Floyd, and the pregnancy of his wife with their first child — the collection explores the destructive and transformative nature of time. “The big changes that happened in 2020 made me reflect on the Buddhist principle of impermanence and equanimity in change,” Stamer says. “There’s a fear of change, but there’s also a beauty and potentiality in it.” He explored the idea that sometimes the dismantling or degrading of old structures and realities can be good — even if it’s challenging and uncomfortable. “While I love his work for all of these art historical reasons, it has a particular poignancy in the South, where history remains present, a site to reckon and reconcile,” says Sudul Edwards. “Even if we didn’t build the original structure, it is ours to tend.” Stamer’s studio, which he completed in 2016, is connected to the home where he grew up, nestled in lush woodlands. Here, soaring windows along the north-facing wall erase any sense of containment and frame the tall oaks outside. The other three walls are filled with his pictures on hanging canvas, windows into his artistic world. Near the entrance, the door to the storage room is a collage of postcards and small prints by artists who inspired him, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Neo Rauch, and Cy Twombly. For and then it wasn’t, Stamer pushed himself to a new level of vulnerability through more abstract expression than ever before, offering paintings that are markedly more vibrant and nonrepresentational than his former works. Horry County 25, which Stamer started in 2018 and finished last year, shows what appears to be a darkly painted interior room in the center of the panel. Then, in a visceral shift, Stamer adds beautiful and bold markings with a panoply of rich warm hues, textures, and shapes. The result is a powerful interplay of the fixed and the fluid. “This is a little more open,” he says. “I’m playing around with opening up again to this negative space, with the concept of things coming together and then dissolving. And this kind of beauty in that impermanence.” “I thought to myself, this is the time to just be bold,” says Stamer. “I’ve tightened up some of the realism, but I’ve focused on pushing myself to that anxious, uneasy place beyond normal.” That process consists of Stamer revisiting paintings over months and years with new mindsets and states of being, and translating these fresh perspectives onto the canvas. In the end, the pieces are more like novels, showing layers of stories and emotional experiences that even Stamer will never fully understand. But he has surrendered to that mystery, which leaves space for the viewer to connect and seek out their own experiences and stories in his work. “Damian constantly amazes us for his ability to challenge himself and dive deeper into the manipulation of paint and form,” says Chandra Johnson, founder and owner of SOCO Gallery in Charlotte. “In his new exhibition, he’s pushing the boundaries of abstraction in his work even further. The paint and marks seem to explode from the canvas into the viewer’s physical space.” In the midst of all the global and personal change, Stamer maintains a grounded and content demeanor that, he says, is the product of his spiritual practice, therapy, a loving family, and a supportive artist community. “I feel very lucky to have a wife who wants to go on this journey with me,” he shared. “She is able to go to places and talk about things in such an understanding way.” He also speaks of the “wonderful community of artists” here that have encouraged him throughout his career, including celebrated Durham-based painter Beverly McIver and Larry Wheeler, the former director of the North Carolina Museum of Art. “When I was director of NCMA, Damian politely persisted that I come to see his paintings. When I finally did, it stopped me in my tracks,” Wheeler says. “Damian’s work, mature and beautifully articulated, communicated an uncanny spiritually of place. I was moved to immediately call the curators at NCMA and insist that the museum buy what I considered the best one. And I continue to find joy in Damian’s growing success — and a broader appreciation of his work.” Stamer is a man full of gratitude — for his family and home — but also for his professional achievement, he says: “Success, in a way, is just being able to paint every day, make your work, put it out there, and then try to let go.”

“The big changes that happened in 2020 made me reflect on the Buddhist principle of impermanence and equanimity in change. There’s a fear of change, but there’s also a beauty and potentiality in it.” — Damian Stamer

Old-World WINE

In North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley, European-style grapes thrive

by FINN COHEN photography by MARK WAGONER

Grapes at Raffaldini Vineyards in Ronda, North Carolina.

Opposite page, top images: Harvesting grapes at Elkin Creek Vineyard. Bottom: Harvesting grapes at Raffaldini Vineyards.

You wouldn’t notice it from the highway, but a little over two hours west of Raleigh, the soil is something special. And it’s not just the soil: it’s the slope of the land — lush, verdant hills at the foot of the Appalachians — and the quality of the air, still slightly humid but more temperate than most counties to the east. Even the way the sun hits is different. You’ve entered North Carolina’s wine country. The Yadkin Valley, which for oenophiles is centered around the town of Elkin, is one of 258 American Viticultural Areas in the United States (for context: California has 142 AVAs, and only 25 other states have them). The area’s status as an AVA — meaning that the climate and terrain have been certified by the U.S. government for their wine-making properties — became official in 2003. There are currently more than 50 wineries operating in the region. And they produce a much different grape than the super-sweet muscadines found in much of eastern North Carolina. “The Yadkin Valley is a direct analog of old-world Europe, dropped right here into North Carolina,” says Louis Jeroslow, one of the owners and operators of Elkin Creek Vineyard. The specific combination of latitude (on the same line as Monterey County in California), humidity (similar to Bordeaux, France), and red clay (akin to Tuscany, Italy) creates ideal conditions for European varieties of wine. “These vines don’t know they’re in North Carolina,” he says. “Their feet are in Italy, and they think they’re growing in France.” Jeroslow and his wife, Carrie, first laid eyes on their vineyard as guests: in 2008, their friends Jennifer and Nick White got married at Elkin Creek, and the Jeroslows were an integral part of the ceremony. They quickly became friends with the owner, Mark Greene; Louis had been dabbling in winemaking, so there was a mutual interest. A year later, Greene contacted them and wanted to sell; he knew they’d be interested since they’d all hit it off so well. The Whites and the Jeroslows didn’t have a business background in wine — all four of them were working for the Blue Man Group in Las Vegas — but everyone was ready for a change. “We had been in the arts for a really long time, and we all wanted to come back east,” says Carrie, who had worked for Blue Man Group in New York City in the 1990s. “Our visions were very much based on this place; it had everything that we really loved.” There are 4 acres of grapes on the Elkin Creek property, and they produce about 1,200 cases a year. In their cozy tasting room, they offer brick-oven pizzas every weekend to go with their wine list. Highlights by the glass include the Viognier, a light white crafted in the Rhone style, and their take on Cabernet Sauvignon, a rich nod to France. Their “Adequate Red” is a deceptively named blend of Merlot and Syrah, recommended by the bottle with a winter meal. Math and logistics prevent a Yadkin Valley wine from being widely available to consumers around the state, so it’s hard to get a taste of these grapes without making the trip. Unlike craft beer, which uses ingredients that can be bought online, fermented relatively quickly, canned, and shipped, wine-making is a laborious process that can be affected drastically by numerous factors during a growing season: hurricanes, late-spring frosts, pests, and drought. Once the grapes are picked, crushed, and put in a tank, they need ample time to be turned into wine. If there’s only a few people involved in the process, then it’s a lot harder to drive around the state looking for distributors if you’re also running a tasting room and a grape farm. “If you’ve bought a million dollars’ worth of stemmers and crushing pans and tanks and oak barrels and everything else, you’re going to maybe sell a guy like me a few cases here and there,

This page, clockwise from top: The Tuscan-style tasting room at Raffaldini; grapes within the vineyard; Elkin Creek. Opposite page, clockwise from top: Outside of the tasting room at Midnight Magdalena Vineyards; wine barrels at Raffaldini; grapes at Elkin Creek Vineyard; Raffaldini Vineyards.

Top image: Inside the tasting room at Elkin Creek Vineyard. Bottom images: Wine bar The Wisdom Table in downtown Elkin, which specializes in North Carolina wines.

“These vines don’t know they’re in North Carolina.Their feet are in Italy, and they think they’re growing in France.” — Louis Jeroslow

but you can’t afford a giant wholesale,” says Jeremy Stamps, a co-owner of The Wisdom Table, a comprehensive wine bar located in an old Belk’s department store in downtown Elkin. “Most brewers are buying hops from Oregon and Washington, barley from the Dakotas — industrial-grade ingredients. They can produce beer on scale and send it to anybody and it’ll still be good.” “It’s a pretty steep learning curve,” says Jim Zimmer, who with his wife, Tauny, owns Midnight Magdalena Vineyards several miles outside of Elkin. They quit their jobs in the energy industry and moved from Atlanta after buying 40 acres of land in 2010, opening the vineyard in 2012. Today, they’ve got 6 acres of vines planted, producing jammy reds (the 2018 Malbec is a standout) and crisp whites (try the Riesling). When they landed in the area, it was still relatively under the radar, which allowed them to adjust to the rigor of the growing process. While Jim got his hands into the soil, Tauny learned her craft through the viticulture program at Surry Community College in Dobson. “It gives you a lot of guidance of how you can start up a vineyard and start up the overall business, even to the point of teaching you the winemaking techniques that you would need, or the grapes that you’re growing,” Jim says. “She would come back from school, we would talk about it.” Jeremy Stamps and his wife, Krystle, moved to Elkin in 2017 from Orlando, where they both worked at Disney World (there seems to be a bit of a theme with entertainment and wine here). They’d fallen in love with the area when they got married there, but on visit after visit they saw a need for a gathering spot since many wineries stop offering tastings at 5 or 6 p.m. Now, The Wisdom Table sells wines by the bottle — about half of the shop’s stock is from North Carolina — and Jeremy serves as ambassador for the region, offering carefully curated flights that combine Old-World, New-World, and Yadkin-world wines. Even when he’s pouring a glass of a deep red, he’s offering a story about it — like Grassy Creek’s 2017 “To the Max” blend, named for the winemaker’s late dog, who saved his owner’s life by blocking him from going out in the vineyard one day before a lightning storm. Or McRitchie Winery & Ciderworks’ 2014 “Ring of Fire,” a dazzling Italian red that benefited from that year’s lack of hurricanes, rain, and early frost. Or the Vermentino Superiore, a luscious white from Raffaldini Vineyards, one of the region’s most scenic vineyards — there’s a Tuscan-style villa situated over rolling hills, where they grow the grapes that produce some of the region’s most powerful reds. (The Montepulciano Riserva, an earthy red, would pass as an Italian import at a blind taste test.) The elephant in the room for winemakers around the world is climate change; as certain areas known for production get hotter and less accommodating for growing, regions less known for their grapes will inevitably get more attention. The Yadkin Valley stands to gain from this shift, which, according to Louis Jeroslow, would be a bit of a full circle for the whole state. “Somewhat lost in history is that winemaking in North Carolina goes all the way back to the colonies — this was the wine region of the United States before the western expansion, up until Prohibition,” he says. “You have oldworld Europe dropped right here in the foothills, and we’re starting to finally, slowly, see more attention among the public, among the consumers.” “It feels very much like Sonoma in the 1960s, when the locals just didn’t get it, and people had not really heard about it: Why are you growing grapes, isn’t this where you guys grow almonds and citrus?” he says. “People could say the same thing here: Why are you growing grapes? Isn’t this where people grow corn and tobacco and soybeans?” But sitting on Midnight Magdalena’s porch looking into the Blue Ridge Mountains with a glass of their Malbec, or wandering through the sun-dappled vines at Raffaldini between sips of the Riserva, the answer is clear.

Wednesday, December 1 Union Station | 6:00 PM

Join WALTER for our exclusive holiday shopping event! Peruse over 20+ local vendors that you have met in the pages of our magazine. Ticket includes heavy hor d’oeuvres and libations.

The Fab Foo I North Carolina Theatre I Nothing Finer I The Flourish Market Lyudmila Tomova I Peppertrain I The Painted Pearl I The Green Chair Project Videri Chocolate Factory I Hampton Farms and More!