Discover North Carolina
Wine Country

Roanoke Island’s 400-year-old Mother Vine was first mentioned in writing in 1720, but legends go much further back in history, into Native American historical lore.

Roanoke Island may sound familiar to history buffs because it was home to the Lost Colony of 1587. Under the governorship of John White, a group of 117 British settlers landed on Roanoke Island in August of 1587. White returned to England for supplies, and due to wars with Spain, was delayed in his return until August of 1590. To his perplexed surprise, there wasn’t any trace of the settlers or their possessions, except one carved work on a wooden post, “Croatoan.” They had vanished and the mystery of their disappearance has never been solved.

Colonialists and plantation farmers raised Scuppernong / Muscadine grapes alongside more traditional European varietals, French hybrids, Vitis Labrusca, fruit orchards, and tobacco fields.  The Scuppernong is particularly well suited to the warm and humid climates and are known for their sweet, musky, rustic wines.

Wine was always an important agricultural commodity to early Americans and North Carolina was a main wine-producing state in the budding new country until the mid-19th century. The Civil War, followed by Prohibition destroyed much of the successful commercial wine industry and it languished for decades after.

North Carolinian wine has begun an exciting resurgence, in part, to the efforts of William A. V. Cecil and the Biltmore Estate who explored wine production as early as 1971. Around that same time, regional farmers began to devote plots of land to vines and before they knew it, North Carolinian wine was making its mark again.