After Hurricane Helene brought historic flooding and tropical storm force winds to western North Carolina last fall, several industries struggled to get back up and running. Among them were dozens of wineries and vineyards directly impacted by the storm.
Each year, N.C. wine producers thread the needle with a delicate business model that relies on viticulture (growing grapes), enology (the science of making wine) and tourism (the primary way wineries sell their product).
With the full fury of Mother Nature unleashed on the region, all three aspects of the region’s winemaking industry were severely impacted. By banding together and mixing ingenuity with determination, the wineries in WNC made it through what could have been a fatal blow to their operations.
Earlier this year, leaders from several mountain vineyards shared their stories on the “Cork Talk” podcast produced by the NC Wine Guys, Joe Brock & Matt Kemberling.
“This is a story to me of serious resilience. In the midst of that hurricane, life went on,” says David Coventry, winemaker and general manager at Mountain Brook Vineyards in Tryon. “A bunch of us had wine and grapes in fermenters and we had to keep going. We had to be very, very creative.”
Coventry reverted to ancient winemaking techniques that predated the invention of electricity. At Parker-Binns Vineyard in nearby Mill Spring, Cory Lillberg hauled water to a bathtub so he could clean the newly harvested grapes, then sourced an old compressor from Mountain Brook Vineyards, which helped his winery get back on its feet.
In Helene’s wake, Flat Rock’s Marked Tree Vineyard was left with 30 tons of grapes to pick, nearly half its crop. They cobbled together an army of employees, volunteers and even members of their wine club. For two weeks, everybody chipped in to complete the harvest.
That full harvest was great for Marked Tree, except the lack of power meant the grapes could not be stored in the winery’s chilled fermenting tanks. For several nights, co-owner Lance Hiatt drove a truckload of grapes 155 miles to Childress Vineyards in Lexington, joined by a second truck driven by an employee of a nearby apple orchard.
While Childress Vineyards near Lexington wasn’t impacted by the storm, owner Richard Childress and winemaker Mark Friszolowski agreed to store Marked Tree’s grapes for as long as needed. Meanwhile, on return trips, Hiatt stopped at a Sam’s Club to fill the
truck with food, water, cans of gasoline and other necessities to help people in
Henderson County.
“We were a mini-gas station for a few days, we were a mini-grocery store for a few days,” Marked Tree co-owner Tim Parks said on the podcast. “We were giving things out to people on our road because it is hard to get to.”
Marked Tree is one of eight wineries in Hendersonville’s crest of the Blue Ridge wine region, which has gained popularity since its federal designation as an American Viticultural Area in 2019. However, all that momentum took several steps back last fall.
Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards and Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery in Hendersonville lost $1 million in revenue because of the storm, says owner Alan Ward. But, he adds, you can’t live in the rearview mirror.
“We had wine tastings without electricity during the daytime, so we tried to keep things moving forward,” Ward says. “We’re doing a lot of new and different things we probably would not have done if this hadn’t happened. And that may actually make us bigger, better and brighter.”
Heath Little, whose family owns Stone Ashe Vineyards in Hendersonville, stresses the importance for wineries “to not let this define the future of the area or the businesses in the area.” However, Little echoes what other mountain wineries have noticed in 2025: Visitor traffic has been slow to return.
Not too long ago, Marked Tree Vineyard, which also operates a tasting room in downtown Asheville, received a phone call with those all-too-familiar questions: Are you open? Is it safe to travel there? Are there hotels and places to stay available?
“That’s probably the biggest thing that we’ve been having to do is get the word out that ‘we’re open, we’re ready, we’re safe,’” Parks says.
Podcast co-host Kimberling says oenophileswill enjoy visits to the region: “We’ve been coming to western North Carolina for 10 years now, and people may not realize there’s really great quality wine coming out of the western part of the state.”
On Sept. 27, the wineries will experience the one-year anniversary of Helene’s unwanted swing through the mountains. When asked about preparing differently for a future storm, Little points out that Stone Ashe, like most vineyards in the region and the state, plants its vines on terraces and the steepest slopes possible. “There isn’t too much else we can do.” ■
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