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Richard Childress has been expanding his horizons, spending less time at his Montana ranch and more time in that out-of-place Italian villa off U.S. 52 just south of Winston-Salem that is headquarters for his latest venture, into wine-making.
At least his new place smells better than Childress' last hobby-house, where he raised bulls. The closest he gets to that now are good steaks on the huge table in his wine cellar dining room, complete with a waterfall.
Childress wines from his new North Carolina vineyards are already on sale in local supermarkets, and even on the wine lists of four New York restaurants, including Bobby Van's Steakhouse. And wine maker Mark Friszolowski has high hopes for this unusual project.
Winning some competitions will be a key, and Friszolowski will be taking this show on the road this year.
"The competitions are just starting right now, and we'll be submitting these to competitions in Dallas and Indiana, big competition like the Indiana State Fair, which is one of the most prestigious wine competitions. And, of course, San Francisco and L.A. and the Pacific Rim," Friszolowski said.
"We'll see where we stack up, and I think we'll do favorably.
"The chardonnay we have right now is equal to any of the good producers in California. It has a lot of extraction. And we have a knock-out merlot.
"And we have signature wines, including some smoking good wines, with a high price tag, $59. But I guarantee if you put those up against any $50 to $100 bottle of California wine in a blind tasting, it will fit right in.
Friszolowski was a winemaker at the Pindar Vineyards, on the eastern end of Long Island.
"It was the premium East Coast winery, a million-bottle winery we grew from nothing," he said. "We had almost 1,000 acres, of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, all the European varieties. We were on the 50-best-wines-of-the-world list because we made consistent wines with very good quality. One of our wines won 13 gold medals. And while I was there we won 600 or 700 medals, a lot of golds and best-of-shows.
"We earned our reputation."
Unlike many winemakers, Friszolowski didn't move around. He was at Pindar for 18 years.
"I'm very loyal," he said. "But I looked at this as a new pioneer area, a chance to start a new region from scratch, and apply all the lessons from Long Island. When I left Pindar, there were 40 wineries within five miles of each other, with annual sales of $40 million, a tremendous industry."
North Carolina, of course, isn't a stranger to winemaking. Westbend, for example, makes excellent wines just up the road, one reason that Childress became inspired with his venture, which is part of an effort to find new agricultural uses for tobacco lands. That state-sponsored initiative is one reason Childress and Friszolowski are making so many different types of wines: in addition to the standard cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and merlot, there is a sauvignon blanc, syrah, pinot gris and cabernet franc, vigonier, even gew?rztraminer.
"I've always considered myself a pioneer," Friszolowski said. "And Richard approached me about being a pioneer, and I'm here because I think we can make a huge difference in the quality of North Carolina wines.
"Number one is getting someone like Richard with the financial ability to do this, because this is an expensive venture. And it requires somebody with a vision.
"I told Richard I'd do this under a few important conditions: first, 'that you're behind me. I will make good wine, very good wine, we'll grow the grapes, and I will promote the product, but you have to be behind me and really commit to it. This is not going to be just a weekend hobby. It can't be that. You have to work with me in developing every aspect of this business.'
"And Richard has the passion for making wine, he really does."
Childress and Friszolowski have 65 acres planted, another 35 acres will be planted this spring.
"But we're also buying grapes from 17 other growers right now, in Pinnacle, Walnut Cove, Albemarle, Mount Gilead, Asheboro, Lewisville," Friszolowski said. "We only want to work with quality growers, and we have 100 percent say in those vineyards - in the pruning, the spraying, the fertilizer, and the harvesting parameters. We take a very active role, because we understand the people growing these grapes don't have the experience we have.
"And if we can get just one percent of the tobacco lands to convert to grapes, that would be a tremendous success, because grapes are a long-term investment."
Some 15 tons of grapes will be produced at the winery itself, and another 80 tons will be produced at Childress' other vineyards. That's enough for 10,000 cases.
So far, Childress Vineyards has produced 13,500 cases overall.
Target markets are obvious - Charlotte and Raleigh, and restaurants in Atlanta and New York.
Competition, to prove the quality of the wine, will be critical to making this work.
"But the last competition I was in, there were 2,800 entries, and I had two wines in the top-10," Friszolowski said. "I was happy about that, sure. But the important thing about that was I was an East Coast, not a West Coast guy.
"The West Coast is the land of wine. California is it. Ever since 1976, when Stag's Leap won the Paris Exposition. Until then, if you wanted a good white in California, you drank chenin blanc or French Columbard; but you can't even find those wines now.
"Things have changed. And things will change here. In my lifetime we will make a huge difference in wine production in North Carolina.
"We're going to produce a wide variety of grapes, to see just what does well. And then we'll start experimenting, with maybe trebbiano, tempranillo and other Spanish varieties, with the heat of North Carolina.
"Now if you are a small grower, with your life savings tied up, you're going to stick with grapes you know will sell...."
But Friszolowski says that Childress may have to wait a few years before making the cover of the Wine Spectator, the wine maker's version of Sports Illustrated.
"We're way far away from that," Friszolowski says. "Hey, it took the Wine Spectator a long time to put a California guy on the cover."
• Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.
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