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By VIV BERNSTEIN
New York Times
Deep in Nascar's Southern roots, where beer still flows like water and race fans sprout from the Carolina red clay, an underground movement is afoot. There are wine drinkers lurking in the Nextel Cup garages and perhaps dotting the stands. None other than Richard Childress, the car owner who won six championships with the Southern icon Dale Earnhardt, has built a vineyard and winery to serve them.
This is what can happen when a traditional, Southeastern-based racing circuit goes national.
"Today, it's a whole different culture," said Childress, 59, who knows Nascar history because he has lived it for more than three decades. "You still have the good ol' boys that like to get in the infield and have a beer and have a good time. But then you have a crowd and a following that are wine drinkers and like the different things in life."
Childress is a convert. When he was a driver in the 1970's, Childress used to seek out local wineries when the Nascar circuit made its annual trips to California. He was not exactly a connoisseur. Childress was in it for the free drinks.
"That's what it started out to be," he said. "You know how it was when you were young? You would have a beer or wine or whatever. But I really enjoyed the taste of wine.
"There were several little vineyards in that area, and we'd go by them and we'd drink some wine and look at the vineyards, and I just thought it was one of the most beautiful scenes to see these vineyards and grapes hanging. And I just always said if I ever get the chance someday whenever I began to slow down, I said I'd love to have a vineyard and a winery."
Childress has not slowed down. He has three full-time race teams in the Nextel Cup, with the driver Kevin Harvick eighth in the points race and angling for a spot in the playoff at the end of the season. But Childress has found time to build his vineyards and winery with the help of Mark Friszolowski, a former winemaker at Pindar Vineyards on Long Island outside New York City.
Friszolowski is not a fool. He knows the reputation North Carolina vineyards hold nationally. There is none. North Carolina, the premier wine producer at the turn of the 20th century, is 12th in the country in wine production but receives little recognition outside the state.
Asked what he would give for a top rating by the wine expert Robert Parker, Friszolowski laughed. Parker would never rate his wine, he said, because that would mean acknowledging wine is actually produced here.
"They almost think it's a bunch of hillbillies," Friszolowski said.
That is one reason Friszolowski said he had no interest in leaving Pindar when Childress contacted him in 2003.
"What did my friends tell me?" he said. " 'You are absolutely crazy to go. What are you going to put on your résumé? Leave it blank? You can't say you went to North Carolina to make wine.' "
Friszolowski said he told Childress to build a winery in California or New York, not in North Carolina. But Childress eventually convinced Friszolowski to take the job and build his winery in Lexington, N.C., even though Friszolowski said he knew nothing about Nascar except that the cars drove counterclockwise. Friszolowski said he was impressed with Childress's desire to produce quality wines.
Now Childress has 130 acres of vineyards planted with more to come, all in a tobacco-growing region in north-central North Carolina. His state-of-the-art 35,000-square-foot Italian Renaissance-style winery opened in 2004 with the release of 11 wines. The initial 13,000 cases from 2003 are almost sold out.
Childress says there is a market for his wine among Nascar fans. Some were even drinking it out of plastic cups in April on the infield at Texas Motor Speedway, he pointed out with a laugh. And there is certainly a market in the Nascar garages. Among the fans is Kurt Busch of Roush Racing, the 2004 Cup champion who has joined the Childress wine club in a show of support.
"It's such a different environment, I can't even tell you," the veteran driver Jeff Burton said of the change among drivers in the last 10 years. "It certainly has gone more toward the wine drinking than just beer drinking for sure."
Childress will soon have competition. The California-born driver Jeff Gordon is coming out with his own wine, beginning with a chardonnay in the fall. He will be affiliated with Briggs & Sons Winemaking Company of Calistoga, Calif., in Napa Valley.
Gordon is not going for the Nascar crowd, though.
"It's a high-end wine that is going to be exclusive to get," he said. "Yes, my name is on it, and that certainly isn't going to hurt things, but it's not race related and it's not something we're trying to take to race fans."
Unlike Gordon, Childress looks forward to converting Nascar fans. Many have stopped by his winery, bistro and gift shop, about 60 miles north of Charlotte.
For Childress, the vineyard is more than a short-term investment or pet project.
"R.C.R. will carry itself," he said. "I see the winery being a deeper legacy, because that's what wineries are made of. For centuries, they've been handed down through families.
"I love racing. But it's different today than it was five years ago. I look for a new passion in life."
He added: "I've been on the road 40 years in racing. It's time that I step back a notch, keep racing and spend time here. There's nothing more pleasurable for me in the morning than to get up and walk through a vineyard."
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