Few American wine consumers - or even people in the wine industry - would correctly place Georgia as a significant grape-growing state. Yet, thanks to huge Muscadine plantings in Central and South Georgia, the state actually has thousands of acres of fruit in the ground.

Georgia vinifera vineyards are, of course, quite another story. Although there are now more than a dozen noble wineries across North Georgia, the wine industry is still fragmented and inconsistent. It has never seen the momentum of Virginia or North Carolina, despite good, award-winning results in some wineries.

A view of Persimmon Creek shows off its 2,000 foot elevation vineyards in Georgia. Enter Persimmon Creek. In 2000, Dr. William Hardman and his wife, Mary Ann, purchased their 110-acre vineyard property near Clayton, Georgia. The land is about half way between two pristine Georgia mountain lakes, Rabun and Burton, in an area known to be a summer mountain recreation area for affluent Georgians, especially those from Atlanta. It's just a short drive to Tiger Mountain's successful vineyard property near Tiger, Georgia.

The Persimmon Creek property is said to have been the home of some of the more prosperous moonshiners in North Georgia and was once planted almost totally in corn - for obvious reasons! As late as the 1950s, moonshiners were still successfully outrunning the police, by roaring around the local highways in hopped-up Ford V-8s, loaded down with Georgia Gold corn whiskey.

At an elevation of around 2000 feet, with white pines, cool mountain air and the primarily sandy and alluvial soils of the hillside, the property has a a radically different profile than what most wine consumers and industry types would expect. There’s none of that ubiquitous Georgia red clay in sight.

The entire property was planted in Riesling, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Seyval Blanc (a variety that is now being expanded). From the start, Persimmon has been very much a family affair with the Hardmans and
A symphony of green: Seyval Blanc grapes grow like emerald colored pearls.their two sons intimately involved in every phase of the growing process. The family could well afford to be winery dilettantes, but so far, they have stayed well involved - laying down stakes, pruning vines, picking, topping, punching down corks, and even applying labels to individual bottles. In fact, teenaged Mitchell, their number one son, has just convinced his proprietor and winemaker dad to go biodiesel in all vineyard equipment - a sizable upgrade and investment.