The operators of Belle Meade, the plantation home/attraction just outside Nashville, have announced that they will begin producing wine and hope to start popping the corks in 2010. The plantation folks hope to emulate the success that Biltmore house and gardens have achieved outside of Ashville, North Carolina with their fruits of the grape.
A winery will fit right in with plantation life–no doubt Harding family meals were graced with a nice red or white. In these days, however, when customers pull up to Tennessee vineyards, they are looking for the sweeter wines. Fruit wines and anything with “scuppernong” on the label sell out more quickly than the drier varieties.
For that reason, and with a name that is perfect for this purpose, Belle Meade should distinguish itself from the other wineries by skipping the grapes entirely and fermenting honey to produce mead.
Can’t you just see the label? Belle Meade Mead! Perfect!
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