Paul Leavy/The Valdosta Daily Times The grapes are sorted by Maria Hernandez and Antonia Nava for quality and ripeness.

NASHVILLE — Ed Perry of Perry Vineyards and his partners have a dream that South Georgia one day will become the “Napa Valley” of the South, known for its award winning wines and famous wineries.

That may seem a tad far-fetched at present, but Perry and his partners have unleashed a plan to make part of the dream come true as early as July 2008.

They are working through the permitting process in Lowndes County to build Horse Creek Winery on 36 acres just off Exit 29 on I-75 at Hahira. The two-story winery will be located on Union Road, but will be built facing I-75 and easily visible to interstate travelers, if approved.

Horse Creek Winery will be a popular tourist stop, a popular place for wine connoisseurs to visit, as well as a favorite place for local residents to stage social events, from weddings to company picnics.

“We want to create a place that will be as good as anything in Washington D.C. or anywhere else,” Perry said. “A lot of people like to go to a winery as a sanctuary of tranquility. We’re going to provide that place here. We hope this will bring a new industry and accent to South Georgia life.”

The majority of the 36 acre site selected for the winery is under a tree canopy that will remain. “We’ll just clean out the underbrush and put in picnic tables and benches to make the place more like a park. There will be plenty of shady areas for picnics or a stroll,” Perry said.

The winery itself will be built on an open spot of ground close to the interstate. It will be two stories. The front door and a parking lot will face I-75.

The first story will consist of the winery operation, where grapes will be crushed and stored for fermentation within an hour of being delivered from Perry Vineyards in Nashville. Filtering, bottling and labeling operations also will be carried out on the bottom floor.

The first floor also will have a bridal dressing suite for brides and bridesmaids to use before making their entrance to second floor banquet facilities.

Upstairs, two banquet rooms of 800 square feet each and a 900 square foot banquet room will provide ample activities centers for a wide variety of social gatherings, from company Christmas parties to weddings or wedding receptions. A covered outside deck will overlook a pond and the wooded area, making a great spot for a romantic wedding ceremony, Perry said.

The “heart beat” of the winery will be the second floor wine tasting room where visitors can sample the red and white specialties being created before their eyes on the bottom floor. They can watch the creation process from a large viewing area. The tasting area will have 26-foot high ceilings. A small retail area will sell wines and wine related accessories such as cork screws, baskets and more.

One could detect a competitive edge fermenting in Perry’s voice when asked if Horse Creek really would produce award winning wines.

“We don’t intend to just be a side of the road winery,” Perry said. “We really expect our wines to win gold medals and compete in Napa Valley. We’re very serious about this.”

Perry, well known as a former state legislator, said he considered building the winery in other counties where the permitting process is easier and cheaper. But Hahira’s central location to Valdosta, Moody AFB, and Lanier, Cook and Berrien counties inspired the partners to pick the Lowndes County location.

They’ve found a friend in David DeLoach in Lowndes to help them weather the permitting process.

“As soon as Mr. DeLoach found out we wanted to build the winery in Lowndes, he offered to do anything he could to help us,” Perry said.

The name Horse Creek comes from the name of the creek that runs between Perry’s vineyard and his cousin Jeff Dorsey’s adjacent organic produce farm on State Road 76 near Lovein Funeral Home in Nashville. W. D. “Bill” Perry, Ed’s father, named the creek.

Dorsey is a partner in the winery, which will be a family operation. Ed’s son Will Perry and Drew Hancock, a family friend from Nashville, all will participate, as will other family members, Perry said.

They’ll use Perry’s high quality muscodine grapes grown at his vineyard in Nashville to make what they predict will be high quality wines capable of competing for prestigious medals in Napa Valley, California.

Will it be the “Hahira Red” wine or the “Valdosta White” wine that takes the medal? Or maybe both in either category? Perry says anything will be possible once he and his partners’ plans to build a top quality winery come to fruition next year.

Perry has applied for federal approval of wine bottle labels with those local city names as flagship wines at Horse Creek. It’s part of their “sincere” campaign to use the winery as a means to put Valdosta, Lowndes County and surrounding communities on the national map.

Perry saved a portion of his muscodine grape harvest this year to let son Will Perry use to learn how to make excellent wine. Will is a Captain in the Air Force Reserves and will take on the role as co-wine maker at Horse Creek. He’ll have a very good teacher.

Wine making expert Craig Kritzer of Dahlonega has won gold medals in Napa Valley for wines he made using Georgia-grown muscodine grapes, and is the most awarded viogneer east of the Mississippi River, Perry said.

Perry met Kritzer through Frogtown Cellars, a winery in Dahlonega designed by Kritzer. Frogtown Cellars grow 28 acres of more than 15 different grapes, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese, Chardonnay, and Viognier.

“Craig jumped at the chance to be a partner in Horse Creek,” Perry said. “He stays in Dahloenga but he’s already bought a house down here, too. He’ll spend half the year making sure that Will is making wines at Horse Creek at the expected level of quality.”

The majority of wine sold by Horse Creek will be sold wholesale from the winery, Perry said.

“We’ll be a wholesale destination, mainly,” he said. “It is my intent to have a relative economy bottle for about $12 a bottle, but we’ll have bottles for $30 and more.” Also, cousin Dorsey will develop an organic wine that will be sold at Horse Creek, Perry said.



From grape grower to wine maker

It’s almost an unlikely tale that explains how Ed Perry wound up anywhere near ownership of his own winery.

Perry planted 40 acres of fresh fruit vineyard on a 180 acre parcel in 1992. Muscodine grapes are his specialty. His first customer was Harvey’s grocery stores. He also sells to Food Lion outlets and this year picked up Dole Fine Foods as a customer. He sells the grapes all over the Southeast, and from New York to Miami, and out west to Texas.

“This is the first year we sold to Dole Fine Foods, and they are selling the grapes in New England states and Southwestern states,” Perry said. “And it is all tied to South Georgia.”

Then Perry found out that a few wineries in the South were buying muscodine grapes from growers in the Carolinas and in South Georgia to make muscodine wines. One was Lakeridge Winery outside of Orlando, Fl., and the other was right here in Georgia–Chateau Elan in Brazelton–on I-85 north of Atlanta.

Brazelton is the town actor Kim Bassinger “bought” and is now a resort area with golf courses, spas and more, Perry said.

“I had called there to Chateau Elan,” he said. “I had a lot of grapes we couldn’t sell… Chateau Elan had only been growing the vinifera, or bunch grapes, as is grown in California. They were getting into muscodine wine with grapes from the Southeast.”

So Perry began selling muscodines to Chateau Elan.

In an unlikely event, it turns out that the very muscodine grapes grown on Perry’s vineyard were determined by a wine maker at Chateau Elan to be of a certain quality and sweetness unsurpassed by muscodines from other growers. Now Chateau Elan sells a specific brand of wine made only with Perry Vineyard muscodines.

“I’m really proud of that,” Perry said with a wide grin. “There’s something in our grapes he likes.”

That got Perry to thinking. “Hmmmm. If they can do it, why can’t we?”

And the pieces fell together.

Dorsey came on board to work the produce end. Kritzer came on board as wine making expert with a reputation. Son Will Perry signed on as a wine maker. Perry’s vineyard and Dorsey’s organic produce farms are committed. And South Georgia may soon have its very own nationally recognized, award winning winery.

“We want to open the doors in July 2008,” Perry said.