HAHIRA — Frogtown Winery got its start years ago when Craig Kritzer, a retired tax attorney, and his wife, Cydney, started it together in Dahlonega.

Kritzer taught himself how to make wine, planting grapes in 1999 and making Frogtown’s first wine in 2002.

The Kritzers also opened a tasting room in Dahlonega. That’s how Wendy Wisenbaker met Craig.

Wisenbaker, a Lowndes native, was there a year and a half ago, tasting wine with a friend.

Craig was behind the bar and Wisenbaker mentioned that she lived in Valdosta.

“He flipped over the tasting sheet and started drawing me a map to his vineyard,” said Wisenbaker.

Craig started growing 25 acres of muscadine grapes in Hahira in 2009, and he talked with Wisenbaker about an idea he had to open a tasting room in Hahira.

“I thought it sounded like a fun job, but I never had any intentions on quitting my teaching job.”

At the time, Wisenbaker was in her fifteenth year of working as a special-education teacher, something that she had planned to do for 30 years then retire.

But Craig kept talking with her about the idea and Wisenbaker started making trips to Dahlonga when she had a long weekend, learning about wine, how to harvest, how to plant, how to prepare.

After the school year ended last year and Frogtown started work on the Hahira tasting room, Wisenbaker made up her mind.

“I had to take the leap of faith and do it. I felt like if I didn’t try this, I might, down the road one day, say I wish I would have tried that. I don’t want to live with any regret.”

Since making that decision last summer, Wisenbaker has been busy, spending long weekends in Dahlonega learning the wine trade and weeks down in Hahira, harvesting muscadine, getting the tasting room up and running and taking care of all the red tape involved with opening a new business.

“I’ve dug the holes for plants, run irrigation lines, harvested the grapes, made the wine.”

Now with the opening of Frogtown South, Wisenbaker has added managing the day-to-day operations to her list.

In its first week of business, the local community turned out to support it. After a busy weekend, a group of downtown Hahira businesses came out for lunch Monday to celebrate the opening.

As advertising gets going and word of mouth spreads, Wisenbaker expects the business to grow.

Wine tastings at Frogtown South are divided into several categories, or flights. For starters, there’s an all-white wine flight, an all-red flight and a flight that offers a mix of red and whites.

Thirteenth Colony, Frogtown’s label for off-dry wines, makes up its flight.

Several smaller flights are made up of sweeter wines. The Talking Rock label is used for sweet vinifers wines, Southern Charms is a blend of vinifera and muscadine, and Valdosta Wine Company wines are made purely from muscadine grapes grown in Hahira.

Wine tasters can also taste individual wines, though Wisenbaker prefers to serve flights to guide tasters through the different levels of flavor and taste.

Frogtown also offers a lunch menu, made up of paninis and fruit and cheese plates.

While it doesn’t offer dinner options — Frogtown South closes at 6 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Wisenbaker plans on hosting the occasional evening event for members of Frogtown’s Wine Club.

Membership is simple: three bottles of wine bought up front and a commitment to buy three bottles per quarter. For those quarterly releases, Frogtown offers specially made wines that can’t be bought off the shelf.

Membership also comes with discounts on tasting fees and bottle purchases.

“We want to have a relaxing atmosphere and educate people about wine. Hopefully, they’ll fall in love with it as much as we have.”