Wine Club American Tour: North Carolina

 Last summer, Wine Club toured the world (in wines....no extra stamps in our passports, unfortunately). This summer, we're staying stateside and I was first up. I hosted North Carolina wine night. North Carolina has several great small wineries....but none of them seemed to sell their wares at our local grocery stores or wine shops. Let's just say the wines we sampled weren't the best ever.

BUT the food was good, if I do say so myself! I used my cookbook from Tupelo Honey Cafe in Asheville to make a peach-fennel salsa, which I served over baby arugula.

 I topped it with pecan vinaigrette, which was an interesting contrast in flavors...sweet and nutty from the pecans, tart and tangy from vinegar and mustard.

 We also munched on My Three Sons pimento cheese...it's extra delicious.

 And snacked on Krispy Kreme crullers. The original Krispy Kreme was in Winston-Salem, N.C.

 Winston-Salem is also home to Texas Pete hot sauce, which I sprinkle on top of cole slaw on top of my pulled pork. I used this same recipe and it was extra delicious.

 We were disappointed in the lack of variety at our local stores, which basically had Biltmore, Childress and Duplin wines. We had:

• Biltmore Cardinal's Crest, a spicy red that gets better as you go.
• Childress Vineyards Red, a table wine Ashleigh described as tasting like dirt. God bless it, but we ended up pouring most of our samples in the dump bucket. It tasted even a little buttery to me, like a Chardonnay should. 
• Pilot Mountain Sweet Red Muscadine, an extremely sweet red wine that, at first, I dubbed the "Hi-C" of wines. It grew on me, though, I have to admit.

•  Sanctuary Vineyards Viognier, a wine Erica smartly picked up when she was in North Carolina. It was an easy to drink fruity and herbal wine.
• Childress Classic White redeemed the Childress name and was the only bottle we finished! It was a sweet, light and easy to drink white.

 My plate of deliciousness!

And for dessert, we dined on these super amazing Cheerwine creamsicles sold at Food Lion! I found them in the freezer aisle and they are cheap and bad for you and therefore, excellent.

Our stateside tour will include stops in Washington and Oregon states, California, possibly the Finger Lakes and Texas.