Adams Vineyards

Joined a group who had purchased a groupon. It included 8 small tastings and a plate of cheese, chocolates and oyster crackers. I’m not a fan of sweet wines and that is mostly what they have. I did like the beulah which was a dry white wine. They also had slushy wines I sampled the red sangria and blueberry pomegranate both were good.

We stopped by Adams Vineyard on a Saturday afternoon for a wine tasting and it was a lot of fun! We each sampled 8 different wines from dry to semi sweet to sweet to a slushy. My favorite was the pear wine, it was delicious! Also, our wine pourer was hilarious and awesome! We learned that some of these wines are available in Lowe’s Food so we would definitely get a bottle again!

We had a great time doing our Wine Tasting at Adams Vineyards. My folks were in town so we needed an excuse to get out to the country and do some touring, and this was our first stop after lunch. The woman who did our pourings owned the property and she was a lot of fun to chat with. I had purchased a Groupon to do wine tasting for 4 and it came with some cheeses and chocolates, and of course all the oyster crackers we needed to get through 8 different wines. We also got to select any 2 homemade jams we wanted to take home, and we chose the Hot Pepper fruit jams. The experience was fun and I’d definitely go back again, especially when friends and family are in town.

Went to Adams Vineyard on Saturday ⁴⁄₁₈ for a Groupon valued at $ 43. Had 8 sips of wine, 4 bites of cheese and 4 bites of chocolate with about 5 oyster crackers. This was served on a small paper plate. It took 1 hour and 15 minutes to sample 8 sips. Service was terrible, slow, not very talkative, learned nothing about the wine or winery, there was one person at the bar and she kept disappearing in the back, ringing up customers and pouring wine for two other customers at the bar with us. They definitely need more help. They had very little jam/​jelly to choose from and had no blueberry wine even though they have it on the wine list. No chocolate or cheese was available to purchase. This is not a $ 43 value. To purchase a frozen wine slushie to go was $ 22. Building needs updating. This was my first and last visit.

Remember when time stood still, nobody drank coffee in the car but rather sipped it in tiny cups with golden inside, and every moment was treasured: wether brushing hair with beweled ivory combs or making bread from scratch at the crack of dawn. This winery brings you back in that time and slowly but gently transitions you from 2014 hastiness into the world of grapes and wines. Its rather an educational than a drinking experience. This is not the place where you go to drown your sorrows. If you mistakenly showed up for that, you will be highly annoyed. The hostess gets to know each customer, not in invasive bar manner but with museum curator curiosity getting accustomed with the audience on a tour. Then she slowly pours wine giving you a quick history on the beverage. That’s how I learned that Carolina soil grows very sweet muscadine grapes, and last year there was a grape size of a golfball, which went unreported, unfortunately. Also they make wine out of blueberries, strawberries and what not. The wines I liked were rather girlish, sweet and very summery. They also sell some amazing jams and chocolates. In general I don’t see what not to like about this place. I wish however they had some appetizers as well and a display of how the wine is made (it is still smashed with the feet of the virgins in a huge rusty barrels, no?). But maybe they just don’t want to ruin the magic.

Enjoyed that it’s a local establishment. I didn’t give it 4or 5 stars, though. We came as a group for a wine tasting. We sat in the side room, evidently used for receptions, etc. Very large space and I think it could hold a good amount of people for large gatherings.
Most of the wines are muscadine, so if you like that type then you will probably enjoy.
I, and a few others, had requested a couple of the wine freezers/​slushed to try. While the mix was tasty, when she was serving them to us, she kept mentioning the freezer they wasn’t working well. So instead of being slushie, it was just colder than usual. Evidently, this was an ongoing issue with the freezer because she mentioned she had asked for awhile for it to be fixed.
I did purchase two of the wine slushie mixes and asked, at check out, how much wine to use for each. She said to use half a bottle, but I asked again because I showed her the label which stated to use 750ml (whole bottle). I bought one bottle and two bags of slushie freezers. Unfortunately, I should have listened to the label and not the establishment because I had to use one bottle for one bag of the mix, instead of being able to use one bottle for two bags. My fault, but I had also asked twice about how much wine to use and was told a half bottle per bag of mix.
I have been to better local wineries, and would suggest to my friends to try other places before this one.

What a great little operation. We went on a day trip to Raleigh and on our way home decided to drop in here because the vineyard was on site. Very simple place and unassuming. It was just what I expected from a little owner operated company. It’s a good thing we had the gps or we would have blown right past it, it could use a big sign :) But once we got there the barn that houses the store was clean and looked nice! Inside was clean, ready for tastings an not overly cluttered. We were the only ones there and were promptly greeted by John Adams the current generation of winemaker at the farm. He is a very welcoming person, more than willing to answer our questions and never pressuring to taste or buy.
We chose to do a $ 5 tasting. We each selected 8 wines and he took the time to tell us about each wine, why and how it was unique, and even some «notes» we might taste. He poured an accurate half ounce. Which was not a splash like other reviews said. By the end we had been poured a four ounce glass of wine. Which was enough to taste each wine and not put a person over the legal limit to drive. Which is what the winery’s are required by law to do. Again to those complaining about splashes, it’s a tasting not a gulping get drunk bar for 5 bucks!
On the wines it is the muscadine grape which is similar to the muscat grape which a moscato is made from. So the wine is naturally sweeter. With that said he has crafted dry wines that I think are superb and have a magnitude of flavors. I prefer sweet wine but left with one of the dry wines we tasted. The muscadine has a very very different flavor from the grapes you are used to. So it is going to have flavor note your thinking what the heck is that?! That is what I did. But it is a great non California wine. The Adams vineyard has done a great job complimenting the flavor instead of subduing it.
He gave us palate cleansers. A plain oyster cracker. Again for the other review complaints. It was to neutralize the flavors from the previous wine and to prepare you for the next one. It’s not intended as a meal. I found the oyster crackers perfect for their intended use.
Overall if you are looking for an unpretentious place to learn about the muscadine grape, wine, a place to have a tasting, place to pick grapes this is a great place to do it. The family owned and operated aspect make this place down to earth, friendly and family oriented. I will be going back there many times as long as we live in the area.

We went here to pick grapes, ended up staying for wine tasting. The grape picking was fun and we got to keep the bucket! It’s $ 11 to fill a bucket full of grapes, the guy working the counter was very helpful and described what grapes we should and shouldn’t pick. We spent a good 30 minutes picking grapes and headed in for the tasting. We stood at the door for 5 minutes before anyone payed attention to us… finally someone made eye contact with us and we sat down to taste.
It’s $ 5 to taste 8 wines. All of the wines are made from muscadine grapes so they are all very sweet. The tasting pours were pretty crappy, like a splash for each taste. The wine was okay. Because muscadine grapes are naturally sweet the sweeter wines were much tastier than the dry wine.
We had a fun time picking grapes but the experience of the wine tasting kinda sucked. The 3 stars is for the picking… would give 2 if we did just the tasting…

Great owner and employees! Very personable. Wine was great! Bought two bottles, and ask for the chocolates, they are the Best! Especially the surprise ones! Living social deal saved us lots of money and everything we got was more that at any other winery. Highly recommend!!!

Best place ever to take a date! The wines are amazing and the customer service is great as well! I learned a lot about wines an found a couple of favorites for date night.

Basically, the reason for the two star rating is simply that the time spent listening to stories/​time spent wine tasting ratio was significantly weighted towards the story telling aspect. Now I like a good story, but I really came out to Adams Vineyards to taste some wine rather than listen to tales told by the head winemaker. Actually, it’s not even the stories that were the problem but rather the fact that the story telling time could have been used much more efficiently (ie, providing pours while talking). However, due to a lack of efficiency, it took approximately two hours for the wine tasting which was simply too long for an outing in an establishment such as this one.
On a positive note, the wine was quite good. Yes, they specialize in muscadine wines but pride themselves in converting non-​muscadine drinkers into fans of the sweet native NC wine as their wines tend to be less sweet than most other muscadines. I’d have to agree-​though a couple of the «sweet» wines were indeed very sweet, a number of their wines were actually on the refreshing or dry side.
Curiously, we were provided with very small pours of the sampling wines, and even smaller portions of sampling meats (yes, I came here as part of a LivingSocial wine and meats pairing). For the record, I don’t mind the small slices of Boar’s Head meats, but the wines were merely splashes and much smaller than sample pours I’ve had elsewhere. Furthermore, the main wine man (John Quincy) stated that it was «illegal» to provide any further pours beyond what was listed on our sampler sheet (this came up after he teased an excellent wine that they had but that was absent from the list) due to the fact that they were maxed out with respect to the volume of wine that they could provide in a sampling. Now that may or may not be true, but it did contradict other tours I’ve been on where you were provided with a greater number of larger pours as well as other tours where a full pour of your choice was provided at the end of the tasting as part of the package. Regardless, the talking/​wine ratio was not the most favorable.
John Quincy and his mother were very kind, down to earth people, and it is nice to see a family owned and operated business do pretty well for itself. However, I believe the presentation needs work should they hope to attract more customers via their wine tastings.

Really fun place and the wine tour and tasting was a great time. Well worth a couple hours of your weekend to participate in the wine tour.

This place is a very small vineyard that is so cute and fun that even though I like red wines, not particul arly the muscadine varietals they grow here, I’ll come back for more. And I do have to say, they turn out a quality product even if I don’t drink sweet whites that often. Sitting outside on their picnic benches with a bag lunch and a bottle of wine on a saturday is so relaxing and fun. Great people who are invested in what they do. You betcha that when friends/​parents come to visit, they are coming here as well!

Initially, I was really excited about the LivingSocial deal I bought for the winery tour and tasting, but the advertising was a little on the deceiving side.
As my boyfriend and I got off the highway, we drove into the edge of the sleepy town of Willow Spring. After a few miles of vertically windy asphalt, we turned onto John Adams Road. I was a little confused that the winery wasn’t the house — since that is the only picture on their website… The winery is across from it in a large blue warehouse-​like building. The sign was a little hard to make out from afar, but legible as you got closer. As we parked in the tiny lot, we walked into the «bar» where about 10 people we sitting on wooden stools tasting wine. We weren’t immediately greeted, but eventually were led back into a large recreational room — with linoleum floors, 4 – 5 round tables, seating about 4 couples a piece. Fake bunches of grapes adorned the walls, along with a large cross. I felt like I was in the back of a church.
The tour: we were led from the recreational room into a back warehouse-​type room where all the equipment was («wining bay»). It was cold (no complaint), and the metals vats took up much of the room. However, it was a little untidy with random house stuff scattered around. I felt like some of those things could have been put away.
After the tour, we were led back to the rec room for the tasting. The crackers, cheese, and chocolates were very minimum — as in 1 tiny (1 inch by ½ inch) piece of cheese/​chocolate per taste of wine. The crackers were oyster crackers (barely a handful) that were given beforehand. One piece of cheese was even served on HALF of a «fancy Ritz cracker». I was just glad I ate beforehand. The wine freezer is not an actual «freezer». It’s a slushy mix you can add wine to and put in your freezer. The 2 souvenir wine glasses are a classy take-​home item — definitely a positive in my book.
The family who runs the winery is very friendly and humble. The winemaker, John, is warm, welcoming, and has a story for each of the wines. His mother is a cute, sassy, Southern lady who is very proud of her chocolates. My favorite was the one with a touch of cayenne pepper.
The wines are on the sweet side — Muscadines — and the best kind for you since they have a powerful antioxidant in them. One big plus about these wines is that they don’t add extra sulfites to preserve the wine (which give wine that bitter, burning taste). This is why they don’t sell their wines to grocery stores. It was pretty awesome that we got to try 11 wines — my suggestions is «TAKE NOTES» because you will not be able to remember at the end! My favorite wines: Papa Johnny’s White Bliss (left with 2 bottles) and the Scarlet Oak (very interesting flavor). I wish we had gotten a chance to try the Sweet Blackberry Reserve wine, but they were all out. Maybe next time!
When our tasting concluded, we trickled back into the bar area and started scavenging for our favorite wines. I grabbed two «Papa Johnny’s» and bee-​lined it to the register. I stood there for 5 minutes while the «bar attendant» lady cleaned and ignored me. After a few minutes, she finally said, «Oh, the other lady will ring you up.» It was rude that she kept glancing at me, and acted like I wasn’t even trying to give the place business. If you’re going to sell wine, please be attentive to your paying customers. When the owner’s mother finaly came up, I noticed there was a bunch of smashed glass on the floor. She attempted to clean *some* of it up, but did not bother to get all of it. This was a major safety hazard — especially since it was right in front of the door.
All and all: It’s a fairly young winery that has a lot of potential, but it’s building exterior and interior needs revamping. I’m no interior designer, but I feel like the linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting have got to go. This winery needs a modern update, with touches of nostalgic history (photos of the family, the farm, and the medals that their wines have won). I hope they improve their exterior landscaping and put up a better sign.