Carafe Wine Makers Owner

Did you know in Raleigh you can buy “homemade” wine as cheap or cheaper than you can buy for retail?You’ve probably heard about home brewing, but what about home wine making? It’s been around for awhile but as you can imagine the process can take yearrrs depending on the grapes of the season. Gosh, that takes a lot of waiting and patience…more than I can say I have.
We stopped at Carafé Wine Makers, a microwinery in Raleigh that sells wine that they keep bottled (isn’t it supposed to be barreled?) …before the finishing process.

Most wine bottles are $8.95 to $10.95. Anyway, we went in for a complimentary wine tasting (and you can too…). I liked the Cab Merlot …I’m not usually a Merlot fan at all as they’re generally very robust and too oaky tasting for me…but this one was light. I also liked their Italian Rosso Fortissimo Reserve. Another interesting choice for me as most Italian wines aren’t the best that I’ve tried. But Italian foods have got some of the best eats…hey, u can’t be good at everything!

At Carafe Wine Makers, Ken Crosson is one of the owners that we met. He gave us a tour of the store. And he explained and showed us parts of the wine making process including preparation, fermentation, clarification, filtration, then corking and labeling. Sounds like a lot of process-ing work to me. But as bonus, you can bring in your own private label stickers for the wines. They ship too so that may make a good gift.

And speaking of all this wine talk, this reminds me of my trip to Asheville’s Biltmore Estates and Winery the past fall. Now that’s a wine tasting!

Asheville's Biltmore Winery & Wine Tasting

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Raleigh wine lovers can buy great wines from around the world and belong to a wine club at Wine Styles. It’s a franchised wine store and there’s one right in Brier Creek and Apex. They have events going on all the time and I happen to be volunteering at the Best Friend Pet Adoption Fundraiser event yesterday. Even though it was raining cats and dogs outside (ha…just a little pet humor), the place was packed with lively conversation… and what else? …wine tasting. People were really having a good time (and with their wine!).

Best Friend Pet Adoption

BFPA Volunteers

The Wine Styles event that attracted so many people was hosted by Best Friend Pet Adoption (BFPA) which is a non-profit pet rescue organization.  There were no 4-legged animal friends at this event but 10% of the wine and tasting purchases were donated to BFPA.  All proceeds to BFPA go towards taking care of the rescued/fostered dogs and cats. Cost to adopt are $195 for dogs and $115 for cats but that doesn’t come close to covering the costs to spay or neuter the animal, foster care, food, monthly heartworm and flea and tick prevention treatment. That’s why BFPA does fundraising events with the help of their 300 plus volunteers. Helping out on the Board with publicity as Media Coordinator, I’ve seen first hand how the costs are well justified.

…But anyway, back to the Wine Styles store that was the host of this fundrasier. The Brier Creek store has a very nice selection of wines from around the world. And they do a great job of listing decadent descriptions of the wines. Owner Tracy Silber is very cordial and will help you select a good wine. She helped me select a few good anniversary champagnes.

It’s $34.99 per month to be part of the Wine Styles club membership. As a club member, you get two hand selected bottles of wine  per month, usually ranging in retail price from $19-$23. You do have to go in and pick them up but there usually are wine parties around just that.  There’s also all kinds of wine tasting type events that members get invited to.  And they always get a 10% discount on all wines purchased. It’s definitely a neat experience to walk into if you’re a wine person or are looking for ways to go out, socialize, and meet people.

Volunteers Danielle and Krista for Raleigh BFPA Fundraiser

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