Place of Many Frogs
At the end of Paradise Valley Road in rural Frogtown, Lumpkin County Georgia, where the rolling hills escape sight only where the peak of Mt. Yonah defines the southern horizon, a wine enthusiast can spot on the hilltop a fantastical-looking vineyard. It’s on this postcard picture of North Georgia where Jordan Fiorentini, her mother Cydney Kritzer and father, Craig Kritzer, gave birth to Frogtown Cellars vineyard in 1998 and the winery in 2002. Complete with a spacious tasting room, lush hillsides, and an upcoming bistro in April of 2005, Frogtown provides a serene and beautiful backdrop to host a wedding or other special event. It’s here where the mother-daughter team plays, and sometimes works.
“Wine,” laughs Jordan, “It’s my life.” And it’s a life full of flavor. With 15 varieties of grapes and 17,000 vines on 28 acres of their farm, Jordan and family have all the resources to produce their award-winning varieties of red and white wines. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc grapes grown in the vineyard contribute to the lively and fruity flavor of the acclaimed red wine blend, Touché. 
Producing wine is a complex and delicate process. Jordan has sought to capture both the aesthetic and scientific intricacies of the procedure. She graduated from Dartmouth University in 1999 with an engineering degree. The same year she graduated she went to California and worked her first harvest at Markham Vineyards. She then chose to further expand her wine expertise by enrolling at UC Davis, a school in California with a renowned enology program. While enrolled in the wine making program, she honed her knowledge working two other Napa Valley vineyards, taking grape samples from the vines and testing them for their chemical compositions such as acid and sugar content, as well as testing for taste.
In 2002, she capped off her proficiency as a vintner by traveling to Tuscany, where she gained not only authentic experience with vinifera, but found a husband as well. Her newfound love Emanuele traveled with her back to Frogtown where they both joined the family business. The couple was married in October, 2003. They are expecting their first child during the harvest of 2005.
Home at Frogtown, Jordan spends the majority of her time working in her impressive three-story gravity flow winery. Applying the knowledge she gained in California, she chemically tests her wine to determine its ideal taste and aging. “It’s a science and an art,” she explains, “The wine brings the art to it.”
Jordan and Cydney both hope Georgia will grow into a wine region known for its quality and distinctive flavor. Frogtown Cellars is geographically ideal for growing vinifera, with an elevation that is just high enough to avoid the harvest-crippling Pierce’s Disease. Jordan offers advice to grape growing entrepreneurs: “It’s fun to be a pioneer,” says Jordan, “I hope people will seek out quality land so that they will make quality wine.”

All in the Family
Under the watchful eye of the Three Sisters Mountain’s three peaks, Three Sisters Vineyards and Winery sits on 184 acres just up the hilltop from the -Fiorentini’s Frogtown Cellars. Sharon Paul and husband, Doug, broke ground for their vineyard in 1996. “We’re both chronic over-achievers,” confesses Sharon. The two can be described as entrepreneurs by nature, undertaking many projects that have taken off in a big way, including the couple's advertising and recording business in Atlanta and now Alpharetta, which has served as a communications tool for the Turner Broadcasting Company as well as for southern comedy icon Jeff Foxworthy's weekly radio show. Other passions include owning, operating, and programming North Georgia’s smallest radio station Frogtown Community Radio-on frequency 100.5 on the low power FM band, reaching audiences in a 10 mile radius of the Lumpkin County winery. Be sure to tune this station in when you visit the Frogtown area.
Three Sisters Vineyards and Winery is the result of the hard work of Sharon, Doug, and Sharon’s brother Ken VanDusen, who holds the title of vineyard operations manager. All three take pride in Three Sisters being Dahlonega’s first family farm winery.  Another helping hand around the farm, Mittie, is Sharon and Doug’s 13 year old daughter. She dreams of becoming a cartoonist and spends her free time drawing. Mittie helps out in the tasting room on weekends.
All of the family members participate in the wine making process. The winery began production in 2000 and holds claim to being the first legal winery in Lumpkin County since prohibition. Sharon is passionate about winemaking and pays attention to all the details of the journey of the grapes through the winery. Before the grapes can be fermented, they have to survive until harvest. Caring for 8,000 vines takes a knowledgeable and tenacious farmer. “[Grape vines] are like people, some die young and some live for 100 years,” Sharon explains. Then, after the grapes have been crushed and fermented, the aging process is essential to guaranteeing a quality wine. “Technically, it’s wine after four weeks. That’s when the art of winemaking comes in.”   An important decision faces the winemaker at this point, says Sharon, of whether to use oak barrels or stainless steel. Three Sisters uses mainly French barrels since they, according to Sharon, have “much more subtle flavors.” The American barrels, on the other hand, Sharon jokes, “are much like Americans, brash and in your face…not to say the French aren’t.”
Sharon’s favorite part of winemaking is the moment that a visitor takes the first sip of their wine. “I love surprising people, and proving to them that there is good wine in North Georgia.” Frankly, she shouldn’t be surprised. Due to the winemaking and business savvy of the family, Three Sisters Vineyards has earned a reputation all throughout North Georgia and Atlanta, supplying their wines to quality wine shops and package stores. Three Sisters bottles their wine under three labels: Chestatee, Walasiyi, and Three Sisters Vineyards. Sharon describes the Chestatee wines as “very approachable, versatile table wines.” Walasiyi, meaning “place of many frogs” is the label given to the wines dedicated to the traditional sweet taste of southern wines. The family vineyards have a northern view of Blood Mountain and the Walasiyi Gap (now called Neel's Gap). Finally, the Three Sisters Vineyards label is reserved for select wines that truly showcase the winemaking family’s expertise. “It’s the best of what we do,” Sharon affirms.
The Three Sisters tasting room opened in 2001 and Sharon takes on the responsibility of running the business. The work comes with a perk that many winemakers enjoy: meeting interesting people. Tastings and private parties alike. “We’ve had everything from cowboy weddings with barbeque to black tie weddings with pork roast!” Sharon tells of one wedding Three Sisters recently hosted for a Georgia bride and Italian groom. “It was a magical wedding and reception for these two families and cultures," says Paul. "The wedding gazebo and lawn area with long rows of tables overlooking the vineyards, looked like a scene out of Tuscany."

       Sharon is currently putting together the pieces for the vineyard's annual Georgia Wine Country Festival, held the first weekend of June. The festival feature bluegrass, country, folk, jazz and gospel artists. All proceeds from the festival will go to Georgia charities.
In addition to running the tasting room and organizing weddings and special events, Sharon serves as the accountant for the family and has a busy schedule. "I want to see [Georgia] as a destination such as Napa Valley is a destination.” Sharon hopes for a distinguished wine country in this region, but a unique one as well. “Every wine region has to have its own special flavors. Does it resemble California? No. This is Georgia. We have our own environment and flavors.”

Two Vineyards are Better than One
Two little vineyards that grow grapes for some of the best wine in the southeastern United States sit at the base of Tiger Mountain in Rabun County, nestled near Lake Rabun and Lake Burton in the northeast corner of the state.
Tiger Mountain Vineyards became a reality 10 years ago when John and Martha Ezzard tried to figure out a way to save the Rabun County farm where John had been born and to make it pay for itself. The Ezzards moved back from Colorado to their farm on the shoulder of the mountain, where they met another Tiger couple, Leckie and Bill Stack. The Stacks live in the middle of an apple orchard, having an abundance of apples, had experimented rather successfully with making apple wine. According to Leckie, one day in 1998 during the Ezzard's first grape harvest, Bill told his friend John to bring some of his grapes over. "They pressed them in our basement on an apple cider press no bigger than a TV set," she says. "That was the beginning of Tiger Mountain Winery." Leckie said her husband tells people she used to have a garden. "Now,” she says, “I've just got a bigger garden."
            These days, Martha and Leckie are more involved with the day-to-day operations of the winery, since John is a practicing urological surgeon and Bill still is practicing law. Both commute to the Atlanta area during the week. However, all four are equally responsible for running the vineyards and winery and for making decisions that affect the production of their wine. They run the tasting room together and all work to market and sell their products.
Their wines have won numerous awards both in the Southeast and at places like the Los Angeles County Fair. Their wine recently was reviewed in The San Francisco Chronicle. "The secret is that we know our vines personally, and we know the quality of our grapes and we know our particular piece of earth," Martha says. The Ezzards have eight-and-a-half acres of grapes at their vineyard, while a few miles away the Stacks have six and a half acres planted. They grow mostly European variety grapes and produce six red wines and a white wine, with another white on the way.
          Martha Ezzard has a career as an environmental writer and journalist. A 10-year member of the Atlanta Journal Constitution Editorial Board, she holds a masters degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. She practiced as an environmental lawyer in Colorado. She didn’t always dream of running a winery; the reality of the winery grew out of a commitment to preserve a piece of property and a family tradition. "We were committed to saving our five-generation family farm."
Martha and John planted 1,500 vines with their own two hands in 1995. "Everybody told us, 'You can't grow vinifera up there in those mountains,'" she said, "but we stick to certain varieties," Martha said, explaining that the North Georgia Mountain climate is friendlier to European varieties than to the ones grown in California's Napa Valley.
           Martha is writing for the AJC at home, while working on a book and doing some freelance writing. She likes to hike and has done some pieces on backpacking for outdoor magazines. She and Leckie enjoy pairing the wines with foods for events at Tiger Mountain Winery and Tasting Room, jointly owned and located between the two vineyards. "John and I know this land," Martha said. "It grows some wonderful fruits and berries."
          The Ezzards have three grown children and six grandchildren. The Ezzard's daughter, Shelly Ezzard Smith, designed their home in the vineyard and also designs the winery's labels for their bottles.
          The Stacks have had their home with a view of Tiger Mountain since the mid-1980s. Their house, made from local stone from the fields, is one of four homes in a 125-acre apple orchard. "We had a lot of apples at our disposal," she said, explaining how they began to experiment with apple wine.
          After they tried making grape wine with the Ezzard's grapes, they planted their vineyard. Leckie often works in the vineyard during the week - she enjoys growing things. As she raised the couple's four childrem, she volunteered at Atlanta Botanical Gardens and worked at the Southeastern Flower Show.
She and Martha take turns every other weekend doing flowers for the tasting room and planning the wine and food pairings. One of her daughters, Jennifer Moore, along with her husband Scott and her children recently have moved to Tiger. Jennifer also helps out at the tasting room, as the second generation of Ezzards and Stacks begin to have a hand in the business. Leckie laughs as she tells of a very special “tasting” staged recently at their winery - one specially designed for their grandkids. "We lined up the Coke, the Dr. Pepper, the Diet Cokes and the Pepsis and blindfolded them and let them see if they could tell the difference. They loved it,"
          Martha and Leckie agree that their wine's success is due to the direct constant involvement of the two couples in their project. The winery only hires three part-time employees and they do the rest themselves. "It's a lot of hard work," Leckie says. "But we've met some fascinating, nice people and it has given Bill and me a focus when we travel. We visit wineries all over the world.  It's something we enjoy doing together. We’ve expanded our knowledge of wine and we've tasted some great wines."

Like Sweet Tea and Cornbread
-“Sweet”, “traditional”, and “southern” are a few words that succeed in describing the time-honored custom of muscadine winemaking in Georgia. If the myth and taste of such a wine can hint of a region’s rich heritage, then the women who make it can put the story into words.

In Sparta, two hours southeast of Atlanta, Toni Williams of Courson’s Winery dedicates her time to making wine “like grandma and grandpa made a hundred years ago.”
Toni lives with her husband Bo on their small 15-acre muscadine and blackberry farm. Toni recalls a childhood of doing things the old-fashioned way. Her mother made homemade soaps, jellies and jams and the sweet muscadine wine. Crushing muscadines barefooted in a large tub on her mother’s back porch is one of Toni’s favorite childhood memories.
“I didn’t go to winemaking school. My grandpa made corn liquor for 65 years.” Toni explains this in a tone of voice that confides that apprenticing this man taught her much more than a school could. Courson’s Winery offers many varieties of the southern muscadine wine, including peach, apple, plum and blackberry. Toni is a certified dental assistant, but finds her love for winemaking keeps her busy enough. “The business is a hobby. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it. That’s the way my personality is.”
Toni and Bo are proud of their small-scale operation, stressing that their small 55- gallon batches and manual hand-cranked crushers help to ensure an excellent finished product. “When you do stuff by hand, quality control goes into it. You pay a lot more attention,” informs Toni.
When the couple isn’t picking or crushing muscadines, they are preparing for other special events. “We run 90 miles an hour wide open. We’re always doing something.”  Toni and Bo currently have a tasting room in Sparta and are hoping to open a second tasting room in Milledgeville in the near future. One thing a visitor won’t find in Toni’s tasting room is a bistro serving gourmet cheese and meats. “I like to do a more homemade approach … jams, relishes, and things people actually eat.” She also sells homemade southern delicacies such as corn cob jelly and muscadine cider.
Toni is presently hard at work preparing an annual festival to take place May 14 on the farm.  She is very anxious and excited and expects everyone to have “good, clean, family fun.” She will have the Old Capitol Car Club from Milledgeville hosting a 100-car show, as well as having a magic performer, gospel band and country band. The main attraction though, will be the sweet taste of a homemade muscadine wine.

100% Natural
Patty Prouty of Walker County is also a keeper of the South’s distinctive taste of homemade wine as well as one of the early wine pioneers in Georgia. Her father Maurice founded the Georgia Winery in 1985. She has been a full time winemaker at the winery since 1990. Their 15-acre vineyard is located in North Georgia just south of Chattanooga on the slope of Lookout Mountain. Her winery has recently been rebuilt 22 miles from the vineyard, off Interstate 75 at Battlefield Parkway in Ringgold. The winery specializes in muscadine blends that capture the fresh flavor of the fruit native to the American South.          This year, Prouty is breaking new ground in her vineyard.  Consisting of only muscadine vines, fruit grown in the vineyard will carry an "organically grown" certification for the first time. "It involves quite a bit of mowing and weed eating, but it's worth it," she says. "There's a big market for organic fruits and vegetables now."  Prouty said the humid North Georgia summers have influenced her choice to quit growing native American grapes and cultivate solely the muscadine. She used to grow both, but she noticed the muscadines, which are native to the area, required much less care than the grapes. "If I didn't spray every two weeks they would get a fungus," she says. "Japanese beetles were also eating the leaves but they left the muscadines alone." The thick-skinned, pulpy muscadines grow in loose clusters on the vine and thrive in the mountain humidity. Prouty’s home is located in the vineyard, and the family swims in the two-and-a-half acre pond on the site. She gets a good feeling from knowing her loved ones are swimming in fresh, clear, and chemical-free water thanks to her decision to go organic.
Prouty is another woman winemaker who brings knowledge of science to the fledgling industry. She holds a degree in marine biology and worked for years as a medical technologist; however, she's worked full-time as a winemaker since 1990. Soon, her 22-year-old daughter, Tara, who is a senior majoring in business at the University of Arkansas, will join her, as one of a new generation of women winemakers. Daughter Natalie, 24, already works in the 16,000-square foot family winery, which includes a tasting bar, gift shop, party room and veranda. Patty hopes 19-year-old son Adrian will follow in her footsteps as well.
As a winemaker, Prouty strives to achieve a certain taste. "My niche is to
offer a sweet fruity wine." She blends native American grapes with her
muscadines and also uses peaches, blueberries, blackberries and peaches to
create the unique tastes her wines have to offer. One of her specialties, Napoleon, is made from concord and niagara grapes and oak-aged. "My goal is for it to taste like a grape right off the vine," she says. Other reds include Tailgate Red, a Concord and DeChaunac blend perfect for tailgate parties and picnics, and Blackberry Muscadine, which Prouty pairs with barbecue, hamburgers and sandwiches. Prouty just returned from a national winemaker’s conference in Lancaster, Pa. She thinks the art of wine growing is becoming a popular interest nationwide.
In the 2004 Indy International Wine Competition, Prouty's wines won eight medals when evaluated on their appearance, aroma, taste and aftertaste. Prouty’s wines can also be enjoyed at tasting rooms in Helen and Pine Mountain. Her entire selection of wines are detailed on her website at www.georgiawines.com

Where the South Surrenders
A third traditional muscadine vineyard can be found 20 miles south of Albany, in Georgia’s Deep South. This vineyard has earned the title of the largest commercial vineyard in Georgia. The hot climate is ideal for the growing of muscadines, and they flourish on all 160 acres of Still Pond Vineyards. Still Pond is a main supplier of muscadines to large grocery chains in Georgia such as Wal-Mart and Winn-Dixie.
The name of the vineyard stemmed from a legend passed down from the days of the Civil War. Nestled in the landscape of rural Arlington is a secluded pond. In the mid-19th century, tired soldiers who soaked their feet in the small pond were given peach brandy from the owners of a nearby still. Today, the still has evolved into a winery and has changed hands since the 1860s, but the pond that gained fame as an oasis in a time of war and distress remains the same.
The vineyard was planted more than 25 years ago by Charlie and Peggy Cowart. Today, their son Charles Cowart and his wife, Susan, along with their two sons, take delight in owning and operating Still Pond Vineyards. The family has been making dry muscadine wines for years that are similar in taste to a fruity Riesling. They flavor their wines in a sweet southern way by using natural fruit extracts such as honey, blackberry, peach, and muscadine cherry. Still Pond is home to Notchaway Red, an award winning red wine made from Noble muscadines. Names like Confederate Peach, Crimson Clover, and Plantation White portray the spirit of the region and are paired with each wine under the Still Pond label. Still Pond also sells muscadine juices to other wineries.
The large vineyard has much more to offer than just the fruits of its harvest. Susan heads up the business aspect of Still Pond, planning events, booking weddings, cooking dinners, and selling wine on the road. “I wear many hats,” explains Susan as she tells of the menus she prepares for dinner parties that visit the vineyard. The carte du jour offers such entrees as Angus beef filet, shrimp and grits, and coq a vin. Crème brulee cheesecake and pecan pie grace the dessert menu. And of course, every meal at Still Pond should be enjoyed with a glass of wine.  “I can see wineries being a big boost to tourism in this area,” says Susan, “Meeting the people is the best part.”
Susan’s passion for muscadines goes beyond the taste of the southern grape. Susan is particularly interested in the health benefits associated with the southern grapes. She maintains a section on Still Pond’s website, www.stillpond.com, concerning the different varieties of muscadines and the benefits they offer. One of the health advantages of muscadines is their high level of reservatrol, a substance that has been found to be helpful in lowering cholesterol levels and reducing the risk of coronary disease. Currently, Dr. Diane Hartle, associate professor of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences and adjunct associate professor of foods and nutrition at the University of Georgia, is performing tests that may prove that muscadine products contain nearly seven times the antioxidants as red wine.
It’s hard work running a vineyard and winery, having to juggle many duties such as chef, bookkeeper, saleswoman, and more. Susan often employs the help of her two daughter-in-laws, Susanna and Stephanie. With the twist of a popular phrase, it could be said, that behind every great vineyard are several great women.

Last Sips
Women Vintners in Georgia, all have much more in common than just producing wine. Whether they deal in traditional vinifera or muscadines and blackberries, all these vintners have a passion for their art as bold as a full-bodied chianti. Like all artists, they seek inspiration from the parts of their lives that have touched them the most. For some that may be a romantic adventure in Tuscany, or a year in Napa Valley. Others look back fondly at sunny days on mother’s back porch jumping on juicy muscadines. These thoughts are in the back of their minds as they wait anxiously for April’s harvest, and a chance to reveal to Georgia their next great masterpiece.

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