I was making wine last month. This month, I’m not.
I had planned to write about the experience of making wine and everything I learned. Unfortunately, my wine is now floating down the Mississippi River. It was washed away by the flooded French Broad, along with most of Asheville’s River Arts District, former home of Plēb Urban Winery.
After Hurricane Helene, all that’s left of Plēb—where I was making my wine—is the building’s foundation. But their influence has always reached beyond their walls, and I have no doubt that its legacy will continue.
Elizabeth Higley, winemaker at Windsor Run Cellars in Hamptonville, NC, expressed Plēb’s impact like this, “If a single word comes to mind about Plēb and its entire team, it’s community. They’ve really been leaders in bringing us all together, and they’ve cultivated a space for learning and creativity.”
I’m profoundly grateful to say that I’m one of the countless people they welcomed into their community to learn, grow, and laugh.
Even though I won’t be able to share my wine, I still want to tell you about my month-long foray into winemaking. It’s the best way I can think of right now to show how special Plēb was and to thank them for what they’ve done for me and the wine community in the Southeast.
Wednesday, September 3
I got a text from Chris Denesha, Plēb co-owner and head winemaker, that morning.
“We’re getting Jacquez in tomorrow.”
He texted me because I was slated to be a guest winemaker with Plēb this season, and I’d told Chris I was interested in Jacquez—a French-American hybrid grape once grown widely in France and now more commonly seen in Texas, where they call it Black Spanish.
Guest winemaking is something they do with members of their community. Some guest winemakers are experienced pros looking for a place to try out an unconventional idea. Others are members of the Asheville food and beverage scene who are curious about the process or want to do a collab. Me? Chris didn’t give me much explanation as to why he’d offered me a spot other than “you’ve helped us a lot” and “you ask good questions.”
Well, as far as I can remember, the extent of my helping is that I’d volunteered one harvest day last year and took some photos while I did it. And they’d already repaid me for that with wine that was worth at least as much as one day’s work.
Not only did I get wine out of it, that harvest experience was the inspiration for my first Substack post. I helped them harvest grapes, they helped me find my voice.
As for the questions, I definitely ask a lot of them. I’d spent hours in Plēb’s winery with Chris, Cora Jones, and Amy Higgins—Plēb’s dynamic winemaking trio —following them around and asking what they were up to. It was nice to hear some of my questions were good. But I think the real reason Chris asked me to be a guest winemaker is he could tell that I would love it. He was right. That won’t be the last wine I make.
Thursday, September 4
I showed up at Plēb to process two bins of Jacquez. One of those bins—about 700 pounds of grapes—was “mine”. The grapes came in at 20.5 brix of sugar and 3.2 pH. They were these beautiful, purple-black clusters shaped like perfect pizza slices.
As a guest winemaker, the deal was basically, “Do whatever you want. If it’s good, we’ll sell it. If it’s bad, we’ll distill it.” They would help me as much or as little as I wanted them to. No strings attached.
I foot tread both bins and measured the juice’s sugar and acid levels with patient guidance from Cora. She even let me borrow some shorts she kept in her car because winemaking is a messy job.
Friday, September 5 through Monday, September 16
I went back every morning for almost two weeks to push the grape skins back into the juice so that they wouldn’t dry out and start growing bad stuff—this process is called a punchdown. I’d do one punchdown a day, and the Plēb team would do another. I have a string of texts between me, Cora, and Amy coordinating my daily arrival time. Regardless of when I got there, the first thing I would do is say hello to Owen, Cora’s dog.
After giving the grape skins a good stir, I would also check how much sugar was left in the wine. We were waiting until fermentation was nearly done (close to zero sugar left) to press the wine off the skins and stems and into a tank. Things moved slowly because it was a totally spontaneous fermentation. In other words, we did not add any active yeast. The fermentation was thanks only to the yeast that was on the grapes, on our skin, and in the air at the winery.
If there is one thing I’ve learned that I didn’t fully appreciate before being a guest winemaker, it’s that the building you make the wine in has a big influence on the wine. We talk a lot about how the soil and the climate affects grapes, but the actual winery is a major contributor to terroir, too. It builds over time, and Plēb had something really special going in that graffitied building on the river.
Tuesday, September 17 and Thursday, September 19
I met Chris, Cora, and Amy to press the wine into a tank on Tuesday, and I went back two days later to taste the wine. That Thursday, I brought some recently bottled Chambourcin from Addison Farms Vineyard, where I work, to share with them. I handed Cora and Amy their glasses while they were shins-deep foot treading six more bins of Jacquez. As they stomped, we talked about Selling Sunset—a show Amy got me into.
That was the last day I went to Plēb. I tasted my wine, and I felt hopeful. It tasted like black cherries and blackberries and black pepper and chocolate. There was more structure than expected thanks to its slow, whole-cluster fermentation. It was going somewhere.
Friday, September 27
My plan was to blend it with just a tiny amount of Carlos (a muscadine variety) to give a light, floral lift to the spicy, dark-fruited Jacquez. The wine’s working title was “Dab’ll Do” because a little dab is all you need with a powerful flavor like muscadine. I was supposed to go help press the Carlos on Monday, but the winery was underwater by Friday.
By all counts, I am incredibly lucky. My family is safe. My friends at Plēb are safe. And still I am so sad.
I’m sad for what this amazing group of people is going through and what North Carolina’s wine community has lost.
Tuesday, October 1
It took a couple days for the shock to wear off and the sadness to set in. I saw CNN’s video featuring Chris and Cora on Tuesday. It was the first time I’d seen just how completely the building had been consumed by the flood. I cried on the curb at the West Asheville Library, where I’d been walking a couple times a day for wifi.
I also heard from Cora. She very kindly said she was sorry I didn’t get to see my wine through, and she knew it would have been great. She also sent me pictures of the tank in a pile of debris.
By the way, Cora was working on a Traminette-dominant rosé blended with Chambourcin and Pinot Gris that was on its way to pure magic. It had just gone into tank before the storm.
Today
I’m not thinking about that wine anymore. I’m thinking about my friends. These folks who were so generous with their time, knowledge, resources, and space.
I’m thinking about Euda Winery in Old Fort, where I’d planned to go the weekend Helene hit. The Addison Farms team toasted to our first day of harvest season with Euda’s delightfully mineral Sauvignon Blanc, and I wanted another bottle. The winery took on serious damage, but I’ve heard clean up is in progress. I hope this means Michael and Abi can regroup and continue their thoughtful and transparent winemaking soon.
I’m also thinking about our entire community. Tourism, restaurants, and outdoor recreation make up an outsized part of our economy, and most businesses depend on the peak season that would otherwise be happening over the next two months to get through the slower parts of the year.
With restaurants closed, many of my friends and neighbors will be out of work and struggling for a long time. Many were having a hard time making ends meet before the storm. If you are in a position to help, here are some ways you can.
The future
Plēb’s greatest contribution to our community was their vision. Their wines truly opened my mind to what this place—Western North Carolina, the Southeast, my home—can do. I’ll never forget drinking their sparkling Marechal Foch (aptly named “Mind Opener”) on a camping trip. It was bright. It was brioche-y. It was beautiful.
They also showed me a path to how we can achieve this sense of place while having a positive impact on the environment and giving back to the community. As Jahdé Marley wrote on the GoFundMe she set up to support Plēb’s staff, Plēb was a “beacon for the hopeful future of wine on the East Coast.”
Elizabeth put it like this, “Their passion and energy is contagious, and, even more importantly, what they’ve done is challenged us, as an industry, to think differently—to ask ourselves how we can move forward into a sustainable and responsible wine industry. I think it’s vitally important, especially now, given this disastrous climate event. Moving forward, I feel we should all try to channel Plēb’s energy to do right by what they’ve worked so hard to build and help push us all forward in the right direction.”
Many people saw Plēb as a sort of avant garde producer playing with native and hybrid grapes, but Chris once told me that he never intended to be some boundary-pusher. His goal has always been to make the best wine he can make with the grapes that are best-suited to our region. He said that’s just what made sense to him.
Surely, as the French Broad’s waters recede, Plēb’s vision makes more sense to all of us.
Chris, Cora, Amy, Lauren, Brett, and the whole Plēb team have been champions and community builders for those of us who believe in this region and want to take care of it. The winery may be gone, but their impact lives on. I can’t wait to make wine with them again.
Really enjoyed reading this even as emotionally devastating it all is. Thanks for taking time and intentionality with it. ❤️
I’m Chris’s sister in law, and this is a beautiful tribute. Thank you for sharing. I’m so glad you and they are all safe, but I’m so sad for all the work you all lost, including your wine. I know this is only one chapter in all of y’all’s journeys, and I am excited to see the wine you make in the future ❤️