Thistle Meadow Winery Application Approved

Laurel Springs - Tom Burgiss recently announced that the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) has approved their application to commence winery operations in Laurel Springs, NC. The application was approved the last week of July 2002.

"We're calling our new winery 'Thistle Meadow Winery'", joked winery president Tom Burgiss, "because we seem to have a lot of wild thistle in these parts."

Making wine is nothing new to Burgiss, who is also the owner of grapestompers.com, a four-year-old winemaking supply store. Burgiss serves as the president of Thistle Meadow Winery, Inc. Bonnie Brown, a longtime employee of grapestompers.com, has been selected as the vice-president, while son Brant Burgiss was named as the secretary.

Production of red and white wines will begin as soon as all the federal and state paperwork is completed, and will take place in the mountaintop bodega of grapestompers.com just two miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Wine will be made from juice kits produced by RJ Spagnols (the Cellar Classic and Grand Cru product lines), ranging from Chablis and Cabernet Sauvignon to Shiraz and Zinfandel - and everything in between.

"We plan on producing about 2500 gallons the first year," stated Burgiss, "but of course the wine won't be ready for consumption for a while yet." While 2500 gallons sounds like a lot of wine, it's a drop in the proverbial bucket when compared to the production achieved by a typical winery in the Sonoma or Yadkin Valley. "We're going for quality, not quantity," Burgiss said.

Burgiss remarked that the process to start the winery officially began in January 2002, though he had been thinking about it for a long time before that.

"We've been turning people away for years," Burgiss noted, speaking of potential wine-buying customers. "They loved the wine, but we couldn't sell the finished product to them. All we could do was point to a wine kit and tell them they could make the same wine themselves at home."

What really tipped the scale, though, was when Burgiss noticed that he was selling grape juices to some wineries up North. "I figured if they could do it, why not us?" remarked Burgiss. "We already knew the wine tasted great."

Burgiss made it clear that in spite of the pending winery start up, the focus of his business will continue to be the selling and support of winemaking kits for the customers of grapestompers.com. "Our love of winemaking and the desire to share our hobby with others are the reason we got into this business," quipped Burgiss, "and we'll never forget them. Our customers are the greatest."

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