If you are in South Carolina, you should definitely visit the local muscadine vineyard. I’m referring to Williams Vineyard & Farm. Back in September, we went to Williams Vineyard & Farm in Nesmith, SC. It’s a Black family-owned muscadine vineyard. They are open from August to September. At the moment their season has ended. We went on their very last weekend (2nd weekend of September). I’m glad because it’s been on my travel list for a couple of years.
My Intro to Muscadines
When I think of muscadines I think of my childhood. We had a muscadine tree in our yard. Sometimes when I played with my cousins we’d go walking and sometimes we’d find them along the road and pick them off the trees. Also back then I only liked the grapes for the juice. Once I got the juice I spit the other part out. I absolutely didn’t like the slimy part. It reminded me of mucus. (I coughed up mucus a whole lot as a child. When with my peers I’d hold it in my mouth to avoid attention to myself.) To make matters worse, the skin of the muscadines makes my mouth itch! It’s been decades since I had muscadines, but after this trip, I eat them whole now.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned the term muscadine. As a child, we called the grapes bullet grapes. When I became grown I saw the big round, sphere-shaped, thick skin grapes whether greenish-brown or dark purple labeled bullis grapes in the local Piggly Wiggly (grocery store). The whole time I thought I was saying it incorrectly, but the two names are actually synonymous.
The Muscadine Vineyard Journey
On a Saturday afternoon riding along the country roads, my husband and I took an hour-long ride outside of Charleston passing through small towns to Nesmith. The weather was warm and partly cloudy. We ran into a little bit of rain on the route. Instantly I prayed for the rain to not show up at the vineyard. I didn’t want the purpose of our trip to be ruined. It did rain at the vineyard by the way. Just 3 separate rounds of drizzling rain. We were still able to pick our grapes though! Oh, and the mosquitos nibbled on my thighs too!
Kendra, who works at the farm scooped us up and dropped us off towards the back of the 5-acre vineyard so we could start picking. Thanks to her method of locating the grapes we were able to get our basket filled in about 30 minutes. According to Kendra, normally at the beginning of the season, we could’ve had a full basket in 5 minutes. One more thing, if you don’t want to pick the grapes yourself you don’t have to because they have some already picked.
On a non-Covid-19 and non-rainy day we could have gotten a tour of the whole vineyard. Hopefully, we can return next summer and the pandemic will be over. Shortly thereafter we left and went to Scott’s BBQ down the road in Hemingway. Another Black-owned business! They’ve been featured on Travel Channel.
If you like being outdoors you’ll enjoy Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston, SC too.