Childress brings wine to NASCAR with N.C.-based vineyard
Comments(2) CHARDONNAYS AND CHEVROLETSChildress brings wine to NASCAR with N.C.-based vineyard
By DAVID NEWTON
Senior Writer
LEXINGTON, N.C. — Richard Childress leans back in his chair and looks out the office window at his empire.
But he is not looking at his Nextel Cup shop for Kevin Harvick, who drives the No. 29 car. Or the No. 30 shop of Jeff Burton. Or the No. 07 shop of Dave Blaney.
He is looking at grapes.
Acre after acre of grapes.
Childress doesn’t have to go to Sonoma, Calif., where NASCAR’s top series races this weekend, to visit some of the top vineyards in the country.
He walks out of his back door into the 65-acre farm that looks like a picture from the California countryside, with a 35,000-square-foot stone and stucco winery as the centerpiece.
It’s hardly the scene one would imagine on these rolling hills of red clay where stock-car racing was born of moonshiners and good ol’ boys.
“Hopefully, we can convert some of the good ol’ boys that like their beer into trying wine,” Childress said.
NASCAR and wine seem to go together like George Strait and the Metropolitan Opera House. But here in this sparsely populated corner of Davidson County, a few miles from the race shop where Childress won six Cup championships with the late Dale Earnhardt, chardonnays and Chevrolets are blended into one.