History

The History of Waldensian Heritage Wines

Waldensian Heritage Wines was a dream of second and third generation descendants of the Waldensian settlers who arrived in Valdese, North Carolina located in The "Land of Burke County in Western North Carolina." From the various wine cellars of the initial inhabitants of Valdese came five Waldensian descendants determined to maintain the heritage of wine making as a family tradition. This progressed into a needed business of Valdese, reflecting their own individual preferences for good wines at reasonable cost. The tradition of Waldensian wine making began centuries ago in the Cottian Alps, west of Torino, Italy and the Western Piedmont of Italy. This was comparable to Valdese, North Carolina, the Western Piedmont of North Carolina. The wine-making skills of these Waldensian people are now preserved by Waldensian Heritage Wines and reflect a combined 250 years experience in the making of wine.

The winery, constructed in 1930 of local field rock and timbers, is a 4,000 square foot building exemplifying life in the 1930s and a look at the manual operation of producing quality wines by using old world technologies, coupled with some modern equipment and innovations that produce wines that have a true taste of the grape. Much of the wine operation is a manual process continuing year round from crushing the grapes, fermenting, filtering, blending, bottling and labeling. No wine is bottled from bulk storage until there is a need or sold until it has at least one year of aging.