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Blueberry Pallet: From Farm to Fine Wine

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Erin Johnson photography

Blueberries are a Smoky Mountain treat. Bursting with flavor, their yearly arrival sets off excitement as locals and tourist rush to pick them, or to buy a carton or two at area farmers markets.

Alas, the picking season doesn’t last long—just June to perhaps early August. But blueberry wines are available year-round at many East Tennessee wineries. Some of these wines are sweet, others dry or semi-sweet, but they all have that distinctive blueberry flavor.

In Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Tennessee Homemade Wines is selling Blueberry Bammer. At 12 percent alcohol, it’s a favorite with visitors, said owner Aaron Maples. 

“We can hardly make enough to sell to our visitors,” he says. “This is an anytime wine. It’s not only for after-dinner, but after work. It’s 100 percent pure fruit, no additives at all.” 

Blueberry Bammer starts with freshly-picked “rabbit eye” blueberries that come from Knoxville and “a couple of places in the area.” When picking season is done, he freezes berries to continues wine production through the year.

You will only find Blueberry Bammer on the shelf in one place—at Tennessee Homemade Wines—but Maples does offer online sales and shipping to 22 states. 

“We tell people that these are Tennessee homemade wines,” he says. “It’s a family tradition. My family has been doing this much longer than I’ve been alive.”

The winery, at 643 Parkway in Gatlinburg, is big on repurposing. The building itself is “a mix of barns that we tore down and rebuilt,” Maples says. And the tasting room was constructed using beams from old mountain cabins. 

“People like that atmosphere,” he says.

Elsewhere in east Tennessee, other wineries are also turning out blueberry wine.

In Charleston, Tennessee, Morris Vineyard and Tennessee Mountainview Winery make three varities of blueberry wines (sweet, semi-sweet and dry). The winery grows its own berries on site and also utilizes rabbit eye berries, says owner Carolyn Morris.

The vineyard was established in 1965 and has been in the Morris family since 1979. In the early days, “we had so much fruit that it was going to waste,” Morris says. And so visitors were invited to come over and pick their own berries. 

The winery operation began in 1986. Growing season lasts about four weeks, starting in June. The staff at Mountainview usually start making the wine as they are picking the fruit.

“We crush the berries and let them stay in the tub for a few days. And then we press them and ferment. We do a couple of weeks of fermenting and then we rack (the wine),” she says.

The entire process can take nine months to a year to complete. The work “is a little more labor than grapes,” Morris says.

Today, you can still pick your own raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and muscadines. Or, visit the tasting room for samples and to purchase bottles. 

“We have 15 varities of wines that we do,” Morris says.

Charleston, Tennessee, in Bradley County, is between Knoxville and Chattanooga and off the beaten track, but it sees visitors from everywhere. 

“The view alone is worth coming out for,” she says. 

Blueberry bushes grow alongside the vineyards at The Winery at Seven Springs Farm in Maynardville, Tennessee. The perfect blueberry wine is not too sweet and not too tart, but should taste like “sipping ripe blueberries,” says Nikki Riddle of Seven Springs, a family-owned destination farm.

“Blueberry wines tend to be very light and delicate in color, flavor and taste,” says Riddle, who adds a touch of blackberries to add depth, complexity and deepen the color.

The vineyard’s signature Royal Blue makes great dessert wine, especially to pair with chocolate or cheesecake. Or get creative and experiment. “We use it instead of water in brownie or cake mixes and many of our customers drizzle it over ice cream or use it to make their own homemade ice cream,” Riddle says.

Blueberry Wines of East Tennessee

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