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By Kristin Collins
Staff Writer
Raleigh News & Observer
LEXINGTON -- The sprawling Tuscan-style winery pops up beside U.S. 52 like a hallucination, its stone pillars and ornate wrought-iron balconies rising amid fast-food restaurants and bar- becue joints.
It is a vision that only Richard Childress could make real.
Childress is a North Carolina native who has made millions running NASCAR teams. And many say he is the only person with the nerve, and the money, to build a multimillion-dollar winery in Davidson County, where the factory-based economy is sagging and the law forbids alcohol sales outside the county seat.
The 90-acre Childress Vineyards, which had its grand opening last week, is now the largest winery in the state.
Childress is counting on the millions of race fans --- who know him as the man who owned the cars that Dale Earnhardt raced --- to make this new venture a success that will revive the economy of the rural county where he has made his home.
His house wines, the cheapest bottles he sells, come with checkered flags on the labels.
"I'm not bragging, but I'm nationally known," Childress says. "All the true race fans know who I am. We should get a following."
For Childress, this winery is one of many business ventures. In addition to running a racing business with 300 employees in the tiny Davidson County town of Welcome, he owns a cattle ranch and develops real estate.
But this expanse of grapevines and faux Italian Renaissance architecture is the most tangible evidence yet of his transformation from dirt-poor high school dropout to wine-sipping mogul. He won't say how much the winery cost, but he told the Greensboro News & Record in 2003 that it could run as much as $10 million.
Racing to success
Childress, 59, grew up in Winston-Salem. Before his father died when Childress was 5 years old, he made a living by selling homemade furniture polish door to door. The polish was packaged in empty embalming bottles that funeral homes gave away.
By the time Childress was 16, he had quit school and was working two jobs, one in a hosiery mill and one in a grocery store, to help support his seven siblings.
On the weekends, he sold peanuts and popcorn at auto races at Winston-Salem's Bowman Gray Stadium. It was there that he got his first taste of the thrill of racing. He says he bought his first racecar at 17, for $20.
He raced cars for more than a decade and, at the same time, built the racing business that would make him a millionaire. In 1984, he signed a contract with Dale Earnhardt. The famed Kannapolis racer worked with Childress until he died during the Daytona 500 in 2001.
The business that started in a garage is now a complex that includes a fleet of airplanes, a gigantic building for researching and developing new race cars and a NASCAR museum. He owns five NASCAR teams.
Childress says he started drinking wine in the mid-1970s, when races took him to California. It was, at that time, a way to get a free drink.
As the years passed, he became a connoisseur with a collection of more than 3,000 bottles. Where many would see a hobby, Childress saw an opportunity to expand his empire.
'He's always planning'
He said he first considered buying a winery in California or New York. But eventually, he decided he wanted to build one in his home county.
A few years ago, he planted 30 acres of grapes on his estate near Clemmons and started laying plans for a winery at the intersection of U.S. 52 and U.S. 64, just outside Lexington. The town annexed the property, which allowed him to sell wine there.
He recruited a nationally known winemaker and a grape-growing expert to run the business.
Mark Friszolowski was a winemaker in New York when Childress called him. Friszolowski told Childress that he wouldn't advise building such an ambitious winery in North Carolina --- and especially not in a dry county.
"He kept saying, 'Yes, but can we do it?' " says Friszolowski, now the Childress winemaker. "He's got a passion for life. I mean, the guy's wheels are always turning. He's never daydreaming. He's always planning."
Childress says he built his winery in Davidson County because he wants to help the state's fledgling wine industry, seen as a hope for farmers looking for alternatives to tobacco. He said Childress Vineyards can help spread the word that there's more to North Carolina wines than the syrupy muscadine kind.
His winery uses only French grapes such as chardonnay, merlot, syrah and cabernet.
The county economic developer, Steve Googe, calls Childress Vineyards, which employs 30, the most important development in a decade for a county that is trying to rebuild its economy on tourism and shopping. Childress promises that a hotel, restaurant and upscale shopping complex will soon be built on an adjoining property.
The state Board of Transportation saw so much promise in the project that it footed the $400,000 bill to add a turn lane at the winery's entrance.
Other winemakers are quick to say that Childress can only help the state's wine industry. But they can't help noticing that, while they have scraped for years to build wineries, a team of architects and designers created Childress Vineyards in a few months.
"If you have unlimited money, you can snap your fingers and have everything done," said Gray Draughn, president of Old North State Winegrowers Cooperative, a group of 38 small family farms. "I think there should be more attention on the farmers down here in the trenches who have put their life savings on the line."
Childress says he expected a little resentment, but he brushes it off. For him, this winery is the fruit of a lifetime of work. It is a place to spend his retirement, a legacy to pass on to his daughter and two grandsons.
"It's something to have fun," he says. "Hell, I like to have fun."
But he doesn't have all day to defend his motivations. It is the night before his grand opening, and he must get ready for a wild game dinner with famed artist Bob Timberlake in the wine cave, an underground room where wine ages in oak barrels and wrought iron chandeliers flicker overhead. His staff is busy setting the table and preparing the meal.
All this for a country boy who just wanted to race cars. |
