A throng of wine lovers, 40 strong, descended on Clayton Tuesday evening in support of a local tasting room whose future is in grave jeopardy.
Highroads Tasting Room on North Main Street is in a do-or-die battle over a city regulation that may extinguish the thriving venue after a busy 15 months in business. The business’s enthusiastic customers came out to support managers Lynda Ann and Matt Price with their presence, pride, and purchases Tuesday night, rallying to their friends’ and neighbors’ cause, and promising to come out on July 8, when City Council may consider the venue’s fate at its regular meeting.
‘We won’t survive’
Highroads’ regular beverage menu includes beer, mead, cider, and mocktails, but its principal selling point—and most important moneymaker—is the many varieties of wine it pours by the glass for customers in the room. These are often accompanied by good conversation, camaraderie, and a limited menu of snacks. Most glasses sell for $12 a pour.
Beer, wine, and the rest are for sale by the bottle and can be found on the shelves throughout the store, but the main draw, the Prices and their customers both say, is the wide variety of wine from across the state, the country, and the world that one can sample and compare with the assistance of the Prices and their staff.
One recent morning earlier this month, the Prices heard the bad news from the owner of the tasting room, Jabe Hilson of nearby Slanted Window Vineyards; the city had just emailed him that it will now enforce a regulation that has been on the books for years. It says a farm winery tasting room in the city may sell just about any beverage by the bottle, but wines poured in the establishment must all hail from Georgia. Highroads is Clayton’s only such establishment.
Hilson declined to be interviewed.
The Prices say their patrons are amenable to drinking Georgia wines, but demand access to ones from California, France, Italy, Australia, and the rest of the world. “We won’t survive even a couple of months with that rule,” Lynda Ann Price said. “This will shut us down,” her husband, a former pastor, agreed. “Just serving Georgia wines can’t sustain us.”
State law vs local rule
The Clayton ordinance defines a “Farm Winery Tasting Room” as: “a location to sample or taste wines manufactured and produced in the State of Georgia and licensed by the Agriculture Commissioner to manufacture wine. The tasting room is an outlet for the promotion of those wines by providing samples of such wines to the public….”
But ever since their licensure—and even before that, under different management before the pandemic—the Prices say they had reason to believe that they were complying with the laws when selling widely-sourced wine. They say city officials were aware of what they were doing—selling in accordance with the Georgia state law, rather than the Clayton rule. Georgia generally has no such restriction on selling out-of-state wines in such a setting.
The Prices want the City of Clayton to conform to the laxer Georgia rules, or at least to suspend the stricter interpretation while they consider their alternatives.
Strong customer support
The customers at the event Tuesday, which they called a “wine-in,” agreed unanimously with the Prices.
“I think the city needs to go away,” said Sally Arnold dismissively. “There are so many activities and events here; it’s a community gathering place.”
Suzie Nixon Flaherty leads a Christian choir called “Voices of Truth” that gathers monthly at Highroads. She called the move by Clayton’s council “an attack.” She added, “What [the Prices] have created here is a place that feels welcome; this is where we worship.”
The monthly event for the church singers is called “Beer and Hymns,” one of many special events that the venue hosts and sponsors, including a regular one for professional women to network; another for entrepreneurs to hone their skills at pitching backers for money, and a third for spoken-word artists to meet, exchange ideas, and read from their work.
The managers donate some of their special event proceeds to local charities, they said.
‘Best neighbors I ever had’
Paula Wexler said one thing she particularly likes about Highroads is the opportunity to compare and contrast wines from across the globe.
“I like the blend of wines,” she said, “French, Italian, and Georgian.”
An attorney and frequent visitor to Highroads who declined to be named argued that the Clayton “ban” was downright illogical.
“You have a demonstrable benefit here,” he said. “They pay taxes, they offer a unique gathering place. And what’s the injury they do? There isn’t any injury at all connected to this place; they (the Council) aren’t protecting anybody.”
Trey McFalls, who owns Shady Creek Expeditions, running fishing trips and other adventures out of Clayton, operates right next door to the tasting room. He called the Prices “the best neighbors I ever had. Their business is good for ours, and vice versa. We send customers back and forth.”
McFalls said he was fine with drinking Georgia wines, but added, “I like a good European cabernet sauvignon, too.”
Suzanne Alprin of nearby Seed Lake chimed in: “This is like a Paris salon,” said Suzanne Arpin of nearby Seed Lake. “It would truly be a tragedy if they close this place.”
City manager: There is ‘no story’
Clayton City Manager Trudy Crunkleton did not respond to an initial phone call or email seeking comment, but responded to a second email. She wrote, “There really is no story. The information you received is not accurate. The ordinance governing the tasting room has been in place for some time and was amended in 2019. Retail package sales are not restricted at all. Craft beer on draft is allowed to be ‘sampled’ with restrictions on amounts. Georgia wines are allowed to be ‘sampled’ with restrictions on amounts. Nothing has changed since they obtained their license.”
Bill Stueck, a retired University of Georgia history professor, with scholarly expertise in an entirely different conflict—the international Cold War of the 1940s-1980—decried the city’s stance on the regulations at length, discussing his own love of wine, and describing the experience he and his wife enjoy at Highroads as utterly unique and valuable.
Told of Crunkleton’s email, he responded, “the tasting room has been operating the whole time serving these wines. Did she consult the City Council about this? Hers is not a policy-making position.”
Council’s ‘no comment’
On Wednesday, the day after the “wine-in,” Now Habersham attempted to reach every member of City Council.
Council member Sarah Gillespie said, “I don’t care to comment about that.”
Amanda Harrold said, “I have no comment.”
Althea Bleckley said, “I’d rather not comment right now,” explaining she is out of town on a personal matter. However, Bleckley added, “I have been keeping up with it (the tasting room controversy).”
Clayton Mayor Pro Tem Stacy Fountain, Council member Tony Allen, and former Mayor Kurt Cannon, who resigned his post earlier this month, did not return messages Wednesday. City Attorney Mitchell L. Baker Jr.’s assistant took a message, which he did not return.
Mayor Pro Tem stakes position on social media
Fountain has been vocal about his position on social media. Stueck began a conversation on June 19 on the Rabun County Bulletin Board Facebook page, asking, “What in heaven’s name is going on with Highroads Tasting Room???!!! Is the [sic] really what the city council folks want? To shut them down?…”
In response, Fountain said, “Same ordinances that the city has had since 2019. The same ordinances that the business got a license for. The same ordinances that they decided to break. The city is trying to up hold [sic] those ordinances.”
Asked if there is a way to “change it?” Fountain replied, “have to follow the current rules. Everyone else in town is. If you want change you have to ask. Nothing has been changed since 2019.”
If the city council agrees to loosen the local regulations and conform to the less stringent state standards for wine-tasting rooms, there remains a chance for change. Still, it does not answer the question as to “why now?” Why, after all this time, is Clayton just now coming after Highroads for ‘breaking’ the ordinance?
Fountain responded on social media, “We just realized that they were not in compliance.”
‘Cheers’ vibe
At the event Tuesday, Savannah Clayton, 24, Lynda Ann’s niece and employee, was stationed behind the bar at Highroads the full night, and served customers, dispensing warm smiles and plentiful advice about which brew or label might blend best with whatever dinner they had in mind. She served another, and another, and said she hoped she’d still be there in July, August, and beyond.
If the Prices and their loyal customers have their way, her wish may yet come true.
Said Matt Price, referring to the theme song of a beloved television show set in a bar, “This really is a place where everybody knows your name.”
