Let It Pour: Pumpkin spice wine? Yes, really.

Before I tell you what my new favorite fall drink is, let me be clear: I hated pumpkin spice before hating pumpkin spice was cool.

As a child, I was both puzzled and saddened by pumpkin pie, that staple of the Thanksgiving buffet made palatable to children only through the liberal application of non-dairy whipped topping. Why we wasted a good pie crust giving refuge to what was clearly a pureed vegetable never made sense to me.

It follows that I’ve never been a big fan of the pumpkin spice latte. Having a coffee that tastes like your pie ingredients fell into it doesn’t make it autumn in North Carolina any more than wearing sweaters and boots on the first day of September does. Both seem to me like quick ways to work up an unnecessary sweat.

Now everything from milkshakes to doughnuts to Frosted Mini Wheats to cookie butter to salmon (look it up, it’s on Twitter so it must be true) come in pumpkin spice flavor starting on Labor Day and running through Black Friday. The pumpkin-spicing of America has reached a crescendo, and with it comes the inevitable backlash, of which I approve.

And yet, this blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves does have a valuable role to play. I keep a box of it in the cupboard primarily to use in picadillo, the savory Cuban dish made with ground beef, onions, almonds, green olives and rice. But the other night when I brought home a bottle of muscadine wine, the urge hit me to add pumpkin spice to it and see how that worked.

Being a confirmed pumpkin spice hater, I was a little embarrassed by how much I liked this concoction. Muscadine wine is generally too sweet and heavy for me to enjoy it much on its own, but the cinnamon-nutmeg-clove combination melds with the natural sugars of the grape in such a way that made both the spices and the wine seem as light at the dry leaves covering my back lawn. I had to name it the Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater because it taught me a lesson.

I was inspired to bring home the native grape after seeing the results of the N.C. State Fair wine competition. Nearby Adams Vineyards in Willow Spring nabbed the N.C. Muscadine Cup with a wine called Ellis. Of course, since Adams is a small vineyard, I couldn’t just head out to the grocery store and grab a bottle to try. If only the State Fair allowed folks to sample wines on the fairgrounds, I thought, which led me to another topic I needed a lesson in.

Apparently, wine and beer sampling has been going on at the fair the past couple of years – a change that I surely should have noted before now. It’s a testament to how much there is to the do at the fair that I never managed to find my way to the wine and beer tent during my visits over the past three years.

The sampling takes place at the Got Be NC Wine and Craft Beer exhibit in the Hunt Horse Arena outside Gate 8. Twelve rotating wineries and breweries will be pouring samples, and Adams Vineyards is among them. Other North Carolina wineries pouring are: Chatham Hill Winery, Country Squire Winery, Duplin Winery, Hinnant Family Vineyards, Rock of Ages Winery and Round Peak Vineyard. The exhibit is open from 2 until 8 p.m.

This is not the sort of tasting tent where you can buy a full glass to drink on premises. You can get a taste and then buy a bottle, which you have to take immediately off premises or pick up when you leave the fair. Find all the crucial details here: nando.com/statefairwine

Still, being able to taste some of North Carolina’s fermented bounty is better than having to just stare at the winning bottles from afar. Maybe one day we’ll be able to raise full glasses of the state’s best wines in their honor. But this is a good start.

This story was originally published October 17, 2015 at 12:59 PM with the headline "Let It Pour: Pumpkin spice wine? Yes, really.."