Business booming at secluded winery outside of Atlanta

Benny and Judy Moore began their idea for a vineyard with the planting of grapes in 2006, and the opening of the vinery for picking in 2008. Then, the vineyards offered wine for sale in 2011.

Each year, the grapes, customers and bottles of wine increased until today, Benny says frankly, “Business is booming. We will have a hard time keeping up this year.”

Asked the main reason, Moore didn’t pause.

“Well, our wine is good, that’s first. But most important is that we like and treat our customers so well, like family. That’s what we set out to do. We wanted our vineyard to be a place enjoyable to come to.”

And so when you walk up to the large barn which now houses a tasting room and an outdoor dining area, you will be met out front by one of the leaders, likely Judy or Benny Moore, Lisse or Lyle McBride, B.J. Moore or Kate.

A welcome will be called out, and should you like a tour of the facilities after you’ve been served, they will be happy to show you around. They’ll tell their story as if full of surprises.

In the community and region, O’Farrell Country Vineyards is sometimes not as well known or visited as, perhaps, it should be. It is a little bit out in the country northwest of Atlanta on highway FM 995.

Finding the vineyards today, of course, with GPS should be no problem. That’s the modern way. If you’d like the old way of country setting and friendly people, go out, find the colorful and elegant sign, turn in and get ready to think about grapes and wine.

And here’s a little history lesson to go along with your visit:

The historian Pliny The Elder is said to have written, “In vino veritas.” That’s Latin for, “in wine, truth.”

Another way of saying it might be, “With wine, a person is more truthful.”

That, too, may be another value of the outdoor country life being promoted by the vineyards.

Staff photos by Neil Abeles MYSTERY REVEALED ■ The outdoor serenity of a barn building with lights, trees and a wood fire burning in the yard during cool weather is part of the O’Farrell Country Vineyards experience. A tasting room is here and visitors can stroll among the muscadine grape vines. The sign along FM 995 accomplishes two tasks. It identifies the O’Farrell Country Vineyards and it gives life to the O’Farrell community, which now has one Baptist church, the graveyard and homes.

Staff photo by Neil Abeles ■ Lyle McBride, one of the owners of O’Farrell Country Vineyards, is ready to welcome guests to the vineyard’s tasting room open noon to 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. The vineyard’s tasting and dining area is made from the surroundings and the porch of an old barn. The muscadine grapes of O’Farrell Country Vineyards are in their dormant stage right now.