ROSE HILL — This year marks a milestone for fourth-generation, family-owned Duplin Winery, which will host its 50th Anniversary Grape Stomp, celebrating a half-century of turning America’s native muscadine grapes into wine.
Since its founding in 1976, winery owners have invited people to experience making wine the old-fashioned way, by stomping grapes with their bare feet and celebrating the harvest during its annual fall event.
On Sept. 12, Duplin Winery’s Rose Hill vineyards will be the site of a full day of harvest-season activities. Guests can pick grapes, sample new wines and compete in the winery’s signature grape-stomping competition to see who can extract the most juice from fresh grapes. Live music will also be featured.
The event will also serve as the debut of Duplin Winery’s Christmas wine collection, including a special anniversary-edition holiday blush. Attendees will be among the first to taste and purchase the season’s newest releases.
The Grape Stomp started when Duplin co-founder Dave Fussell Sr. needed help crushing grapes for the then-small operation’s first batch of muscadine wine. He invited the local community to help stomp the grapes, and hundreds of people showed up to support the winery.It went on to become an annual festival as Duplin continued to grow its operations.
“My father and uncle started this with nothing but a few tanks and a whole lot of faith,” Duplin co-owner Dave Fussell Jr. said. “To see Duplin become a place where families make their own memories 50 years later is the greatest honor of our lives.”
Grape Stomp is part of Duplin’s year-long anniversary celebration, which includes special vineyard tours and tastings as well as the 50th Anniversary Wine Series. The limited-edition collection features five unique labels, each depicting a chapter of the winery’s evolution, from its founding in 1976 to present-day operations.
Grape Stomp tickets include a bottle of wine, a special gift and the chance to stomp grapes. Guests who do not want to participate in the grape-stomping competition may also attend.
Founded in 1976 in Rose Hill, Duplin Winery is a fourth-generation, family-owned and operated business that crafts wines from muscadine grapes. The company has a nearly 3-million-gallon tank capacity and sources grapes from its own North Carolina vineyards and more than 50 farming families in the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi.
Duplin has locations in Rose Hill, which opened in 1976; North Myrtle Beach, S.C., which opened in 2015; and Panama City Beach, Fla., which opened in 2023. Duplin wines are sold at its locations, online and at retailers across 17 states in the South, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
Additional information about the Grape Stomp and tickets is available on Duplin Winery’s website www.duplinwinery.com.