Brushy Mountain Winery in Historic Downtown Elkin, NC. Wine grown from grapes of the Yadkin Valley wine region of North Carolina

The idea came to Matthew Mayberry one afternoon in January 2005. “I was in my car late afternoon, driving home, and I had kind of an epiphany. This concept came in. Shazam! — there it was. It just kind of exploded in my mind. People think I’m crazy, but I saw every aspect of this winery in a matter of seconds. It came in totally unexpected and totally complete.”

Matthew’s vision included the building in historic downtown Elkin, N.C. that his wife, Ann, and her brother and sister own — which onced housed an old family business, the Elkin Canning Company, in the early 1900s. and later was the original home of Harris Electric Company in 1927.

Matthew was familiar with the viticulture industry. He had set up his own real estate brokerage to develop vineyard properties. Despite this fact, however, it took some convincing with his wife and family to invest in the project. Ann remembers her first reaction to the idea. She says, “I thought he was out of his mind.” Matthew, however, with the clarity of his vision, set out to convince her, their sons, and his mother. He took them around to area vineyards, had them talk to people in the industry, and arranged for them to meet with area officials. By the end of the tour, according to Ann, “everyone was on board.” They decided on the name Brushy Mountain Winery after much debate.

Although it has taken a great deal of work, Matthew says, “I’m more excited about this than anything that’s happened in the last 20 years of my life, since exploring for gold in central Borneo.”