Charlotte airport wine bar.

On my various trips to Florida over the past few months, I’ve connected a couple of times in the Charlotte airport. While waiting for my connection (or, usually, for its replacement), I’ve had plenty of time to wait.

At some point I looked at the airport diagram, and discovered that Carolina Beer was listed, with a pub “under construction.” Well, no telling how old the listing was, so maybe by now they have finished construction and had opened it. If so, I was going to have an Endo Pale Ale or two before my next flight. Purely for medicinal purposes, you understand.

The pub was located a fair distance away: a long walk up the terminal arm I was in, across the main hub of the airport, and all the way out a different terminal arm. (Nothing wrong with a long walk. I had plenty of time before my connection.) Alas, when I got there, I discovered that the pub was, in fact, still under construction. (Well, as “under construction” as it could be, given that there were no workers to be seen anywhere around it. In any event, it was both unfinished and not open, sufficient to dash my hopes.)

Heading back to the terminal where my flight was getting more and more delayed, I spotted this wine bar. Well, okay: a glass or two of medicinal New Zealand sauvignon blanc or Oregon pinot noir would probably hit the spot.

As I walk into the bar, though, I realize I’m not going to get either one of those: this wine bar has only wines from the Yadkin Valley viticultural region of North Carolina.

Fine. I’m willing to try some North Carolina wines. You could do a tasting – six wines for, I don’t recall, four bucks. And they had around 25 wines to choose from: Ten to twelve each of reds and whites, a couple of dessert wines, and a “port.” I decided to pass on the reds and dessert wines, and just tried some whites. Three each of viognier and riesling, as I recall. The viogniers were forgettable: not bad, but there was also nothing to recommend them. The rieslings were, respectively, horrid, almost passable, and reasonably decent. I was delighted to find the last one, and had a glass of it. Enjoyed it enough that I lost track of time and got back to the boarding area while they were midway through the boarding process.

Interesting enough marketing gimmick: the bar showcases the wines of a viticultural area in North Carolina, to a fairly captive audience (people waiting for their planes) who – if they get to try something they like – will tell people back home about the wines, thereby setting the stage to build future demand.

And interesting enough that it would be a neat idea for someone to do for Virginia wines at a Virginia airport. Probably only Dulles or National airports would have enough traffic to justify such a specific wine bar, and neither one is as much of a regional hub as Charlotte is, which gives people the time to spend in a wine bar. Still, I think Dulles has enough flights connecting through it to give such a wine bar a decent amount of patrons with time on their hands.