For Marked Tree Vineyard in Flat Rock—a 65-acre vineyard and winery, and a stunning slice of heaven located 2300 feet above the surrounding landscape—the name represents a personal journey for owners Tim Parks and Lance Hiatt (which we’ll get into later). But it also pays homage to a practice used by indigenous people, who would bend young saplings to the ground with leather straps, resulting in mature and oddly shaped trees whose trunks grew parallel to the earth. Known as “marked trees,” they would signal the location of hunting grounds, fresh water or other noteworthy landmarks. 

“This is what you’ll see on our logo,” says Parks, holding up a wine glass with the winery’s signature bent tree etched on the side. “It’s meaningful for us because of the path we personally took to start this.” 

Marked Tree Vineyard is a relative newcomer to the small community of wineries in Western North Carolina, opening its doors in 2020, but it has enjoyed a rise in popularity powered by the quality of its wines.  

Marked Tree took home seven medals at the 2023 NC Wine Competition and nearly a dozen awards at the 2024 NC Fine Wines Competition, including a gold for its 2021 Lemberger. Meanwhile, two of its other wines—the 2022 Chardonel and 2021 Reserve Petit Verdot—recently scored 90 points by wine reviewer James Suckling, which is a ranking of “outstanding.” 

When we visited Marked Tree recently for a guided tasting, we reveled in mountain breezes and the warmth of late afternoon sunlight. A 300-year-old white oak nicknamed “Otto” welcomed us and other visitors with a wide umbrella of branches spreading over a gravel path to the winery.  

Perched along a hilltop of the Eastern Continental Divide, with rolling hills and rows of grapes, the winery has become a top destination for visitors and locals alike. It’s located just a few minutes off Interstate 26, a main artery through Western North Carolina, and yet the vibe quickly changes in that time. Four lanes turn into two, and two then turn into one, and restaurants and retail shops are replaced by rows and rows of apple trees and grapevines.

On the day of our visit, we saw couples holding hands and lounging in west-facing Adirondack chairs, awaiting a sunset still an hour or two away, while large families sat and laughed around big round tables on a patio lined with hydrangeas. Inside the tasting room—a beautiful space designed by Hiatt, an architect by trade—were several groups of friends, a gathering of what appeared to be a book club, and at least one mellow bachelorette party hitting the hot spots of Henderson County. 

“We want people to love their time here,” Parks says. “We don’t really have a bar vibe—it’s a tasting room—and so we think people can settle in here.” 

Marked Tree is part of a wine-producing region in Western North Carolina known as the Crest of the Blue Ridge Henderson County— one of six regions in the state formally designated by the federal government as an “American Viticulture Area” (AVA). 

With eight varietals of grapes—selected for their ability to thrive in the region’s loam soil and cool mountain climate—Marked Tree offers about 20 different wines and typically produces about 3,300 cases per year. The wines are seasonal and often sell out, although die-hard fans know the winery’s second tasting room in downtown Asheville usually has a few spare bottles of the favorites. It’s worth a visit to both locations to experience both the mountain vistas at the vineyard and the intimate yet urban setting of downtown Asheville. 

During our visit, we enjoyed a 45-minute tasting of several top sellers, a signature offering that visitors can reserve in advance at their current tasting room aptly named Watershed, an ode to their location on the Eastern Continental Divide. Looking for something more unique, their new facility named Skyward, the lead branch on a marked tree, opens in May offering wine maker and barrel room tastings, tours, events and curated experiences.  

“Our team is trained on storytelling,” Parks says, noting that the tastings include interesting tidbits about the grapes and winemaking process. But don’t expect the guides to tell you what you should smell, taste or—above all else—like. “We want people to experience this for themselves,” Parks says. “There are no right or wrong answers.” 

We started our tasting with a sophisticated sparkling Vidal Blanc known as Bubble Swarm—the scientific name for bubbles movingup through liquid—which is typically offered from November to February for stylish toasting during the holidays. We followed that with a Reserve Vidal Blanc, which had beautiful notes of citrus and hints of what one wine expert described as the essence of “spring rain.” 

We finished with the Grüner Veltliner, a popular wine that’s slightly green in color. “We have a love-hate relationship with this grape,” admitted Bonnie Hiatt with a laugh, one of the Marked Tree’s guides as she pours. “The grapes are just so tightly clumped together on the vine, making it more challenging to harvest, but the wine is worth the effort.” 

For folks who are looking to snack, Marked Tree offers a well-curated menu of local offerings, including a beautiful smoked trout from Sunburst Trout Farms in nearby Waynesville and a cheese board featuring a trio of artisan cheeses with the option of local pickles from DJ’s Pickles in Lenoir, NC or charcuterie. For those looking for a bit of indulgence, there’s caviar from Marshallberg Farm in Lenoir and truffles from Van’s Chocolates of Hendersonville. 

As mentioned, the name Marked Tree holds a special significance for Parks and Hiatt, who, in the mid-aughts, were living in Atlanta and working, respectively, as an architect and a retail executive with an intense travel schedule. Looking for a slower pace, they started to sketch plans for a new chapter in life and decided a winery would blend their love of good wines and good food with beautiful spaces. 

Not ones to act impulsively, they spent eight years learning the craft of winemaking—attending multiple conferences and completing viticulture programs. They thenspent another few years looking for the right patch of earth on which to grow their vineyard and eventually build their winery, looking for signs—or marked trees, in other words—for where to set down roots. 

“As soon as we turned the corner onto this property, we knew we were home,” Parks says. “We moved here in 2015, planted vines in 2016, opened our doors four years later and now here we are.”