“I didn’t even know what [a palate] was 20 years ago, ” team owner Richard Childress said with a laugh. “I used to load a bunch of used parts on a pallet. “
Childress is a big part of NASCAR’s move from beer and hot dogs to a wine-and-cheese crowd. He opened the Childress Vineyard in the fall of 2004 in the Yadkin Valley less than 15 minutes from his Welcome, N.C., race shop.
A year later, four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon got into the wine business by introducing a 2004 Carneros Chardonnay featuring his name and Gordon Collection logo on the bottle.
Soon after that, according to a Nielsen Co. survey, wine consumption among the average NASCAR fan jumped 22 percent—from spending $66.80 in 2005 to $81.40 in 2006.
So has the sport born of bootleggers turned sophisticated?
“It kind of outgrew the Southern fan base, ” said NASCAR West series owner Randy Lynch, who started Bennett Lane Winery a year before Childress got into the business. “The clearest demographic information on the San Francisco market that NASCAR puts out says the No. 1 identifying factor is the NASCAR fan in the Bay Area is affluent.
Gordon, who grew up in nearby Vallejo, Calif., often envisioned becoming a vintner as his family drove through the Napa Valley and Sonoma County to water-ski at Lake Berryessa and race midgets in Calistoga.
“I remember seeing the vineyards and thinking, ‘This is so beautiful, ’” he said.
Beauty turned into reality after Gordon tasted a bottle of Batard-Montrachet while traveling in London. Soon he began talking about the oakiness of wines like he would the setup of his No. 24 car.
Childress began drinking wine in the 1970s during trips to California to race. He finally turned 65 acres off Highway 64 into a vineyard and built a winery that looks as though it belongs in Italy with its beautiful stone masonry.
This past year, his tasting room was ranked among the top 25 in America.
The future for wine certainly looks bright in NASCAR. Fans are trading their beer koozies for wine coasters, opening up an area of marketing that is virtually untapped in NASCAR.
For $50 you can have the Gordon Collection Merlot. For $255 you can get the gift set that includes a bottle of his Carneros Chardonnay in an autographed, hinged wooden case with the Gordon Collection logo and two Riedel Extreme Chardonnay stems with the logo.
For $5.99 you can have a Gordon helmet wine bottle stopper. Or for $6.99 you can get Gordon’s wine glass charms, featuring the No. 24 car or a checkered flag.
“There are NASCAR fans out there that drink wine, ” Gordon said. “The thing is, we’re not so thinking of promoting our wine with racing. I want it in fine restaurants. I want it to be something completely nonassociated with racing. “
But there is the potential for a pretty good rivalry. Gordon fans can tout their driver makes a better wine than Childress, and vice versa.
