The Hoetinks overcame adversity to realize their dream
Charles and Cathy Hoetink were driving home from church when a neighbor called.
“He sent me a picture and says, ‘You might want to come to your property — part of your roof blew off,’” said Charles.
Ascending the last small hill onto their vineyard with a Talking Rock address, their hearts sank. The new winery under construction was in shambles.
“It was built from scratch, and they had just put the roof on — imagine a stick frame building — so we come here and a whole section was gone,” Charles continued. “Part of the roof was hanging over the side of the building, and another part had landed in the first block of the vineyard. It was just lifted up and carried over there. And the big beam in the front got loose and hit the building, and the whole side of the building was damaged. And it pulled the other side of the building down too. So when we came here, it was a wreck.”
Fortunately, construction insurance had been secured for the project.
“It paid for every bit of damage that was done, but it set us back at least two months because of the insurance paying out and getting (construction) materials during Covid,” he noted of the logistical logjam partially created by the pandemic.
Two years later, Canoe Vineyard and Winery is a sun-drenched 36.6 acres, of which 2.2 acres are “under vine.” Rows are planted in a north-south direction so the 1,000 vines can take advantage of maximum sun exposure, and they grow and mature at an altitude between 1,500 and 1,535 feet of elevation. All varieties grown have some form of resistance to mildew, and some are specifically bred to be no- or low-spraying varieties.
“This year, we had our first small harvest; next year — provided we have no spring frost — we should have a larger harvest,” Charles projected.
How they met
Although Charles is originally from the Netherlands, he’s called Georgia home for the last 40 years. Cathy was born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., and has lived in Georgia since 1972. She was asked how they met.
“My sister had a florist shop in the mid-1980s in Vinings, and I worked for her,” she began. “Charles came by with a friend that worked in the wholesale business with him selling flowers. He had just came here (to the U.S.) and spoke Dutch and hardly any English, and I could not understand him! My sister and I were both single and would go out with them and tell them all our stories. My sister was having a black-tie party and told me to ask him (Charles). I said, ‘No, he’s too young!’ and she said, ‘No, it’ll be fine — you know you like him.’ So I asked him. He had a girlfriend, and I didn’t think he’d go, but he did go — and we’ve been together ever since.”
They’ve been married 35 years.
Encouragement from past to present
In the last two decades, vineyards and wineries have literally flourished in mountainous north Georgia. And not only is Gilmer County, the Apple Capital and Mountain Biking Capital of the state, but it is believed to be the state’s vineyard and winery capital as well. Although there is a plethora of vineyards in Gilmer and surrounding counties that vie for the wine taster as well as the connoisseur, there remains a network of viticulturists who help one another.
“I’ll tell you what, if it wasn’t for the folks at Chateau Meichtry — Bobby, Karen and Justin — we wouldn’t be here today,” Charles said. “They were our cheerleaders and said, ‘Yeah, you can do it!’ Along the way, with buying this land and building the winery — and all the headaches that came with it, like several times saying ‘We’re not going to do it. We’re just going to abandon this idea because it’s just too much’ — and they said, ‘No, you gotta do it — just hang in there! We’ll help you as much as we can. If you have problems, just come to us, and we’ll see if we can figure this out.’”
They may also have had encouragement from the past. The vineyard and winery is named after a Cherokee Indian chief named Dragging Canoe, who “roamed this area” from 1728-1792, explained Charles.
“He actually has direct descendants who live in Gilmer County today,” he said. “To simplify the name, we called it Canoe, and in the future, we’ll have a wine named after him that’s worthy of his strong character.”
Charles said the dream of making his own wine has been years in the making.
“I’d been making wine at home for 10 years,” he said. “After a visit to Sharp Mountain Vineyards (in Pickens County) and talking with founder Ron Rathgeb, the idea was born to start a vineyard/winery at some point in our future. We bought the property off Yukon Road five years ago, and have been open two years in August.”
This year produced their first harvest of grapes for their own wine.
“We have been buying juice from places in Georgia and grapes from the West Coast, mostly the state of Washington,” Charles noted. “I’ve been buying from Odom Springs (Vineyards) in Blairsville and apple juice from Reece (Cidery, in Cartecay) to make apple wine that we just bottled (in late August).”
Crushing the grapes, allowing fermentation and filtering, bottling and labeling are all accomplished on site.
“We bottled in early August and just bottled yesterday (in late August), and the first filtering session was two 12-hour days,” he said.
Hoetink was in the flower trade back in Holland, so he knows about growing.
“I’ve always been in the horticulture industry, and this is just a different part of that,” he pointed out. “I had a landscape company prior to this. So going out there pruning and dealing with all that is like second nature to me, just at a different level.”
Celebrating the opening anyway
Cathy began a humorous story about their early days, especially their grand opening which she called “laughable.”
Charles chuckled and said the application for selling wine or any other alcohol in the United States is “more regulated than medicine.”
“You’ve got a federal permit, a state permit and a local permit — and any of the three can say no, and you cannot sell your wine and open your winery,” he began. “So the federal government was the easiest to deal with, we had our license in two weeks — it was a cinch. Local government had a lot of questions, but we got it without a lot of trouble. The state was the hardest.”
A state-sponsored website explained the licensing process would take around four weeks, so an application was submitted 10 weeks ahead of their grand opening.
“They said they would have it to us by the opening, and they never did,” said Charles. “We had the date planned, Cathy sent for family and friends to come over and we had ads running, Facebook (posts), you name it. We had a five-piece band arranged, and Friday when we were supposed to have the license, it didn’t come.”
Charles said he “called all the people I knew at the state” to no avail.
Cathy added, “We had customers drive up, and we gave out cards for a free glass of wine when we got to open up!”
“And the customers still talk about it!” said Charles
“And they still bring those cards in!” said Cathy. “So we just had a huge party with our family, but we couldn’t sell our wine. We danced and had a double rainbow — another sign from God that there was a reason for all this happening. I’m telling you, God was everywhere in this whole (venture). Everything was for a reason, is what I saw.”
Charles continued, “We still kept the five-piece band, so that was fun. So we just celebrated the opening with friends and family.”
The following Monday, Charles was able to get to an upper-level official while the state employee was driving to work and had the license emailed in less than an hour.
“So our opening was laughable!” Cathy said. “We had our family from Holland and our family from Memphis, more than 70 family members here. So we just had a party for the opening with them.”
To the community
Cathy was asked if she had anything to say about their friends and neighbors as well.
“I’m very grateful,” she replied. “The community has been very supportive, and the support of the other wineries — oh, my gosh!”
“They were very helpful, all of them,” Charles echoed. “So we came up with a wine named ‘Gratitude’ — gratitude to God, gratitude to the Cherokee Indians who lived here before us and took care of the land, and gratitude to the community who’ve supported us along the way.”
Cathy concluded, “Our customers tell us they feel welcome here and like they’re at home, and that’s what we wanted to do — we want everyone to feel comfortable and to bring their family. More and more people are finding out about our sunsets and really loving it here.”
“Enjoy the scenery and wind down,” Charles advised.