Tony Baughman 
The frozen wine slush flight is a popular choice
Days Are Sweeter With Music At The Orchard
The powerful lyrics and worshipful melody of a classic Chris Tomlin hymn drift through the warm summer air and across the rows of bright green muscadine vines encircling the shed at Three Star Vineyard and Orchard.
“How great is our God. Sing with me: How great is our God.”
It somehow seems heaven-sent that the guitar player perched on the tiny stage beneath the shed would choose these words to sing on such a stunning Saturday afternoon. So much about this vineyard just outside Johnston feels so very spiritual on sunny summer days like this one.
“It’s refreshing,” said Be Rob, the soft-spoken bearded troubadour whose song stylings meandered effortlessly from contemporary Christian favorites to the Eagles to James Taylor and Lionel Richie. “It feels like the mountains out here, but it’s Edgefield County. I love Edgefield County. It’s so peaceful and so welcoming.”
Inside the Three Star Vineyard gift shop, verses of Scripture hang on wooden signs scattered throughout space. In the tasting room, patrons may order generously-poured glasses of sweet red wine and flights of wine slushes served five-at-a-time on a wooden tray. More words of wisdom lifted from straight the Holy Bible adorn the walls and surround the comfortable sofas where visitors can sit and sip.
At Three Star Vineyards, the fruit of the Spirit and a touch of the grape peaceably and comfortably coexist. A patron picking up a wine flight smiles as she is reminded by another customer that the first public miracle Jesus performed was turning water into wine during a wedding at Cana, as recorded in the Gospel of John.
“Out here, that somehow seems just about right,” she said with a chuckle.
Three Star Vineyard and Orchard is a place where fellowship is an essential part of the culture, where all are welcomed as family.
“This is a labor of love,” said Brittany Hutchins Ashley, the third-generation manager of Three Star Vineyard’s gift shop and tasting room. “To be around people and to make people happy, that’s why I’m here.”
Sweet Hospitality Is A Family Tradition
Sharing the fruits of their labor – both literally and figuratively – is very much a family tradition for Brittany and her kinfolk.
“My grandparents, Ken and Ann Hutchins, bought the vineyard in ’92, and they did wholesale muscadines, scuppernongs, peaches, all that,” Brittany said. “The gift shop, we opened in August of 2019, and then we opened the tasting room in June of 2020.”
Brittany’s daddy Kenny acquired the farm from his parents after Ken and Ann retired, and Brittany now manages the day-to-day operations. She joyfully welcomes the many thousands who navigate the winding, peachtree-lined gravel roads just outside Johnston to discover Three Star Vineyard tucked behind the vines.
Even though Three Star opened its current retail operations at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brittany said the timing was “a blessing, honestly.”
“This was before we got the big ol’ covered awning out there,” she said. “It was just like a porch out there. People could sit by their cars and stay separated, but still get out of the house. And we sold food too, so we could stay open.”
The Three Star Vineyard experience was elevated even more in 2021 with the launch of Food Truck Friday Nights, which have become a signature offering on the last Friday of each month – except during high school football season, when the music and food shift to Saturdays.
Everyday operations at the vineyard remain very much akin to an extended family working together toward a single divine vision. “All of our ladies here are a true blessing to us,” Brittany said. “They either live on this road or go to church with us. So it’s a very close-knit community.”
Of the 123 acres that encompass Three Star Vineyard and Orchard, around 86 acres are blanketed in vines. Most of the harvest is sold wholesale across the country, carrying the fresh flavor of Edgefield County to foodies far afield in Florida, New York, Texas and parts unknown.
Only about one percent of the muscadines and scuppernongs handpicked and hand-graded at Three Star Vineyard end up in its signature wines, which are crafted and bottled just up the road in Newberry.
Music Sounds Sweeter In The Vines
Offering live entertainment to Johnston and the surrounding community has become another source of pride for the extended family at Three Star Vineyard. In the past, the vineyard has hosted such acclaimed national touring acts as Chapel Hart, Whey Jennings and Twitty & Lynn, a duo comprised of Conway Twitty’s grandson and Loretta Lynn’s granddaughter.
This month alone, the calendar is packed with outstanding live entertainment, but the focus now is on local talent. Be Rob from Evans, Ga. opened the month’s lineup last Saturday.
This coming Friday night, Sept. 12, is the monthly Music & Bingo Night, featuring local country singer and Elvis tribute artist Jason Sikes onstage from 5:30 to 7 p.m., followed by bingo from 7-9 p.m. Tickets are $10. The very next afternoon, on Saturday, Sept. 13, perennial CSRA favorites The Experiment with the I-20 Horns will perform starting at 1 p.m.
But the highlight of the month unfolds Saturday, Sept. 20. Keith Gregory will be onstage starting at 1 p.m., and later that night, Ryan Trotti performs a free concert that doubles as a food drive to support local senior citizens in need. Admission will be a donation of canned goods or non-perishable food items.
Trotti is recording artist from Charlotte who won the 2019 Carolina Country Music Awards Entertainer of the Year honors. His style has been described “as if Sam Hunt and Johnny Cash had a music baby, godfathered by Eminem.”
The free Ryan Trotti concert is sponsored in part by community partners First Citizens Bank, J Properties Realtor, Possibilities Furniture and More, Palmetto Seafood and The Triangle Restaurant.
The reason for this and other community outreach supported by Three Star Vineyard is simple: “Love they neighbor,” Brittany said. “If you look out for others, they look out for you too. We want to show people that we care.”
Showing their patrons that they care is as important to Brittany, her family and friends as the quality of the wines they serve and the foot-tapping music they host.
“There’s a sign over there that says, ‘Enter as strangers and leave as friends,’” Brittany said, pointing to a wooden slat hanging over the doorway to the tasting room. “We truly believe that. We want to pour into that. Every person who walks through that door is important to us. We want to love like Jesus does.”
And that brand of sweet Southern hospitality in this age when loving others is so essential is no small blessing indeed at this little taste of Heaven on Earth in rural Edgefield County.
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