The Wine Life

Montaluce's winery has amassed an extensive collection credit: Courtesy of Montaluce

Not very long ago, a wild muscadine vine growing on your latticework constituted a vineyard in Georgia. But that began to change within the past decade or so as serious grape aficionados started to put down roots—literally. The newest addition to the changing landscape is Montaluce, a luxury wine community tucked just an hour north of Atlanta whose focus is on slowing down and drinking up.

"It’s been my back-pocket dream for a long time,” says Atlanta builder Rob Beecham. “I’ve gone a hundred miles an hour my whole life, and I decided to incorporate my day job with my dream job.” Architect Bill Harrison, a business partner of Beecham’s who had designed several Napa-area wineries, was his first choice to execute the vision. After research trips to Europe and California, they settled on the site of a former 400-acre cattle farm in North Georgia that resembles the terrain of some of Italy’s premier wine-making regions.

Montaluce, like lots of upscale developments, has every amenity possible: a European wine master, a 25,000-square-foot winery, a top-notch restaurant, a clubhouse, a boutique hotel set to open in 2009, and 298 lots readied for breezy Tuscan Revival villas. But what sets it apart is its connection to the land. The property borders the Chattahoochee National Forest and the Etowah River, one of the nation’s most pristine trout streams, so conservation has been a priority from the get-go. Nearly 70 percent of it is devoted to agriculture and green space, with thirty-five acres planted with European and hybrid grapes and the rest allocated to organic gardening, which supplies the restaurant with much of its produce.

Even the houses seem to grow out of the land and not against it. Square footage is kept under relative control, and nature is never far away, with homes clustered in Mediterranean-style villages that share parks and plazas. Harrison designed each structure with traditional Tuscan details, like the red clay roof tiles imported from Italy. “The key to the success of Montaluce is in the quality of the work,” he says. And a good glass of wine.