Zack and Lauren Tumlin purchased this quintessential farmhouse in 2017. Zack is a local attorney in town and grew up in Gainesville, Georgia. Lauren works in healthcare and is originally from Alabama. Together, they have two beautiful daughters, Tallye Kate and Haynes.

When they aren’t spending their time at Tumlin House & Vineyard to make sure it’s the best it can be, they’re out supporting local, trying restaurants, drinking wine, and entertaining at home. It has been their vision to bring a snapshot of the Dahlonega wine scene to the heart of downtown, and with their new, flourishing vineyard, they’re doing just that!

As soon as the Tumlin family caught word of the new 70-room hotel being built adjacent to their property, they realized the perfect opportunity to offer a full-package small venue. And what would make that venue even more magical? A vineyard. Considering the success of the Dahlonega agri-tourism and viticultural community, the Tumlins dreamed up the idea to establish a small italian-styled family vineyard to complement their charming house.

Over months of research on wine grape varietals, they chose the Norton, The Great American Red, would become their family vine. After consulting locally-owned Cavender Creek vineyards and partnering with Chrysallis Vineyards in Loudon County, Virginia, they had their vines in the ground by March 2020, ready for a full and fruitful first harvest for the Fall of 2023!

After being discovered in 1607 by English Settlers, the native American grape underwent 200 years of hybridization and manipulation before it was generally accepted as a suitable wine making grape. In the early 1820s, after major contributions in cultivation by Virginians (such as Thomas Jefferson), Dr. Daniel Norton was bestowed as the grape’s namesake. Norton wines eventually won gold in blind European taste testings, and became the epicenter of a major American winemaking awakening that spread to Ohio and westward into Missouri.

Although the Federal Government’s prohibition policy of the 1920s resulted in most of the country’s vines being torn from the earth, some enterprising Missourians hid some of the rootstock deep into the woods. After prohibition was repealed, descendants of these Missourians replaned the vines in vineyard form, restoring the Great American Red to glory. In the early 1990s, the late Dennis Horton brough the Norton back home to Virginia, where it has flourished and grown in popularity. Long live Norton: the Virginia Claret, the Great American Red, the staple of Tumlin House & Vineyard.