DRINK IT IN: MOCKSVILLE TASTES WINE COUNTRY SUCCESS WHILE STAYING TRUE TO ITS MANUFACTURING ROOTS.

• Author: Mims, Bryan
• Position: TOWNSQUARE: Mocksville

On the edge of the Yadkin Valley, ground zero of a $2 billion and growing wine industry and 25 miles southwest of Winston-Salem, Mocksville sits astride Interstate 40, a straight-shot commute for professionals who prefer their after hours in Small Town, U.S.A., and business hours in a place with parking decks. Strike up a conversation, and locals might tell you about a neighbor who works at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center or someone a few doors down with a job at Novant Health.

Tami Langdon spent 18 years doing volunteer work for the town and is now the community development coordinator. She was born in North Carolina but moved to the Midwest as a child, only for these Piedmont hills to fetch her back in the early 1980s. Langdon settled on Mocksville to raise her daughter, having endured big-city living in St. Louis long enough. "People who come here and see the potential, we just go crazy," she says. "We just go crazy because it's got so much potential."

Mocksville is the county seat of mostly rural Davie County, 264 square miles of wheat, corn and hay fields, poultry houses, tobacco barns and rows of grapevines. Vineyards are in vogue across N.C. farm country, and Davie County is home to five, all having opened in the last 20 years, replacing farms that long grew traditional crops. Mocksville is part of the Yadkin Valley American Viticulture Area, the state's first federally designated wine-growing region. Since 2013, production at North Carolina wineries has jumped 96% to 1.1 million 9-liter cases for an economic impact of nearly $2 billion last year.

Mocksville's Main Street has reasons to pop the cork these days with its resurgence of business--iced lattes at noon, cold beer at 5 and martinis at midnight. One hangout that's fueling the with-it atmosphere of downtown is The Factory Coffeehouse, which opened last year. Twenty-something barista Katy Sidden concocts swirls of dark roast and froth for the designer-jeans set who have debit cards at the ready. "I was born here and lived here off and on," she says. "My parents traveled a lot."

She came back to Mocksville because, well, small towns are kinda cool. Plenty of places to park on Main Street, no one invading your personal space, few rude people--and there's still free Wi-Fi. "At first, it was really hard to get used to because it's so small," Sidden says, "but I enjoy it now that I'm here."

She looks out the window at a couple of restaurants across the street that would blend in...