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Wine making has been showing up in the state (we've been selling grapes from here in NY to makers in WV).
WV could easily re-invent itself as a tourist destination. They sit on so many major natural sites to see as well as plenty of historical sites. I feel like parts of WV have tried this but there's no real push for advertising from the state itself; which would have to happen!
If WV manages to get a real wine industry rolling they can do something similar to southern NY and roll the drunks in from all over the place and let them stare at the gorgeous views while they wobble around the party bus.
West Virginia is a Baptist Bible Belt state. Not sure how wine will go over there.
West Virginia is a Baptist Bible Belt state. Not sure how wine will go over there.
Fortunately, the influence of the Bible Belt is fading. You can now buy a bottle of liquor on Sunday if you want.
There are twenty wineries in West Virginia that appear to be doing just fine. There are also over 2 dozen breweries making good business out of brewing beer. The state also has 9 active distilleries. Alcohol seems to be doing just fine in this part of the Bible Belt.
BTW, these businesses exist all over the state, from both panhandles to all of the major cities, and in small towns that you would never think could support such a business.
West Virginia is a Baptist Bible Belt state. Not sure how wine will go over there.
Try us in the Eastern Panhandle of WV
When DH and I go to recycle, it's unbelievable (well, not really) how many wine and beer bottles there are. One can surmise these West Virginians sure love their beer (and wine).
West Virginia is a Baptist Bible Belt state. Not sure how wine will go over there.
It will go over just fine, after all water was turned into wine in the Bible. But not on Sundays or at least after noon time on Sundays. They want you in church. That’s where the Bible Belt usually gets involved.
West Virginia is a Baptist Bible Belt state. Not sure how wine will go over there.
Traditionally, Methodists have been the dominant denomination in the state. And, while they have a history with the temperance movement, modern Methodists don't mind the occasional drink.
Visually, Huntington felt more Midwestern than Southern to me, between the grid plan covering most of the city, the preponderance of two-story red brick houses, the consistent sidewalks and curbs, and the industrial look in parts of the city/Kenova. It almost reminded me of St. Louis.
Culturally, though, I wasn't there long enough to get a good picture, but the Southern accents were strong, including in teenagers, even from ostensibly upper-middle-class backgrounds. I also saw more black people interacting with whites throughout all parts of the city than would be typical in the Midwest.
Visually, Huntington felt more Midwestern than Southern to me, between the grid plan covering most of the city, the preponderance of two-story red brick houses, the consistent sidewalks and curbs, and the industrial look in parts of the city/Kenova. It almost reminded me of St. Louis.
Culturally, though, I wasn't there long enough to get a good picture, but the Southern accents were strong, including in teenagers, even from ostensibly upper-middle-class backgrounds. I also saw more black people interacting with whites throughout all parts of the city than would be typical in the Midwest.
That area basically is "more Midwestern than it is anything else". It's not something people generally sense among themselves, and if pressed, they might grudgingly concede they are "kind of" Southerners, though in my mind, the South "begins to begin" somewhere around Beckley --- it's not something that happens all at once. By the time you get to Wytheville VA, it's starting to kick in, and once you're in Dobson or Mount Airy NC, yep, you've crossed a certain hazy, invisible border. Huntington really isn't either Midwestern or Southern, I'd have to say it's about 55% Midwestern, 30% Southern, and 15% "its own thing". Charleston, I just throw up my hands, great city, but it's really neither fish nor fowl, I don't know howyou'd characterize it. Maybe it's more like a miniature Pittsburgh without the Slavic and Eastern European element. Yeah, that might be about right.
I'm too lazy at this moment to read the entire thread, but if you had to draw a "north-south line" in West Virginia, you might do it between the Charleston-Huntington and Clarksburg-Weston TV markets. Another litmus test might be whether cars "need to be washed" in the southern part, or whether they simply "need wa[r]shed" in the northern part. I was at Tim Hortons in Cross Lanes one time and a man in line said "I bet this guy wants waited on". That line, too, is probably kind of blurry.
And to address what I see as an inevitable part of the discussion, due to geographical proximity, I have no earthly idea whether southeastern Ohioans, south of Athens and east of Portsmouth, consider themselves "Midwesterners" in anything but a strict Census Bureau sense. To my mind, that happens somewhere between Waverly and Chillicothe. I don't know what they're taught in school about "what part of the country you live in". And Kentucky, at least south of Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties (that German Catholic city-state called "Northern Kentucky"), is firmly convinced that she is Southern, though that, too, is kind of blurry unless you were to get down around Bowling Green and Paducah. Lexington is convincingly Southern only because it's so darned genteel, the horses, the bourbon, and all of that. South and east of Lexington, things get kind of hardscrabble.
I'm familiar with the map, and I'm sorry, but there is no earthly way that anything in Mississippi could be considered even remotely Appalachian, culturally, geographically, or any other way. The southwestern edges of the ARC map are clearly motivated by politics, such as the spurs into western Kentucky and middle Tennessee, and the part of Mississippi that, weirdly, has one non-Appalachian county almost completed surrounded by "Appalachian" counties.
Summersville. That's where Food Lion meets Foodland.
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