Scary Stories From Haunted Wineries
Do you believe in ghosts? If the answer is no, these wine-soaked stories might change your mind.
In this episode, we explore spooky tales from some of wine country’s most well-loved destinations. First, we take a trip to Trefethen Family Vineyards in California’s Napa Valley, where mother and son duo Janet and Lorenzo Trefethen share the backstory of their winery’s haunted grounds. Next, we travel to Miles Wine Cellars in New York’s Finger Lakes region, where owner Susan Hayes recollects some of her most memorable yet friendly encounters with visitors from the afterlife. Lastly, we visit Belvoir Winery in Missouri, home to its own population of “boos” and booze.
Imagine pairing your next tasting with paranormal activity—it’s harder to find a more comprehensive multisensory experience than that.
Still not convinced? Get cozy, pour yourself a glass and kick back to listen in on this week’s Halloween edition of the Wine Enthusiast Podcast.
More Halloween Coverage
- To experience these stories yourself, head to one of these haunted wineries.
- How to pair wine with Halloween candy, according to an expert taster.
- Get in the spirit with these Halloween wine labels.
- Eight spooky spirits to pour for Halloween.
- Try this apple cider doughnut-inspired Daiquiri.
- The infamous Zombie cocktail might turn you into, well, a zombie.
- How to make red wine caramel apples.
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Episode Transcript
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.
Speakers: Samantha Sette, Janet Trefethen, Lorenzo Trefethen, Susan Hayes, Madison Stephens
Samantha Sette 00:06
Hello and welcome to the Wine Enthusiast podcast, your serving of drinks culture and the people who drive it. I'm Samantha Sette, senior web producer here at Wine Enthusiast. We're doing something a little different this week. In light of Halloween, we're exploring the haunted origins and perhaps paranormal present of some of wine country's well loved destinations just in time for the spooky season. So get cozy, maybe pour a gloss from your favorite bottle and get ready for a little more trick than treat.
Samantha Sette 00:37
First, we take a trip to Trefethen Family Vineyards in California's Napa Valley, where mother and son duo, Janet and Lorenzo Trefethen, share the backstory of their winery's haunted grounds, from the Friendly Ghost figure lingering in their halls to a mysterious hanging shadow spotted by visitors.
Samantha Sette 00:56
So I'm here with Lorenzo and Janet from Trefethen winery. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Janet Trefethen 01:03
It's our pleasure. Thanks for having us.
Samantha Sette 01:05
Yeah, of course. And so for those who don't know, do you want to share a little bit more about the story behind your family vineyards and maybe who founded it? How came to be?
Lorenzo Trefethen 01:14
My grandfather came to the valley in my grandmother and grandfather came to the valley in 68 and there was nothing here in the Napa Valley. It was mostly walnuts, orchards, prunes. There was beef and dairy cattle. But you know, when granddaddy started ripping out walnut trees, which were the money crop in order to plant grape vines, everyone thought it was completely out of his mind. And then Mom and Dad started making wine from the grapes that we were growing, and they were well ahead of their time as well. There were like 25 wineries in the Napa Valley. Now we were crazy too, definitely crazy, especially when you you know you were trying to make not just wine, but fine wine. And anybody who knew anything about fine wine knew that it didn't come from California. So it was a bit of a stretch, I guess, in the imagination of wine consumers, to have fine wine from California. And then there were a series of tastings in France.
Janet Trefethen 02:18
And then along came 1979 and the French decided they would hold the world wine Olympics, and we didn't even know it was taking place, but someone put our wine, our Chardonnay, in there, and we started getting calls because our Chardonnay was ranked the best in the World. And this was really funny, because it's before the internet. It's before, you know, we did not know what was going on, and all of a sudden, yeah, there's number one. And then the French got really upset again after
Lorenzo Trefethen 02:55
Well I think you were so confused. By the end of the week, everyone thought it was like an elaborate practical joke
Janet Trefethen 03:01
That's appropriate around Halloween time, yeah. But then then we kind of caught up with the news, and the French were quite upset, and so Robert Drew and from the house of Drew and said, for the honor of France, I throw down my glove and challenge you do a rematch. And so six months later, at the ospedevon, they had the rematch. And guess what happened that Trefethen and Chardonnay came out number one again. And it you know, this was really a thrill for us personally, but it also was enormous for Napa Valley, for California wine in general, because all of a sudden, the local American community decided that they could start drinking California Napa Valley wines. They were just as good. They were better than the French, and let me tell you, trying to sell wine in New York prior to that time, and even after that time, was really a huge, huge task, because they felt that if it wasn't from France or Italy, it wasn't any good.
Samantha Sette 04:19
We've come a long way.
Lorenzo Trefethen 04:21
We've come a long way. And I've been trying to understand what it was like to have like the best in the world my whole life. And, you know, been making a nuisance of myself, trying to understand, you know, really, what it was like in 79 and 80 to win these awards best Chardonnay in the world twice. And now I know so the largest tasting in the world is they don't do it in France anymore. That move to really to London took over, and the decanter world wine Awards has grown into quite the tasting. They they go through 18,000 wines blind the last. Years, and two of the last four, our Cabernet Sauvignon has won Best in Show. They don't say this because the British aren't as good as marketing as the French, but I'll say we got one of the best Chardon or best Cabernets in the world now
Janet Trefethen 05:16
Yeah and our Dragon's tooth, which breathes fire at Halloween time was just rank it the black best blended red wine in America.
Samantha Sette 05:29
Tell me more about these ghosts, the dragon tooth.
Janet Trefethen 05:33
Maybe we should take you way back, because our winery was built in 1886 but our property played a part a role in history. Prior to that time, it was owned by Grigsby and Boggs and around 1850 and those guys might sound familiar because they were part of the Bear Flag revolt, and they had a number of meetings on our property for the Bear Flag revolt.
Samantha Sette 06:07
What is the Bear Flag?
Lorenzo Trefethen 06:11
That was the beginning of California.
Janet Trefethen 06:14
That was a state, yeah, that was the beginning California. That's why we have a bear on the California flag. That's the Bear Flag revolt anyway. And then that was followed by a really interesting character, J, W, Osborn. And history is is written two different ways. We're not sure which one is correct, whether he was at eskole, which is what our winery was called in 1886 or whether he was at the Oak Knoll Ranch, but he was shot and killed by a very disgruntled employee in 1863 otherwise it is said that he would have been the father of Napa Valley premium wine.
Lorenzo Trefethen 07:04
Yeah, he had quite the library. He and I'm gonna mispronounce his name, but harass the oh, there we go. Harass the over in Sonoma were buddies and really brought some of the first, what we would consider quality European grape varieties over to plant in California. Prior to them, it was really just the mission grape everywhere.
Janet Trefethen 07:27
And then, if I may, our winery was designed, architected by a fellow with the name of Captain Hamden McIntyre, and he was a really interesting character. He also designed farniente Christian Brothers, where the CIA is today, and that's the Culinary Institute of America, not the other CIA and inglenook and
Lorenzo Trefethen 07:55
Well and flora springs,
Janet Trefethen 07:57
Well enough. But those were the big four, I think, yeah. And for example, I used to be when, when we first came far niente was a ghost winery. It wasn't. It was empty, other than for bats and pigeons and our vineyard manager and I snuck in there one time. There were, there was no power. We were, it was haunted. It was haunted, and I started to see the beginning of amden McIntyre Fauci is was at that time exactly the same as our winery, except the bottom half was stone, but McIntyre blindfolded, yeah, yeah, I could. It was exactly this. The stairs were in the same place. Everything was in the same place. But McIntyre, his spirit, didn't like hanging out at fernieente, because they totally remodeled everything, and he couldn't find his way around anymore, and so he decided that the Trefethen winery, the old Eshkol winery that he had designed, was still exactly almost the same as it was when he when he designed it, and that's where he would hang out.
Samantha Sette 09:20
To this day, people seem to report seeing like a shadow swinging. Is this McIntyre shadow?
Janet Trefethen 09:25
No, it's not McIntyre. It was rumored that a fellow, a bad guy, was hung from the rafters inside our watery we don't know who he was, but I think that's the that's the shadow McIntyre. Yeah. No, but when I saw entire is more of a friendly guy, he's a friendly guy, but he was from the, you know, the 1880s and he had a big bushy beard, and he always smoked up. Right? So he kind of His Spirit. My office was on the third floor of the winery, and I would be working late at night, and our other employees would forget that I was there, and they would turn off all the lights other than, you know, I had my little light on in my office, and so I was working late, quite a bit. Didn't have any children yet, and all of a sudden I smelled the smoke. I smelled pipe smoke, and that's all I ever got of McIntyre, was the pipe smoke. But I told him that he really couldn't smoke in the building. It was all tongue and groove redwood, and it might burn. And so he got rather upset and left for a few days, but then he came back and he's still there today.
Lorenzo Trefethen 10:59
Yeah, and we've had few guests who don't know this story, who are have reported walking through the gardens or around the winery, and occasionally, like smell some like pipe tobacco, where, like, that's Hamden. He's hanging around. Wait what?
Janet Trefethen 11:19
And then, and then to kind of chronologically bring us forward again. We're now, you know, in prohibition time when all the wineries, of course, became empty. But there was a great character by the name of Louis Strala, who was up in St Saint Helena. And he I was fortunate in that I came to the Napa Valley as a youngster and had occasion to hear some of Louis stories. And the one that I remember, in particular that seems appropriate for Halloween, was it was prohibition, right? You couldn't sell alcohol, but there were six, five Louis and five other characters, and once a week, they would take this casket to the train station and load it on and say farewell to their buddy, who would then ride the rails back East. And finally, the conductor, after, you know, this goes on for quite a few months, he said, Man, these guys, they've got so many friends that are dropping off, and what is going on? And so he opened up the casket, and it was full of wine bottles, and that they were, they were shipping the alcohol back east, and that's how they did it was in a casket.
Samantha Sette 12:54
I mean, if you're going to go down, might as well go down like that, right?
Janet Trefethen 12:56
Yeah exactly, exactly.
Samantha Sette 13:00
So how do you pay tribute to this in the present day? You said you did mention that some of your guests and visitors noticed that tobacco smoke and everything. But is Halloween a fun time of year for the winery?
Janet Trefethen 13:11
Oh my gosh,
Lorenzo Trefethen 13:14
The month of October. We do it up at trifet, and we've got decorations all over the place. I was walking through the garden, actually, late at night, the like a day or two after the decorations had been set up. And I knew the decorations were set up, but I walked out, we've got little lawn behind our food and wine pairing tasting room, and there were, I was like, oh, man, we got a lot of black cats running around all of a sudden when it's just, you know, they were cardboard cutouts
Janet Trefethen 13:51
But they look really real
Lorenzo Trefethen 13:56
Yeah, especially late at night and and we, we had a tasting room manager who was very into Halloween, and she got a budget for decor that she would spend in like February. And it's amazing how much Halloween stuff you can buy
Janet Trefethen 14:13
Oh she lived for Halloween. Loved it, and you can see it because we still have so many of her spooks situated in appropriate places all over the property. And really, okay,
Lorenzo Trefethen 14:28
Yeah, there. It's pretty fun. And certainly on Halloween, we all get dressed, yep. And everybody gets, if you're visiting, you might get a tour from a zombie, or something.
Janet Trefethen 14:43
Oh, well, but And frequently, our visitors will also dress up. One year, we had a gal who came as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and she was perfectly dressed from head to toe, and even had. Her dog, Toto with her.
Lorenzo Trefethen 15:02
It's a fun place to visit all the time, but especially, I'd say, in October, not only is it a beautiful time in general to visit the Napa Valley with the leaves turning and the smell of harvest in the air, but it's a pretty fun time as well to come visit Trifecta and a few other wineries who really lean into the holiday spirit,
Samantha Sette 15:26
Definitely, and also a comment to you both, your dynamic is awesome, and the sound effects have been A plus I'm enjoying it. I hope our audiences is as well. But before we wrap up here, any final like last plugs that you want to give for Trefethen or your story, or anything else you want to share.
Lorenzo Trefethen 15:45
Well, we did mention Dragon's tooth earlier and the success that it achieved, but just to give everyone paint a picture of what the wine is, we were among the first people in Napa Valley to plant Malbec and Petit Verdot, and we just wanted to have kind of all the Bordeaux spices in the cabinet for blending purposes. And we thought we'd make maybe better Cabernet Sauvignon, but the first barrels that we made of both Malbec and Petit Verdot really blew us away. And we were like, Wow, we got more than blending spices here. We've got some wines that have something to say for themselves. As we started playing with them, we realized that they just fit together like puzzle pieces. Malbec is this very friendly, generous on the front pallet, mountain berry fruit, and then Petit Verdot has all of this structure. And so putting them together really created a complete wine, and we often use Cabernet and knit the two together, but so we like to refer to this as our upside down Bordeaux blend, and as far as we know, we're the only people in the world working with Malbec and Petit Verdot as the lead component center blends. So it's uniquely our own. Not only is it uniquely from our vineyard, but the blend itself is very different, and it's just an awesome wine. We always want to do something with the red dragon of whales in honor of my grandmother, Nana, who was the original wine lover in the family and was Welsh. And as soon as we tasted the wine, we're like, yes, that is the dragon wine, just the flavor profile was perfect for it. And we, Mom and I were, you know, finally had to come up with an actual name and label for it. We walked through our vineyard, and in some of our new Petit Verdot plantings, we came across a scattering of obsidian shards. And obsidian is basically volcanic glass, black glass, it shatters into a sharp edge, just like glass or teeth with a little imagination, some little reptile teeth were sitting there on the floor of the vineyard. So Dragon's tooth, fanciful name, perfect for this time of year, but it references the two things that have always defined us, our family and our vineyard, and that's what you'll get when you come in and visit trifecta, and you'll there's a story behind everything here.
Janet Trefethen 18:11
Yep, one family, one estate, with one passion to make the greatest wines we can exclusively from the grapes we grow.
Samantha Sette 18:21
Well said. Well, thank you so much again for taking the time to chat with me today, and I hope you have the most amazing haunted spooky rest of your spooky season. Oh, thank you for I was gonna say I'm waiting for the voice, the sound effect here.
Lorenzo Trefethen 18:36
Enjoy.
Samantha Sette 18:41
Next we travel to the east coast with Susan Hayes, owner of Miles Wine Cellars situated in New York's Finger Lakes region. The winery has supposedly been haunted for years with strange happenings such as slamming doors, footsteps and unexplained sounds. In a nod towards the suspected ghost, the winery produces a ghost Chardonnay, and definitely delivers the thrilling in person experience.
Samantha Sette 19:07
Well, Susan, thank you so much for joining me today. If you wanted to give us a little introduction to yourself and Miles wine cellars, whatever you want to share.
Susan Hayes 19:14
Okay, well, thank you for having me miles wine cellars as a fourth generation winery now, and it's owned currently by my husband, Doug miles and myself, and we have been growing grapes since 1978 and then we opened our historic home up for tastings in 2001 and we've been operating it from there, since then, and we've expanded quite a bit. We also have an inn now, and we have the boathouse at miles wine cellars, which is very unique, wine bar down on the water, so boaters can boat right up and have a glass of wine with us. It's wonderful and very popular. So we're right into the middle of hard Well, we're creating, hopefully to the end of harvest now. My husband's on a harvester as we speak with her son, Evan, and we, we harvest our own grapes, and we harvest a few of our neighboring wineries too. It's a wonderful community
Samantha Sette 20:12
And a beautiful time of year to be thinking about it, visiting it, etc.
Susan Hayes 20:17
Oh yeah, for sure. It's beautiful right now.
Samantha Sette 20:20
I can imagine up there in the Finger Lakes, yeah, if I'm correct
Susan Hayes 20:24
Yes, yes, we're on Seneca Lake, wonderful.
Samantha Sette 20:28
And there are some suspicious, I mean, you're on here for a reason, about some haunted, spooky origins of miles wine cellars. Do you mind sharing a little bit more about that with us?
Susan Hayes 20:39
Certainly. So our house, where we have our tasting room, dates to 1802, we have a number of ghosts that actually reside here with us, and they, they, as it turns out, they don't do anything bad, even though it took a while for us to kind of get used to each other. And I think we we've found out that they really don't like construction. And so while we were restoring the entire place, my husband and I did that, there were a lot of happenings, like when you would walk through a old houses have a lot of doors. When you would walk through a door into the next room, the door would slam immediately behind you, and it got to be a little unsettling. And there were times when I would just go sit in my car for a while, but let things calm down a little bit. But then we discovered, over the years now that they really don't like construction, and that really is what was going on at that time. But I think they saw that we restored the place lovingly, like we kept everything original, that possibly the floors, the moldings, you know, the hinges in the doors, the doors, like every possible thing we could say we did. So it was a true restoration, and I think now that we've kind of earned respect with each other, and they kind of make good things happen for us. Now it's my husband and I often kid that someday, once we we pass on, we're finally going to sit down and have a glass of wine with stuff, as let's know, prior to this experience, that you believe in ghosts. I did. I think I've always been a believer, but then when I came like to this house, when I first met my husband, things just got really active. I don't know if that we did have someone come here one day and tell us that they're drawn to certain people and that they she said, do a lot of things happen to you? And I said, Yeah, I feel like they're following me. Well at times. She says, yeah, they're very drawn to you for some reason. But they don't do anything really scary. They they do occasionally knock things off the shelves, and, you know, a few things like that. But one of the things they like to do, we have an in here, and I have had customers ask me, if I come around and check their doors at night. And I said, No, no, I didn't do that. And they said, Well, I keep hearing this. It sounds like you're putting a key in the door. And I said, Well, it's like, is it like metal on metal? And they said, Yeah. And I said, I've heard that too. Those doors used to have the old fashioned, antique, original lift latches, and for code, we had to remove those and put in standard doors with locks, but you still hear that noise like a lift latch. And they said, that's exactly what we were hearing. We are hearing that lift latch even though it's not even there anymore. And I said, I'm not sure what's creepy. Are you that the ghosts are doing that? Are you thinking I'm doing
Samantha Sette 23:43
So do you let guests know about this before they might stay at the inn or visit the winery, or is this just something that they experience? And they go to you, it's like, oh, wow, like I saw a ghost.
Susan Hayes 23:53
Yeah. So actually, it's part of the booking agreement. But I mean, because we do take it quite seriously, we do kind of protect our ghosts, and we don't want anything like they're all good, and we want to keep it all good. So part of the booking agreement is that you understand that you when you book, that you're accepting that you might get visited, but that you also can't disturb them anyway. Or it spells it right out, like no special equipment, no Ouija boards, no seances, nothing like that. You just have to accept that they might have you might have a little visit and go with it. Well, whether people read that booking agreement, sure it's in there,
Samantha Sette 24:34
Do you find this is extra popular during the Halloween season?
Susan Hayes 24:38
I actually we, we get a lot of more interest that time of year, but we this time of year, but we don't necessarily have more activity this time of year, because they, our Ghosts don't like to do things when it's real busy, you know, when there's a lot of people here like they like to wait. They like to wait till you're by yourself, and then they will, you know, see. Say a little something in my ear, or they, they take a hold of my arm like this, you know, like, Yeah, almost like, um, you know, when you're talking to particularly an older woman, like an elder, they get you hold of your arm. They pull you in. They like, want your full attention. It's kind of like that.
Samantha Sette 25:16
So what is one of the most memorable ghost encounters that a guest brought to your attention?
Susan Hayes 25:23
Well, there's definitely the one about the key, you know, being the key in the door. It turns out that also one of our ghosts is actually a very large, massive black cat, and one of our first guests gave us a photo of it, and they were just taking random pictures around a beautiful I'm sitting in it right now. It's magnificent room. And when they sat down and started looking through their phone, they were like, what is that? And then they slept with the lights on. But then we didn't tell anybody about that. And, like, two years later, we had guests here, and one of them said to me, I didn't realize that you were pet friendly. And we were like, Oh, we're definitely not. In the end, you know, it's very everything's very like, white and yellow and like, it's very elegant. And so I said, Why? Why would you say that? And she said, Well, I went out to sleep on the couch because my husband was snoring myself sometimes, and she said, I we have cats at home. And I distinctly had a very heavy cat sleeping on my chest, like, super heavy to the point where I had to get up and, like, move it off me. And my husband in the other room had this same experience. And I said, Oh, that's interesting, because we don't have we don't allow cats in, but one of our ghosts, turns out, is a cat, and they must know that you're cat people.
Samantha Sette 26:52
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Samantha Sette 27:42
Do you meet new ghosts often? Like to kind of have a sense of who the ghosts are that live with you. Well, are in the inn, in winery, or just kind of like it changes with time? What is that like?
Susan Hayes 27:54
Well, I have a feeling about them, like, I know, like, there's they do certain things. One of them is a little girl, and she only shows herself to my oldest son. And he says, says to me, he was locking up the winery at night, and he saw this little girl run behind the bar, and he thought, who's in here? Like and where are her parents, you know? And he said that she's magnificent, magnificently beautiful little girl with bright blue eyes, and she's shown herself to him a couple times, but never, never to me or anyone else I have had. You know how children will lean against you when they're when they're near you? I have had that, but I didn't realize that that's what it was that there was this little girl. And I have heard someone call out mom or Mommy, you know, a couple times when I know I'm here by myself. In fact, one time it was so clear I thought my kids were home early in the bus or something, and so I ran all the way around the winery everywhere. Couldn't find it anywhere, but there is one, and I think that one is my father in law that we smell him. So, you know, we're basically in a set free environment in a tasting room here we we try to bait, but there are times when you'll just walk through this wall of very strong men's cologne, which is, it's the same cologne he wore mixed with cigarettes that he said he'd never smoked. And you walk like through all of it, it's, it's, and then you walk right out of it again. And that's where we think, you know he's there. He's visiting with us. He did pass here in the house, so,
Samantha Sette 29:39
That's wild, though
Susan Hayes 29:42
And we have two that like to show themselves on the front porch, and we have a Greek revival. I don't know if you've looked at the photos of it yet, but it's beautiful Greek Revival home. And there's two that show themselves on the front porch, and the story that kind of came with the house and was that they were. A newlywed couple, and the they were living here, and the husband was repairing the lamp, but still hangs out on the front porch, and he took a terrible fall, and this would have been between the 1850s which is when that porch was added, and the 1900s which was the first recounting of this story that we heard like personally. And so they lived here during that time, he took a bad fall, he died from the fall, and she died soon after. And sure enough, that's where they show themselves. Is right there on that porch. And I've seen them there myself. We don't see the our ghosts very often, but when you do, they look solid. You know they look very real. But just for a second, and then they're gone.
Samantha Sette 30:46
Wow. I keep saying, well, but that's kind of like the only word and language that's coming out of my mouth. It's, do you find this? I know that y'all host Paranormal Activity nights. What is, do people kind of spot ghosts more often during those nights.
Susan Hayes 31:02
Well, we don't, actually, we don't allow only that and Okay, we just feel like we have, we have good people here. We have good spirits here with us, and we appreciate them, and we respect them, and we don't want to mess with it anymore, like we're just going to leave it alone. It's enough for us to know that they're here with us. And I don't, I don't want to mess with it. Mess with a good thing,
Samantha Sette 31:23
Totally. And so running into the ghost Chardonnay, so you also created a wine inspired by this activity
Susan Hayes 31:32
We did. We did and it's a very pretty bottle. You look through the woman on the front, you'll see the house, and then if you look close, you're going to see them standing together on the front porch, that that's that one couple
Samantha Sette 31:44
Yes for those who can't see, it's kind of like a frosted outline of the Woman Yes. And through that, you could see the two ghosts from the porch.
Susan Hayes 31:54
And then, I know not everyone's going to see this, but you can. If you take that bottle, you turn it around, and I'm not sure for this will come through or not, but you shine a light behind it, you'll see that ghost again, projecting.
Samantha Sette 32:04
Oh, wow, that's neat. Yeah, that'll look nice on a wine rack, for sure.
Susan Hayes 32:11
Oh, for sure, yeah. But we tell everybody, you know, buy the wine but drink it up, yeah? Literally meant to be an aging wine, true, yeah. But it's, it's actually really good wine too. It's half Chardonnay with no oak and half Cayuga white, which is a hybrid, and it's very tasty.
Samantha Sette 32:28
That's beautiful. Well, do you have any last and final things you want to plug or share about miles wine cellars or yourself and the stories behind it?
Susan Hayes 32:36
I guess I would just like to tell everyone to come visit us. We would love to see everyone. And the Finger Lakes is beautiful anytime of the year, really. And once this crazy next, this coming weekend is going to be the busiest weekend of the year. Typically, it settles down a little and but we're, most of us are still open on Seneca Lake, so that's the perfect time to come. And you know you're going to, you're going to meet one of at miles, you're always going to meet one of the family. So if you're interested, and you you want to hear these stories on your own, come and see us.
Samantha Sette 33:08
Wonderful Well, thank you so much again, Susan. We absolutely love this. Well, good. Hope you have wonderful rest of the October spooky season.
Susan Hayes 33:16
Thank you. I hope you'll come and see us too
Samantha Sette 33:18
I would love that.
Samantha Sette 33:22
And lastly, we make our way to the Midwest, where Belvoir winery sits near a cemetery, old hospital and many abandoned buildings. If that weren't eerie enough, they also host late night paranormal investigations. We'll let Madison Stephens, the inns manager, tell the real tale on some spooky ghost stories.
Samantha Sette 33:43
Well, Madison, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Why don't you introduce yourself?
Madison Stephens 33:49
I am excited to be here. My name is Madison Stephens. I have been at the winery for about eight years now as the event coordinator and now manager of the property, so that has been very exciting. But yeah, we're excited to be here with you today.
Samantha Sette 34:03
And so at Belvoir, which is in Missouri, I think, I don't know if you noted that, but just wanted to throw it in there too, because I think it's cool that there's wineries all across the US foreveramazed by that. Apparently there's some spooky origins. So do you mind sharing more about like, the wineries history from your point of view, and then maybe we can talk more about the spooky stories around it.
Madison Stephens 34:23
So if you're familiar with Belvoir at all, you are also familiar with the Odd Fellows. The Odd Fellows owned and operated the entire property. So they had a children's home on site, and that is where the winery building is. It was built in 1900 it housed over 300 kids at the highest point. We call it a children's home. Sometimes you'll see it mentioned as a orphanage. We do not call it that because children were not adopted at the location, but they could seek refuge here if they needed to. The other buildings on site were an old books home, nursing home, and a hospital building, and there was also a schoolhouse on site as well. Me. Right?
Samantha Sette 35:00
So how did that, you know, I know y'all kind of host these late night paranormal investigations every month and stuff like, where did that come from? Why at your winery?
Madison Stephens 35:10
Right? Where did, where did the paranormal come from? It's really funny. When the original owners bought the property from the Odd Fellows, they all started having things happen, but kind of like I see in scary movies. No one was talking about it. And then one day, Jesse, one of the owners, talked about seeing a little boy in the women's restroom on the first floor. Turns out his two children had also seen this little boy, and no one really knew how to go about bringing it up, because everyone felt a little crazy. So once there was a kind of a mutual understanding of everyone experiencing and seeing this little boy ghost. It just kind of ramped up from there. And about five years after we opened, we started offering paranormal investigations. We had a lot of local mediums and psychics come out, and we just had really good luck and really good activity happening. So we thought, what a cool thing to open up to the public, and we are still doing them this year is sold out, sadly, but we will have dates for next year very soon.
Samantha Sette 36:05
That's awesome. And so I asked one of our guests this earlier, but prior to this experience, did you believe in ghosts?
Madison Stephens 36:13
I did believe in ghosts. I actually did some in home caregiving, and I have experienced a lot within doing that field, and like staying in people's homes to take care of them, you quickly can get around their environment. And long story short, I had a lot of things happen in one lady's home, and I quit. And then I went to Belvoir, and to my surprise, there was also activity there, but it was very light hearted and very welcoming at the winery, so I stayed.
Samantha Sette 36:42
This is interesting. I've noticed across the those folks who I've talked to so far that the activity that they're experiencing tends to be positive. You know, it's got this kind of Casper friendly ghost energy versus something scary. And I'm curious if you have you yourself partaken or like, experienced this?
Madison Stephens 37:02
Oh yeah, especially at the winery. Like I said, I've been here for going on eight years. Nothing surprises me anymore. My first shift was an overnight shift, and they were the worst shifts ever. But around 3am I heard a little girl say hello in my office on the third floor, and that is where the hotel rooms are, and that's also what would have been their classrooms back in the day, and we would have had matrons on that floor as well. And so I saw heard a little girl say hello, and that was a very interesting intro into the ghost world. But I have experienced things that can maybe be a little bit scary, but they're not trying to be aggressive. I've seen a few apparitions that didn't seem that didn't seem very happy to see me in the winery. But
Samantha Sette 37:51
And have you ever had any guests or visitors notice these ghostly activities as well?
Madison Stephens 37:56
Definitely, lots of guests have things happen all the time. Actually, in our overnight rooms, we have a book where people can write reviews experiences, anything like that, that they want to share with other guests who stay in that room, and often it is just all filled up with ghost stories or what they may or may not have experienced. So that can be really fun. One of the things I hear most is that people will feel someone sit on the bed next to them like so much so that they're the weight of them on the bed starts to roll in that direction, and there's never anyone in the room. People have heard old school bells, although we do not have a schoolhouse on site anymore. Hearing the bells is really interesting. You know, outside of just your hearing the shower turn on, hearing giggles, that sort of thing there are. Each room tends to have a more specific haunt, if you will.
Samantha Sette 38:46
What does that do with wine? You know, like, this is just, is this just because of where, you know, where the winery sits, and where what used to occur there? Or do you ever find the ghosts kind of like interact with the wine? Is there any sort of hidden meaning there?
Madison Stephens 39:05
So before the winery was here, the property was the independent Odd Fellows home. And so the independent order, the Odd Fellows, I think, is where all of this haunting, slash ghost, may start. The Odd Fellows created a property where people who did not have money, if you were a woman, or if you had kids, or if you were a kid, you could come to this property to seek help, but a lot of people with that naturally come here to safely and peacefully pass away. So because of that, there's a large death toll on the property of about 10,000 people. I think that's why it's haunted. But that's like one of those big questions that I wish I had the answer to, but Dr bean originally bought this property and made it into a winery, because that's what his wife, Marcia wanted. So yeah, we didn't really know that it would come with ghosts,
Samantha Sette 39:53
But being kind of cool special add ons, like when you're checking out the car and you click Add on
Madison Stephens 39:58
Right
Samantha Sette 39:59
Beyond the events that you hold there, around the activity and the ghosts, do you pay tribute in any way to the ghosts through wine and what you offer there? And like any specific blend or tasting experience?
Madison Stephens 40:13
We don't really have any wines dedicated to the ghosts right now. Sadly, that would be really fun, actually. But yeah, we do have any wine dedicated to the ghost. We host an annual oddfellow exhibit event. Local people can come out at that time and look at odd fellow artifacts that we have on site, learn a bit more about the Odd Fellows and that sort of thing. So we like to host that once a year, just help let people know about the Odd Fellows, because there's not a lot of information on them. They were really cool, but also very, very secretive,
Samantha Sette 40:45
Yeah, and I guess Finally, on that point, like, do you find the energy is different this time of year? Like, what does Halloween look like at Belvoir winery?
Madison Stephens 40:54
Halloween is crazy, I think, as it is anywhere you just, you know, anywhere is going to be crazy on Halloween, but a haunted location, especially Bellevue, or Bellevue or is known as one of the most haunted locations in the Midwest. So we are very popular. We do have some fun Halloween parties going on. We have paranormal investigations. And if you stay overnight with us on Halloween, we bring all of our ghost equipment out, and we just have a one big investigation party. And that can be really, really fun.
Samantha Sette 41:26
I love that. Well, Madison, if you have any last final like plugs that you want to give or stories you want to share, here is take the stage. Here it is.
Madison Stephens 41:35
You are so sweet. I actually would love to tell one of my ghost stories with you all. I've had a lot of things happen at the winery. Most common for me, I hear things. Rather than seeing apparitions, we get lots of hellos, lots of giggling, lots and lots of giggling. But there was one day that I came into the winery, it was a bit of a different start, because no one was on site. Usually there's at least like our groundskeepers or someone is on site. It was just me this day, and weirdly enough, the fire alarm was going off. No clue as to what triggered that. And now, looking back, it may have been the ghost, but I was running through the halls trying to see if there was anything happening, and I got to the front door to turn off the alarm, and as I was running to the front door, I saw a little boy standing in the hallway on the right side of the first floor. And I saw him. He saw me. We acknowledged each other. I ran down the stairs to turn off the alarm and then to come see if the child was okay. The whole time, I'm thinking, why? What is this kid doing here? There's no parents here, like, what is he doing here? And so I tried to go back around the hallway, and not a soul was in the building. And I have locked that image of that little boy in my head since then, and I try to find him in old photographs and things like that, and I wonder if he was just trying to get my attention or say hello, because although this was a children's home. We don't experience too many children activities. So that one really stood out. I could tell that we made eye contact, and it just felt like he was acknowledging me and I was acknowledging him. And so there was no space in my brain to think that that wasn't a real human so that's been really weird. I'm still trying to process that one in my head.
Samantha Sette 43:22
And you haven't seen or come across this little boy since?
Madison Stephens 43:25
I have not, no, I have looked at so many photos, I think that it may be the same ghost that the owner, Jesse, saw in the restroom. We've all only seen one little boy, so I wonder if it's him, but that that's the only child that I have seen, and that has just been really cool to see.
Samantha Sette 43:42
Yeah, I bet. And I guess you didn't get to know the population of ghosts that are nearby, if you notice any like parallels between what guests are saying and what your team is saying.
Madison Stephens 43:55
Yep, absolutely it can be. It's really fun to see what everybody experiences, because some of the staff experience things completely different than other staff members. And I think it really depends on how open you are to receiving, you know, a sign or a message or anything like that, from the paranormal. But yes, if you're lacking any spooky definitely come out to the winery.
Samantha Sette 44:17
You know I never thought about that. It seems like you do have to be open to receiving this kind of stuff because you show up and you're not, it's you're not going to really be able to fully experience and appreciate that
Madison Stephens 44:29
Yep, yep, you're just closed off. I have people that come into the tasting room and it's already like a big wall is up, and I'm like, I don't want to talk to you about the ghost. I can already tell you don't want to hear it. But you know, some people are into it. Some people are not. But it's really fun in the workplace to have all these ghosts around. I think we like them here. yeah.
Samantha Sette 44:47
Oh yeah and with wine, which is such a sensory, multi sensory experience, you add this kind of like third dimension of life to it, or past life, whatever you want to call it, and you. Know, I feel like that could really make a memorable experience around wine.
Madison Stephens 45:04
Yeah, I agree. It's really, really fun. You'll have to come out and have some wine with us.
Samantha Sette 45:08
Oh, totally. Well, I guess this leaves us. If you have any loss of final plugs or other stories because, like, I'm all ears, or if you just want to shout out the winery one last time,
Madison Stephens 45:18
Oh my gosh, yeah, I genuinely we could be here forever talking about ghost stories, but, yeah, lots of things have happened, but all very good. It just seems like they're definitely trying to get your attention. If anyone is interested in ghost stories, we do post on our Facebook page, and we also will post clips that our cameras captured, just because who doesn't want to see the evidence?
Samantha Sette 45:41
I love that. I want to see the evidence. I'm gonna go check that out. Well, Madison, thank you so much again for taking the time with chatting with us today. We are so excited, and we wish you the best of spooky seasons.
Madison Stephens 45:52
Thank you. Thank you for having us on we're excited.
Samantha Sette 45:57
Are spooky haunted wineries on your wine travel bucket list? Or are you looking for something more scenic? We'd love to know you can email us your comments and questions at podcast@wineenthusiast.com, and be sure to check out our new travel listing directory at wineenthusiast.com/travel for more inspiration. Remember you can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, and anywhere else you listen to your favorite shows, you can also go to wineenthusiast.com/podcast for more episodes and transcripts. I'm Samantha setti, thanks for listening.
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