The state’s third-largest vineyard is moving ahead with plans to expand its agricultural education offerings and fire up a distillery for sustainably grown Muscadine grapes just northeast of Chapel Hill.
Union Grove Farm has appealed Orange County’s denial in June of its plans for a 2,500-person amphitheater — the most controversial piece of the project — while advancing plans for a distillery crafting premium regenerative spirits, a 3-acre culinary garden, and its Center for Regenerative Agriculture.
Union Grove provided a rendering of the amphitheater Thursday that showed an open-air courtyard with a stage on one side and a two-story, covered space on the other. Tables surrounding the stage could hold a few hundred people, in addition to visitors there for farm tours, distillery visits and other activities, spokesman Monty Hagler said…