Now, there are a couple of ways to get warm if you're watching from the Seagrove area.

One of them is beside a kiln at one of the more than 50 pottery studios in the neighborhood.

Another way is to stop by the General Wine and Brew, and Rick Sullivan decided to do both.

- [Rick] This is Highway 705, also known as Pottery Highway.

That's because it runs through the town of Seagrove, the largest concentration of potters this side of the Mississippi River.

About a hundred potters can be found here, working in about 50 to 60 studios.

It's a tradition that goes back centuries, and it all started with good dirt.

- As European settlers were migrating across North Carolina, they were farming.

And this area has really rich soil, great for farming, and as it turns out, has an extraordinarily, a great amount of clay that is incredibly useful for making things out of.

- [Rick] Some of these potteries go back as many as eight generations.

You can find out more history and information by stopping in at the North Carolina Pottery Center when you get to Seagrove, - We're able to provide maps of the local area, and we have those local example shelves.

So that gives individuals an idea to gauge what they're interested in and see which potters they want to go visit.

- [Rick] Choosing a direction to start off and then shopping the potteries is great adventure.

Meeting and getting to know a potter is even better.

And watching them at work is the best yet.

- I'm just gonna turn a vase.

This is a form I like a lot.

It's kind of a classic Greek shape.

- [Rick] David Fernandez grew up in Salt Lake City.

He studied and trained in Washington state, and he's been in Seagrove for nearly two decades.

He threw this vase together in a matter of minutes while we chatted.

- I learned in 1972, when I was in college.

My best answer when people ask me how long it takes to make pottery, I usually say 50 years and 15 minutes.

- [Rick] David not only creates pottery while he talks.

He's the mayor of Seagrove between the pots.

And in the afternoons and evenings, he now owns and operates the General Wine and Brew, a long overdue and instantly popular town hangout that opened after the isolation and distancing that was COVID.

- [David] Well, the General is in the original general store of Seagrove.

The building was built back in 1910, and it's been several different things.

It's been an upholstery shop, a general store, of course, and then it was our pottery gallery.

We converted it to the wine bar in the fall of 2020.

- [Rick] The General is a watering hole with some great beer and wine selections, some snacks, and quite often, food trucks.

And it's a great place to relax with shopping friends or to meet the locals.

A visit to Seagrove can be a great day trip, but you'll want more.

With so many great potteries to visit and potters to meet, my wife Lisa and I grabbed a room at the Seagrove Stoneware Inn.

David and his wife, Alexa, own the inn, as well as the General, and the Seagrove Stoneware Pottery Shop.

- David does everything with this pattern.

You saw him make pieces today.

So when he throws this on the wheel, he lets it get leather hard, and he takes a little wire tool and he cuts these lines in it.

He likes to decorate the outside of his pieces.

So now, he's doing all this stamping, especially on more of the vases and the bowls.

All my pieces are, they're very simple.

Most of my glazes are more of, they might be dipped twice.

I don't do a lot of decoration.

I just kinda do a simple contemporary look to the piece.

- [Rick] For some visitors, a pottery shopping trip to Seagrove is a pilgrimage.

- Friendships of the people we've made over here.

And they're just special.

A lot of them are like family now to us.

- [Rick] For these ladies from Tennessee, it's an annual girl trip.

- [Marlina] I moved from Tennessee to North Carolina back in 1991.

- [Rick] Uh-huh.

- I was raised in East Tennessee, around Knoxville, northeast of Knoxville, in Tazewell, Tennessee.

Best friend since fifth grade, Kammie, Sturgill now.

- Haynes.

- And her mama.

Well, sorry, Haynes.

[group laughs] And her mama, Georgie Duncan.

So when I moved down here after I got married, they came to visit me.

So we came to Seagrove.

Every single year, we've made the voyage down here.

We've been the jug ladies ever since.

- [Rick] How about that?

- And now, we have the littlest jug lady.

- [Kammie] The jug baby.

- Jug baby.

- The General Wine and Brew is at 124 West Main Street in Seagrove, and they're open every day except Monday.

For more information, give them a call at [336] 872-0034.

Or visit them online at thegeneralwineandbrew.com.