Blue Ridge Estate Vineyard and Winery in Saylorsburg was listed in June among the top 25 wineries in the nation by Travel and Leisure magazine.

The list was compiled from consumer reviews on the product rating website Yelp. Consumers gave Blue Ridge five stars out of five. In the magazine rating, Blue Ridge came in 13th and the highest ranking vineyard on the east coast. The top 10 wineries were all in California.Randy Detrick, vintner and owner of Blue Ridge Estate Vineyard and Winery, said he was thrilled to hear about the ranking, because it came from the customers reviews."It's truly what people are saying across the country," he said.Detrick said he thinks his vineyard ranked so high for a couple reasons: one, the quality of the wine, and two, the atmosphere of the vineyard."The mission of the vineyard is to add value to people's lives," he said.Detrick believes that spending money on an experience is more important than on things. An experience leaves lasting, happy memories. His goal at the vineyard is to give people that experience."We have spectacular wine, a great setting and a wonderful atmosphere," he said. "I think that's the biggest reason why people like coming to Blue Ridge."Detrick also has events like wine cellar tours, murder mystery dinners, sip and paint, dinners in the vineyard, and burying the next batch of Underground wine on Halloween weekend.Detrick didn't start off as a vintner. He actually was a ski racer and owner of Star Medical Inc. in Stroudsburg.As a racer, Detrick and his wife, Tiffany, traveled around the world. It was on one of those trips that they became enamored with the winemaking business, so they sold their other business and used the money to create a vineyard on their 80-acre estate in Saylorsburg. They planted their first vine seven years ago. Three years later, they opened the tasting center that is open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the restaurant that serves dinner every Friday night from 6 to 9 p.m.Blue Ridge Estate Vineyard offers 25 different wines from dry to sweet and reds to whites, as well as fruit wines made from apples from Heckman Orchards in Effort, raspberries, oranges, peaches and cranberries."I try to make something for everyone," he said.Prices range from $12 per bottle for fruity wines like Inspiration, which has an apricot taste to $64 for Underground, which is a dry red wine buried underground for about nine months in a former bourbon barrel. Both are customer favorites along with Conscious, which Detrick describes as "a complex white wine that smells like a Moscato, feels on the tongue like a riesling and ends dry as if it's a chardonnay."Detrick said he doesn't work too hard on the names of his wines. The names come to him after pondering them a little while, but he does work on the art for the label. Although he doesn't think of himself as an artist."You can do anything if you think about it," he said.