Calera, Ala. — Alabama has all sorts of tourist trails — one for civil rights, another for birds and one for old churches. The newest trail will promote the state's wineries, but Baptists aren't joining in the toast.

A trade association and a tourism group came up with the Alabama Wine Trail to lure visitors to the state's eight wineries, which produce everything from fruity muscadine and peach wines to more traditional varieties such as merlot and chardonnay.

Jay Reeves / AP (ENLARGE)

Tom Vizzini of Vizzini Farms Winery in Calera, Ala.,hopes the Alabama Wine Trail brings more tourists to his business.

Jay Reeves/STF (ENLARGE)

Vizzini Farms Winery produces as many as 3,000 cases of wine a year.

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Tom Vizzini hopes the trail will increase traffic at his Vizzini Farms Winery, which produces as many as 3,000 cases a year. He located it on the outskirts of Birmingham after church opposition in a more rural area.

"We put our wines up against any of them from California," said Vizzini, whose grandfather was a vintner in Sicily.

They can keep wine on the West Coast as far as some are concerned.

A Baptist leader in neighboring Chilton County said his group opposed plans for a winery there and doesn't like the idea of luring tourists to Alabama to imbibe.

"We are on record as being opposed to any kind of alcohol-related industry," said the Rev. Robert Griffin, moderator of the Chilton Baptist Association and pastor of Highland Baptist Church in Clanton.

It's not just wine that's a rub in conservative Alabama, where more than one-third of the state's counties are dry 75 years after Prohibition ended and Southern Baptist churches claim about one-quarter of the state's population.

The state regulates all alcohol sales, and it drew criticism in October for opening a state-run liquor store in downtown Birmingham on a Sunday afternoon. The governor intervened, and the agency said it wouldn't happen again.

The Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association hopes its promotion brings visitors to north Alabama, and it's staying out of the moral debate over alcohol.

"It's about introducing a new tourism venue," said Dana Lee Jennings, CEO of the association. Folks have enjoyed going through other states and visiting their wineries and shops with homemade cheeses and other things."

Georgia, Florida and Tennessee already have wine trails, and Kentucky has a bourbon trail. "Thank God for Mississippi. We're ahead of them," Vizzini said.

Tourist brochures will list the eight participating wineries in Alabama, all members of the Alabama Wineries Association. Visitors will get a "passport" for workers to stamp, and anyone who visits all the wineries will get a wine glass bearing the logos of each company.

"And they'll get to taste some very good wine," Vizzini said.

INFORMATION

For a guide to the trail, write or call the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association, 25062 North St., P.O. Box 1075, Mooresville, AL 35649. 1-800-648-5381, www.alabamamountainlakes.org.