DURHAM, N.C. — Noel Sherr labored in the wine business in New York City for 10 years. He was the general manager of Chambers Street Wines, one of the city’s best retailers, and worked for top importers like Polaner Selections and David Bowler Wines.

So when he and his wife, Marie, decided to leave for better weather and an opportunity to open his own business, he was loath to give up that easy access to a diversity of wonderful wines. A number of his friends had settled here in Durham, and he investigated.

“The horrible, paralyzing fear I had about leaving New York City was, ‘What am I going to drink?’ ” he recalled. “But it became apparent that we could find the wines we liked to drink. We realized we could live the life we wanted to live.”

Vibrant wine and food cultures thrive these days in all sorts of American cities — Austin, Tex.; St. Louis; Atlanta or even Birmingham, Ala. — as high-speed travel and communications make the world a smaller place. Still, I was surprised to find a Shangri-La for wine lovers blossoming here in the rolling Piedmont hills of central North Carolina.