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By George Rowand
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
If you’ve been inside a local wine shop in the past few years, you undoubtedly have seen the merchandise produced by Rappahannock Mudworkg. Located somewhere in the shop you can usually find a wine bottle-shaped display with 30 ceramic or porcelain wine stoppers.
“We bought this business a couple of years ago,” said Lynn Hubsch, owner of Rappahannock Mudworks with his wife Karen. “The former owner was moving to the Philippines, and he said, “Why don’t you buy the company?’
“Karen and I thought it would be a good thing to do, so we bought it, and we love it. The former owner had a 4,000-client list.”
Put a cork in it
“Our primary item is a wine stopper. We make the premier wine stopper in the United States,” Hubsch said proudly. “People collect them, they use them?—they make good gifts.”
In spite of the wide-ranging business that Rappahannock Mudworks in Warrenton has, Hubsch said competition is fierce.
“The ceramics business in this country is taking a beating from China,” he stated.
To stay in business, Hubsch said they have had to be creative.
“We have a catalog of designs that can go onto the wine stoppers, or onto any piece of ceramics or porcelain, really,” Hubsch said. “We have virtually every dog design, every horse design, hunt scenes ... seashells, dolphins, sharks, grapes ... a myriad oi designs.”
He displayed a project on which he and his wife are currently working. A customer supplied them with her china and asked them to add hunt scenes to each piece.
“We can do that,” Hubsch said “We do things like that all the time.”
A walk through the work area at Rappahannock Mudworks shows he isn’t exaggerating. There are thousands of wine stoppers, as well as
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