“There’s a lot of excitement throughout the North about the Marquette because it’s showing tannin,” explained assistant winemaker Allan Hyland. “It gives it that real mouth feel that wine lovers appreciate, and not many other Illinois-grown grapes have that.” The hybrid was first introduced from Minnesota in 2006 and is a descendant of the Pinot Noir grape.

Galena Cellars is a Lawlor Family winery and was established in Galena in 1985. Three generations of the Lawlor family have been involved in the winery, which currently produces more than 40,000 gallons of wine.

Please see: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/taplin/cold-hardy-grapes-documentary

A genuine winery experience is marketable, as evidenced by the many wineries that have succeeded not only through the popularity of their wines but also by giving their largely urban customers something they can’t get in the city or the suburbs.

Back in 1989, Don Henley, formerly of the classic rock group the Eagles, wrote a lyric that still resonates today;  ”Somewhere back there in the dust, that same small town in each of us.”  For many visitors, your winery represents that classic American “small town.”

While stereotyped images of rural life are largely inaccurate, the special role regional wineries play in customer’s lives is a result of a number of changes in American life over the past several generations.  Consider that in 1900,  39% of Americans lived on farms; today it’s 1%.   For many of your customers,  your winery and vineyard are as close to food or beverage production as they will ever get.

A trip to a regional winery also provides an escape for urbanites and suburbanites who now have limited contact with owner operated businesses.  (Shopping at Costco or Kohl’s is certainly efficient, but it does not provide much satisfaction at a human level.)

Your customers really do want to hear your story and the story of your winery.  All tasting room employees should be able to recite the history of your winery in their own words.  Adding comments about how your winery is connected to your region also gives agritourists a reason to feel good about spending their money at your tasting room.

It might seem obvious, but one of the greatest marketing tools each Midwest winery possesses is a completely unique story that visitors can relate to.

If you don’t have time or staff enough to talk with everyone personally, post some interesting articles or facts about your winery and your region on the walls.  As a winery owner, you hold the title to a great locale for shooting photos of vineyards, winery events, harvests, happy customers, etc.  (Get permission before photographing customers however.)  Have your photos framed and hang them around your winery, especially in washrooms.

Here’s another suggestion: Take a moment to consider the lives and experiences of your urban clients.

Did you know that most people in this country no longer live within 50 miles of where they grew up?

To climb the corporate ladder today generally means a transient lifestyle for a long period. And when many people do come back home,  they probably find their hometowns unrecognizable anyway.

DuPage County, Illinois, outside of Chicago where I grew up, is a good example.  There are now few landmarks remaining from 40 years ago, instead the area is now mainly dead shopping malls stretching like mountains beyond mountains.  (OK, I will stop quoting song lyrics.)

In this fast paced world,  your winery is a bridge to the primal comfort that comes from being connected with a specific piece of unpaved land.   Much of  this romantic notion of wineries comes from France and Italy, of course.   Europeans are often better than we are at expressing romantic concepts, but under our hard exteriors we Americans are sentimental about our history. The Disney theme park business is essentially built on this retro concept.

In a recent article in “Slow Wine Italy 2012,” the owner of a small Italian winery explained the difference between American mobility and the appeal of his winery this way:  “A visiting American told me that every five years he moved 2,000 kilometers farther away from home. I’ve never lived more than 1oo meters from home my entire life.”   The article  goes on to describe the wine maker as “totally enamored of his corner of the Langhe hills…never seeing the need to move away and smiling when he thinks about the huge gap between his way of life and the life of the his American friend.

Finally, the American local food movement bodes well for the regional wine industry.  If there’s not a local culinary scene in your area,  meet with other local wineries to discuss attracting the right kind of restaurants.  ”Farm to table” is very fashionable in big cities currently.

During March, I attended the “Good Food Festival” in Chicago, which is a large, local food festival.

During a conference session on using fermentation to preserve food, presenter Ben Walker drilled down to the heart of the local food movement:  ”We humans can adjust our behaviors rapidly, the same way yeast and bacteria adapt to changing environments.  We are very good at this,  which is why we cover the planet from the Arctic to the Tropics.  Now, the way for us to cover the planet in a less destructive fashion is to explore some of the old ways from when we were exquisitely tuned into the processes of localities.   By returning to the geography of specific places and the ways of traditional cultures we have the potential for transforming some aspects of our society which are dysfunctional.”

So what does all this mean for your winery?  Keep expressing your local personality.  Involve and engage your customers as much as possible. Share the beauty you have created and your business will grow.

Here are some the most read tasting room management articles from Midwest Wine PRess

1. Four Simple Ways to Increase Tasting Room Revenue (August 2012)

2. Top Ten Tasting Room Etiquette Tips (May 2013)

3. Six Steps for Increasing Tasting Room Sales (October 2012)

4. Managing The Tasting Room Experience (May 2013)

5. Are Kids Taking Over the Region’s Wineries?  (November 2011)

6. Why Your Winery is the Local Attraction (March 2012, updated May 2013)

Nina Furstenau’s Savor Missouri River Hill Country,  is a travel guide for tourists in search of a true “local” experience.  While some the 72 destinations in the book are well-known, many are obscure gems that only someone intimately familiar with the area would know.

For example, Connie Cunningham in Morrison raises German Embden and French Toulouse geese and is opening a bed and breakfast during 2013.   And did you know that  Bias Winery in Berger is the second winery-microbrewery combination in the U.S.?

This book is full of details for the serious agritourist and local wine enthusiast.  Many Missouri wineries serve Norton, Vignoles and maybe one or two other wines, but Bias Winery makes wine from unusual estate grown grapes like Fredonia and DeChaunac as well as Catawba and Seyval.  Vinifera varietals are notoriously hard to grow in Missouri, but Savor Missouri explains that River Ridge Winery in Commerce makes estate grown Merlot, Syrah and Chardonnay.

According to Furstenau’s book, Hemman Winery in Brazeau even makes a “cushaw” wine, whatever that is.

The premise behind “Savor Missouri” is the existence of a rural food and wine based cultural area along a 230 mile stretch of the Mississippi River extending from Hannibal to just past Cape Girardeau.  This region, which the author calls “River Hill Country,” also includes the popular tourist destinations, like Hermann, that line the Missouri River west of St. Louis.

If culture is defined as a blend of art, commerce and history that creates its own personality,  Furstenau makes a good case that River Hill Country qualifies as a cultural destination.  Culture in this part of Missouri includes wine, beer, distilled spirits and a surprisingly diverse range of food producers including Baetje Farms in Bloomsdale which has won international awards for goat cheese.

Furstenau, a teacher at the University of Missouri Science and Agricultural Journalism Program in Columbia, knows that every good story includes interesting characters.   And there are no shortage of colorful characters in this book.  High quality color photos of every business owner profiled helps convey the spirit of entrepreneurism and the work ethic that defines this part of Missouri.  You can almost see the passion in the eyes of winery owners, like Chuck Dressel of Mount Pleasant Winery, whose livelihood depends on the health of 60,000 grape vines.

Cave Vineyard, where you can drink wine in a real cave, is just one of the distinctive wineries in Missouri River Hill Country.

What impressed me most about the artisan producers profiled in Savor Missouri is how long and how hard they have worked to perfect their craft:

• Peter Hofherr, the owner of St. James Winery, Missouri’s largest, started in the winery at age nine carrying cases of wine for customers.  ”The better jokes I had, the better tips I got,” he jokes in the book.
• Ed Woods of Woods Smoked Meats in Hermann, “has been interested in meats since he was 12 years old.”   Ed is now in the Meat Processors Cured Meats Hall of Fame and he travelled to Turkmenistan in 1995 to help set up a sausage shop.
• The land on which Overland Farm in Clarksville currently operates was given to owner Nathalie Pettus’ great-great grandfather by the King of Spain.  One interesting aspect of Southeast Missouri history is that the area was settled one hundred years before the rest of the Midwest.
• Missouri wineries are some of the oldest in the Midwest and the families who run them are profiles in determination.  Thomas Held of Stone Hill Winery (established in 1847) “started slipping little plastic seals on wine bottles” when he was two-and-one-half-years old.
• Paul Le Roy, winemaker for Hermannof Winery in Hermann, started at the Winery as cellar hand when he was in high school.  Thirty one years later,  ”he still values elbow grease and timing,” qualities the builders of the 161 year old wine caves at Hermanoff would certainly appreciate if they were alive today.
• Tim Puchta is the sixth generation of his family to work at Adam Puchta Winery in Hermann,  the oldest family owned winery in the United States.

Savor Missouri makes a persuasive case that the unique businesses and colorful proprietors make this part of Missouri a unique travel destination that is worth a long weekend.

One indication that River Hills County is an authentic agritourism region is that some of the restaurants featured in the book do carry local wines.  According to Sybill Scheffer at Sybill’s in St. James,  her restaurant does carry wines from local wineries including Peaceful Bend Winery, Wenwood Farms and White Mule.  However, James Allen with Celebrations Restaurant in Cape Girardeau said the wineries in his immediate area sell all the wine they produce in their tasting rooms and therefore don’t appear on his wine list.

If you want to see more local wines on restaurant wine lists when you travel, it’s important to let your server or the restaurant owner know that your prefer local wine with local food. It’s also important to have a good tour book like Savor Missouri so you don’t waste time visiting places that are not truly part of the local culture.

However, the nature of Midwest wineries presents an inherent risk: The majority of regional wineries cannot be accessed without an automobile.  As a result, the vast majority of Midwest winery tasting room visitors are coming and going in their own cars.

No one needs another lecture on drinking and driving, but public safety concerns and the potential liability of alcohol related incidents are too big to ignore, which is what some regional wineries appear to be doing.

Tour buses provide a valuable service to regional wineries while reducing local traffic during peak wine tourist season.

Recently, I visited the websites of five large Midwest wineries looking for information about responsible alcohol use.  All the Midwest winery websites I visited have significant tasting room sales which involves plenty of on premise wine tasting.   To my surprise, none of the winery websites contained any message about drinking and driving or responsible drinking.

Despite the apparent silence of Midwestern wineries,  public opinion regarding drunk driving has become more conservative over the past several decades.  According to a November 2012 Rasmussen Report study, 46% of respondents say drunken driving penalties are not stiff enough and 39% say penalties are currently adequate.

Just this week, The National Transportation Safety Board released numerous recommendations aimed at reducing drunken driving in the United States. The one recommendation that grabbed the most attention is a proposal to cut the current blood-alcohol-content level threshold nearly in half, from .08 to .05 percent blood alcohol content.

(Ironically, public opinions regarding marijuana use are becoming more tolerant. According to recent CBS Poll, nearly half of respondents think pot should be legal.  Driving stoned is as bad as driving drunk, but police cannot administer roadside urine tests, yet.)

For good reason, drunk driving is now a class 1 or class A misdemeanor in all Midwestern states.  In Illinois, where I live, a drunk driving conviction results in a minimum one year suspension of driving privileges, a $500 fine and 100 hours of community service.  In many professions, a DUI can result in termination and now some professional designations can be automatically revoked for DUI’s.

If  drunk driving prevention is such a priority, why don’t Midwest wineries do more to promote designated driver programs?  Some wineries do provide free soft drinks to designated drivers but seldom does one see any public notice of this important incentive to have a non-drinker do the driving.

To promote responsible drinking, free wine tastings should become a thing of the past.  From both a business or public perception standpoint, there is no longer any logical rationale for free wine tastings.   Giving away any product diminishes its value and attracts customers interested in “freebies.”

As wine trails grow and become more popular, it is incumbent on Midwest wineries to promote responsible drinking.   Recently,  I witnessed a police car sitting directly outside one of the Midwest’s largest wineries.  While this practice smacks of police intimidation, there are doubtlessly wine trail area residents who are justifiably concerned about winery customers who might be drinking and driving.

Wineries with concert facilities need to be especially diligent.   Outdoor event patrons can sneak alcohol into events if not properly monitored.  Paying security personnel to walk the crowd during concerts and outdoor events is a good policy.  Having security personnel provides reassurance to guests that winery events are safe and not a place for rowdy behavior.  Most concert promoters and professional sports teams now check ticket holder’s bags as they enter venues, so your guests will not be offended.

After visiting hundreds of Midwest winery tasting rooms and events over the past ten years, I have only seen a few overserved people.  The vast majority of winery visitors are responsible and law-abiding.  However,  it only takes one newsworthy incident to turn public opinion negative. If your winery does not have a visible, public policy regarding responsible drinking,  please consider adding one now.

Tempranillo vines planted in 2008 grow at Walker’s Bluff Winery near Carbondale, Illinois.

Walker’s Bluff Winery near Carbondale, Illinois, has bottled an estate grown Pinot Grigio, according to winemaker Chelsea Mulinax.  Also in production at Walker’s Bluff are several other wines made from vinifera grapes that have not been produced in Illinois for generations, if ever.   Among the other wines that Walker’s Bluff will be bottling using grapes from their 14 acre vineyard are Barbera, Syrah and Tempranillo.

Walker’s Bluff also grows Sangiovese and Sangranito with the later vines planted in 2012.  Mulinax reports that the Sangiovese is thriving with 95% of vines producing fruit during the 2012 harvest.   Tempranillo also seems well suited to Southern Illinois conditions, she said.

See related story:  Offbeat Grapes Growing Across Midwest 

On the other hand, last year’s heat and drought produced significant mortality for Syrah, although the vineyard is drip irrigated.  Despite the reduced crop, Mulinax said that the 2012 Syrah produced a high quality wine with “delicate floral notes” that will be priced at around $130 a bottle.  The 2012 Pinot Grigio, which may be the first commercial Illinois Pinot Grigio since Prohibition, will be priced around $35-$30 a bottle, she said.

All the winery’s grafted, phylloxera resistant rootstock was purchased by Walker’s Bluff from Vintage Nursery in Wasco, California. The winery’s website states the Walker’s Bluff worked with horticulturists at Cal Tech to design strains of West Coast cultivars that can be grown in Southern Illinois.  All grapes are grown on a vertical shoot positioning trellis system.

Walker’s Bluff Winery is owned by David and Cynde Bunch.  Cynde is from Cambria, Illinois where her father was a coal miner.

According to Mulinax, a graduate of Southern Illinois University who is from the Rockford area, winery owners David and Cynde Bunch wanted a departure from the wine grapes that are traditionally grown in Southern Illinois.  So when the winery started in 2008,  the Bunch’s planted 900 Barbera vines, 1,000 Tempranillo vines and 1,000 Sangiovese vines. (The only vinifera grape that is commonly grown in Southern Illinois is Cabernet Franc. Hybrid grapes comprise the majority of the planted acreage in the region.)

Last year, Walker’s Bluff opened their tasting room which is part a 160 acre entertainment campus that includes a wine cave and outdoor amphitheater for concerts. The Bunch’s also plan to build a 100 room hotel and convention facility on the property.

Walker’s Bluff is not part of the nearby Shawnee Hills Wine Trail which lies in the Shawnee Hills American Viticultural Area.  Instead, the winery has decided to operate independently.  Mulinax said that Walker’s Bluff is considering a federal petition for a separate AVA that would include Walker’s Bluff and nearby Monte Alegre Winery.  David and Beth Ponce of Monte Alegre helped Walker’s Bluff start their vineyard and winery.

Walker’s Bluff added a wine cave in 2012 with capacity for eight hundred 52 gallon wine barrels.

Desired Qualifications of Volunteer:

• Proven expertise in cold hardy grape cultivars;

• Adequate experience in providing training/advice on grape growing

Issue Description:

Until recently growing grapes was traditionally associated with the regions that have enough sunshine and mild winters. However, the emergence of cold hardy grape cultivars in the 1990s in the U.S. opened up the opportunities for the northern countries, once considered unsuitable for viticulture, to experiment with grape growing.

In Belarus the leader in the area of grape growing technologies development is the Plant Mineral Nutrition Laboratory (PMNL). It is a self-funded research division at the National Institute for Experimental Phytology. PMNL has a collection of cold hardy cultivars of table grapes and grapes for processing purposes. The list of cultivars include: Prairie Star, Frontenac gris, Adelmiina, Buffalo, St. Pepin and Marquette. PMNL is engaged in testing the above cultivars, development of the technologies to propagate them and adapt to the Belarusian climate conditions.

PMNL propagates grape cultivars in vitro and adapts the planting stock for in vivo conditions by providing them with the optimal mineral nutrition in the ion substrate. It then sells the planting stock to the local grape growers and monitors its development in vivo conditions. PMNL’s major achievement is that several cultivars have reached the sugar content indicated by their breeders as an industry standard.

Nowadays commercial grape growing becomes popular in Belarus, many businesses consider making grape juice, yougurt fillers and puree for baby food. One of the largest commercial enterprises – Pinsk Vineyards – requested PMNL to provide it with cold hardy planting stock. Last year PMNL supplied it with 20 pilot vines. It provides the staff of this enterprise with guidance and supervision to ensure that the plants are healthy and develop well. While PMNL staff achieved significant progress in managing grape growing, they are not confident that they can cope with all issues that arise. For example, the pilot vines have survived the winter season and looked healthy, but the spring frost seemed to damage them.

PMNL staff is aware that grape breeding research is extensively carried out in the University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin and University of North Dakota, and that the U.S. researchers have achieved excellent results in breeding numerous cold hardy cultivars yielding 15-20% of sugar. For this reason PMNL seeks CNFA volunteer technical assistance in evaluating the potential suitability of various cold hardy grape cultivars for the Belarusian climate conditions and developing the guidelines to test the performance of selected cultivars.

In particular, PMNL needs advice and training in the following areas: 1) cold climate varieties of table grapes and grapes for processing purposes that could be cultivated in zone 5 where Belarus belongs (in accordance with the USDA classification of cold hardiness zones); 2) techniques to evaluate the cultivars suitable for the Belarusian climate; 3) techniques to prepare grape vines for the winter season; 4) accelerated propagation techniques.

The volunteer is expected to share with a wider audience the general information of the U.S. experience of growing grapes in cold climate, visit several vineyards, research institutions and farms, and participate in a roundtable discussion on northern grapes.

For More Information contact: afeuillet@cnfa.org

Since the law passed, Ohio has suddenly seen new micro-breweries and micro-distilleries spring up all over. It’s not surprising, then, that wineries have also jumped on the trend – although some wineries have been well ahead of the curve on this one.

If you’re someone who enjoys beer, wine and spirits, why not plan a trip to one of the wineries listed here? You’ll not only be able to sample some of Ohio ’s finest wine – but a great beer or spirit as well. Salut!

For More Information See: The Wine Buzz (May/June edition page six)

NPR also broke a piece of news in the report:  Coyote Moon Vineyards in Clayton, New York has the first commercial Frontenac blanc for sale.  (The University of Minnesota, who developed the grape, does not capitalize the “b” in “blanc” but Coyote Moon does.  Midwest Wine would like to propose that the second word in all grape names be capitalized.)

 Take a listen at: http://www.npr.org/2013/05/16/184399442/researchers-dont-wine-about-cold-weather-their-grapes-thrive