Show Me Some Wine!

Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Missouri. The Show Me State. Home of four AVAs and before Prohibition the second-largest wine producing state in the country.

And being in St. Louis meant that these wineries were a hop, skip and jump from me.

So what did I do? Naturally, in our Friday afternoon break, I grabbed the car and started out to wine country. Missouri has over 80 wineries to choose from located both within and outside of their AVAs. Given my love of AVAs, I wanted to try to reach those in designated regions. All four are within a reasonable drive from St. Louis.

Given that I was being accompanied by my personal sommelier but somewhat easily bored teenager, Sophie, I decide to stick as close to the hotel as I could to keep her happy. This narrowed my options to two.

Augusta was the first designated appellation in the US beginning June 20, 1980 and is located along the river bottoms and alluvial plains of the Missouri River though generally at slightly higher elevations. The loamy soil has more of a clay content. The location is that of one of the first wineries in the state, the Mount Pleasant Winery. The region is fifteen (15) square miles and is home to seven wineries and one brewery.

I visited two of the wineries.

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