The Wine Road - Missouri 3 and Kansas

Missouri turned out to be a mix of serious winemakers, those that are just looking to cater to the lowest common denominator, and mom & pops that are selling what amounts to home made wines.

I have already written about Stone Hill, and after touring more of the (northern part of) the state, I still find Stone Hill to be my highest overall quality producer. Not far behind, and probably better known outside of Missouri is Mt. Pleasant.

Mt. Pleasant is yet another large property with an even larger parking lot. Their tasting room is the usual collection of gifts and wines for sale and they charge for tasting (as is common near St. Louis). I would love to see a more professional tasting environment (like the one at Stone Hill) but Mt. Pleasant is catering to the casual visitor, and they know what they are doing.

Mt. Pleasant has Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay planted. A rarity in the Midwest as most of the vinifera based wines I tasted were made from California fruit. This is not to say that Mt. Pleasant is making world class Cab and Chard, at least not yet.

The Cabernet Sauvignon was not at all successful, but the Chard was heavily oaked, with lots of buttery flavors (from the secondary fermentation) and these common winemaking flavors hid any and all fruit the wine may have had. The style was more than a little reminiscent of some well known Napa Valley Chards (I don't like those either) and so will probably sell pretty well.

Mt. Pleasant's Chardonel (a Chardonnay hybrid) was more to my taste, with some actual fruit along with the heavy handed winemaking flavors.

Port like wines are common throughout Missouri and it might turn out that these are the most successful on a national scale, but hybrid whites such as Chardonel, Vidal and Seyval seemed to me to be what the state does best. The red native grape Norton is Missouri's official grape (also sometimes called Cynthiana) and while I tasted many examples of various quality, I was never impressed. It is the basis of the state's port wines and this may be where it shines, because as a dry red wine it ranged from unpleasant to unexceptional.

The lush rolling hills of Missouri are a sport car enthusiasts idea of heaven (I would have had much too much fun in a Porsche) and there is no question that the grape wines are of a higher quality than any of its neighbors, but fruit wines and low expectations still abound.


Kansas

Standing between me and my home state of Colorado is the unlikely wine producing state of Kansas. Steeling myself for what I assumed would be a sea of indifferent fruit wines, I plunged ahead.

My first stop was Wyldewood Cellars, who's billboards and high perched roof promised me a taste of wine as I zipped down I-70. As I feared, fruit wines were lined up for tasting and I dutifully saddled up to the bar to do my part.

I was pleasantly surprised by their Elderberry wines. Their semi-sweet and Reserve Dry styles were both well balanced and well made. They each had a complexity of flavors I was delighted to find. Once again my biases were dealt a blow as I realized that talent, like wine, may come from the most unexpected quarters.

Generally I have little to say about fruit wines, not because I don't think they are worth talking about (although this is not altogether an undeserved admonishment) but mostly because I have nothing to compare them too. I have tasted thousands, even tens of thousands of grape wines, and so I know what to expect, and how to judge them. Fruit wines are just outside of my scope.

Fortunately, Kansas did have grape wines to offer me. Smokey Hill Winery presented me with a wide selection of wines all made from Kansas grapes. The Merlot that they were proud of did not wow me, but it did have a touch of recognizable character, although their Cabernet Sauvignon was not even that successful. What they did well, is what so many others have done well throughout this Midwestern foray, they made decent lightly sweet, and even very sweet wines.

Smokey Hill's simple red wine, labeled appropriately enough as Simply Red was pleasant. With enough residual sugar to hide any off flavors it was easy to enjoy, and would probably be great with pizza. The real find though was their intensely sweet red wine called Opulence. Complex and not as cloying as some sweet reds, it was the stand out wine of Kansas for me.

Home now, I will be wrapping up the trip and talking a bit more about hybrid grapes, in the days to come.