The Most Unlikely Place to Find Phenomenal Wine
This summer, I spent a lot of time walking through our vineyards. The weather was cool — it was one of the coolest Missouri summers on record.
But as I looked at our ripening grapes, the temperatures in the mid-70s left a pit in my stomach. For Norton grapes to ripen properly, they need as many warm days as they can get. I felt this year’s crop would be average at best.
When I tasted the grapes, I was pleasantly surprised. Things had changed dramatically in the last few days on the vine, even as we were picking them. The flavors were far beyond what the analysis numbers predicted. The fruit flavors had migrated from the bland and moved to the most interesting flavors of clove and cinnamon, seeping flavor notes from a much warmer year.
This is the beauty and the agony of making wine in Missouri. We don’t have the consistent weather common in most traditional wine-making regions. Instead, we’re forced to work overtime, constantly tweaking our fermentation temperatures, tannin additions, and skin contact time in response to ever-changing conditions.
That means we’re continually evolving to make sure our wines come out with the best flavors possible. And this is just one reason Missouri is pushing innovation in wine-making to create prodigious flavors.
Making Wine Against All Odds
Innovation doesn’t come easily for any industry, and wine-making in the Midwest is no different. We’re famous for four distinct seasons, baseball, and beer. Most people don’t expect Missourians to make wine, much less great wine.
Yet our state boasts some of the oldest wineries in the country, established by European immigrants who brought vine clippings in the 1800s. By 1920, there were more than 100 wineries in Missouri. But Prohibition brought Missouri’s wine production to a screeching halt, and it didn’t begin to recover for another 40 years. Even so, Augusta, Missouri, became the first American Viticultural Area in 1980.
Considering Missouri’s unique challenges, the state’s wine history is pretty amazing. Winemakers from the Show-Me State are always trying to achieve steady results, matching style and consistency for the varietal. And while the weather in other wine-making regions is fairly predictable, Missouri experiences devastating winters, hot summers, and suffocating humidity, which can expose grapes to fungus and pests. That being said, Missouri winemakers work very hard every year to combat a constant onslaught of new issues that threaten their yield.
Rising Above the Challenges
Despite these issues, I believe Missouri is the best place in the world to be making wine right now for four distinct reasons:
1. Our options are unlimited. Although we have the same range of tools and legal restrictions as other winemakers, we’re not limited stylistically. The varietals we use don’t have a traditional style, which allows us to push the envelope.
Wines from more traditional wine-producing areas, such as France and New Zealand, are limited by regulations when it comes to developing new flavors or processes in their cellars. There’s an expectation of flavor and style in traditional wine regions, whereas Missourians have a palette through which we can create our own style.
2. We’re making something new. We grow unique varieties of grapes in Missouri, which means we can discover new flavor profiles by combining them and pushing the boundaries. And these wines are wonderful, exceeding expectations for flavor, color, and aroma. Our Vignoles are unlike anything I’ve ever tasted.
3. We’re developing the next generation of disease-resistant grapes. Our grapes must be able to withstand disease, pests, and fungus created by precipitation during the growing season. In the next few years, I expect to see disease-resistant cabernet sauvignon developed in Missouri — a development that will change the wine industry dramatically.
4. We’re pushing the next generation of technology in wine-making. The higher cost per acre of producing wine in Missouri has forced our growers to mechanize their processes as much as possible. Unfortunately, only a few vineyards are mechanized, but many viticulture innovations are coming from our region, thanks to growers and the University of Missouri’s Grape and Wine Institute.
Missouri wineries are creating phenomenal wines every day that I can’t wait to try. And as we grow to understand our limitations and opportunities as a wine-growing region, our wines are only going to get better. So what if we don’t make merlot or chardonnay? That’s what makes us unique.
Andrew Meggitt joined the St. James Winery team in 2002 and has been enjoying life in the wine business for over 20 years. A three-year-long travel adventure around the world following university influenced not only his outlook on life, but also his perception of winemaking styles and methodology. Andrew creatively stretches the boundaries of traditional winemaking while integrating both old- and new-world techniques he learned while working in New Zealand and France.
