Missouri Wine Business Thrives

HERMANN - Missouri is 11th on a national list for top wine production.

A year ago it was a different story. Unseasonably cold weather put the Missouri wine business on ice.

Sampling, steaming, and diving are all part of a day's work at the Stone Hill Winery in Hermann. The winery had a bumper crop this year, which means lots of grapes.

"We've got a lot of different options to choose from this year because it was such a big crop, so we could fine tune it much better and much easier," said assistant winemaker Shaun Turnbull.

Vineyards across the state are rebounding after 2007. A spring freeze that year snuffed many crops in Missouri.

Like other wineries, Stone Hill had fewer grapes to work with. Last year, Stone Hill Winery only harvested about 65 percent of the normal amount of grapes. That means for everything on these vines, only two-thirds of it made it to the bottle.

Now the winery is adopting new strategies for harvesting grapes.

"Essentially what we're doing is leaving a lot more potential crop on the vines to get us through the initial stages of the spring and the fruit set," said general manager Jon Held.

The technology will help reduce the risks of another frigid season.

Held said the economic downturn is hurting their wine sales, but grocery store sales are holding strong.