Illinois wineries offering more than wine to attract customers

ROCHESTER — Wineries across the country, including a growing number in Illinois, are offering more than just wine these days.

To attract tourists — and wine buyers — during an economic slowdown, Illinois wineries, like their counterparts in California and elsewhere, are increasing food offerings from the requisite cheese and crackers to include a more varied menu. Many wineries are planning festivals and playing host to mystery theater presentations and live music.

Some also offer bed-and-breakfasts on their grounds, plan wine tours with other wineries and lease their facilities for weddings, receptions and reunions.

Loren Shanle, owner of the new Walnut Street Winery Plus Saunas in Rochester, sells saunas and has a bocce ball court in his outdoor wine garden. He also plans to offer live music and other events.

The winery/sauna business opened Saturday in Shanle’s former insurance office near the intersection of Illinois 29 and Walnut Street.

“I think both are healthy,” Shanle said of the demand for saunas and wine.

Bocce ball, which is popular in Italy and France, seemed like an appropriate addition to a facility offering wine made from international concentrates and juices, he said.

Walnut Street Winery is the first known winery for Rochester. Before 2007, the village banned the sale of alcohol altogether within city limits.

Many Illinois wineries have their own vineyards. Walnut Street Winery is among those that don’t.

Shanle decided against using Illinois-grown grapes, opting instead to use juices and concentrates from grapes grown elsewhere that are traditionally used in such popular wine types as chardonnay, merlot and riesling.

Wine industry observers say that while wine consumption is up in the United States, it tends to be for bottles in the $10-to-$20 price range.

“Yes and no,” Connie Lounsberry said when asked if a nationwide recession has affected her family’s Hill Prairie Winery in Oakford, nine miles north of Petersburg.

“Business has been good, but probably not as good as it could be. We feel very fortunate, however. Many of the tourists visiting the Lincoln presidential museum and Lincoln sites also visit the winery,” she said.

The Lounsberry winery operates in a renovated 1911 barn. Live music is offered most weekends and mystery theater productions about 10 times a year. The grounds also are leased for weddings and receptions.

Hill Prairie wines are made from grapes the Lounsberry family grows, as well as other grapes grown in central and southern Illinois.

Rochester Mayor Dave Armstrong said the newly opened winery in his village, like any new business, could be a financial boost to the community.

Sales tax revenues in Rochester have taken a dip, Armstrong said.

Debra Landis can be reached through the Metro Desk at 788-1517.

Illinois wine facts

*About 80 wineries operate in Illinois, but an estimated 90 percent of the state’s vineyards and 83 percent of the wineries started in the last 10 years, according to the Small Business Development Center at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

*According to the Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Association, a vineyard is an area of land equipped for the cultivation of wine grapes. A winery is the establishment at which wine is made.

*Wine must contain 75 percent Illinois grapes to be labeled Illinois wine.

*Revenue from Illinois wineries totaled $21 million in 2005, the last year for which a figure was available.