Fall for wine in Galena

Fiery foliage, wine tours and events all reasons to head to northwest Illinois in autumn

GALENA, Ill. -- The world's largest wine region would be where, do you think? If you guessed Bordeaux in France, or Australia's Barossa Valley, or even California's Napa Valley, you're off by thousands of miles.

Last July, a federal ruling designated a new U.S. wine appellation, and you can be in the thick of it in just a three-hour drive from Chicago.

The Upper Mississippi Valley wine region, which takes in Galena, Ill., covers 29,914 square miles in four states lining the mighty Mississippi. That makes it the largest American viticulture area, and the largest appellation in the world, in terms of land mass.

Actual wine production is another matter. The vineyards in northwest Illinois, eastern Iowa, southwest Wisconsin and southeast Minnesota are small, family-run affairs, most covering just four to 10 acres. You can sample wine in their cozy tasting rooms and peek at the production line. Some even let you stomp their grapes after the fall harvest, if you don't mind getting your feet wet and purple.

The Upper Mississippi Valley wine region lies in the Midwest's so-called driftless area untouched by the last advance of Ice Age glaciers. Unlike the surrounding region flattened by the immense sheets of ice, the landscape is marked by deeply carved river valleys, hills and bluffs where a patchwork of farms, fields and leafy groves spreads below. When Jack Frost colors the foliage in the fall, the contrast of greens, golds and reds makes for dramatic viewing.

Fall also brings the first wine release of the season and nouveau wine tastings, along with wine and food pairings, and tours combining leaf looking with apple picking and wine tasting.

While you certainly can tour the wineries on your own, drivers need to watch their consumption to stay within the law. Finding the wineries tucked away on country roads can be a challenge to anyone unfamiliar with the area.

"The signage sometimes isn't that great," said Dennis Dieters, owner of Iowa Wine Tours.

In spite of its name, Iowa Wine Tours does 99 percent of its business in the Galena area, Dieters said. He picks up vacationers -- the vast majority from the Chicago area -- at their lodgings in a van or motor coach. Most groups number from two to 12 people on the five tours he offers daily, though he also offers custom tours and can accommodate larger groups on request. His most popular tour, the Vinny Vanucchi's Wine Tour, lasts about four hours with visits to three wineries and costs $60 including tasting fees, transportation and an all-you-can-eat lunch served family-style at Vinny Vanucchi's Italian restaurant in downtown Galena.

A native of Dubuque, Iowa, just across the Mississippi from Galena, Dieters used to work for Galena Trolley Tours. He started his business three years ago and runs tours to 16 wineries in the region, clustering them to keep driving time to a minimum.

"I try to do them so they are no more than 20 minutes to half an hour apart," he said.

Dieters said he's amazed by the growing popularity of wine tasting and the number of vineyards that have sprouted in the region in the past 10 years.

"I was a beer drinker," he said. "Ten years ago I never thought I'd be doing wine tours."

The Upper Mississippi Valley still has a long way to go to promote itself, he added. "People don't see this area as a big wine region, so we need to educate them."

One of the newest wineries in the area, Rocky Waters Winery, opened last year near the hamlet of Hanover, Ill. Jared and Phyllis Spahn bought 112 acres after he left his computer systems job in Peoria.

"When we decided to build a house, my wife said 'I'm not going to live with the smell of cows,'" Jared said. Instead of raising cattle, they began growing grapes in 1998 to sell to local wineries.

When the Spahns decided to build their own winery, a grandson named it for the rocky streams where the grandchildren play on the property. The names of wines produced here also come from physical features on the land: Log Cabin White, Cottonwood Blush and Pear Tree Blush, which picks up the fruit flavor of a 60-year-old pear tree in the midst of the vineyard. An annual grape-stomping festival takes its name from a popular episode in the old TV sitcom "I Love Lucy."

The new winery, with its tasting room and shop, sits on a bluff with a panoramic view of the vineyards and valley. The Spahns and their two dogs, Rocky, a 130-pound leonberger, and Razzie, a labradoodle, moved their living quarters into the winery complex. They rent out their former log home, which sleeps 10 and has its own stocked lake.

Massbach Ridge Winery opened in 2003 near a former German settlement outside Elizabeth, Ill. Owners Peggy Harmston, a winemaker, and her husband, a doctor, produce about 2,000 cases a year, corking one bottle at a time.

"We get my mom and a neighbor to help and it's a simple assembly line and a lot of fun," Harmston said.

The 15 wines offered in the tasting room range from dry reds to semi-dry and semi-sweet whites to dessert wines, and they're made from several varieties of grapes, including Marechal Foch, Concord, Niagara and Traminette.

A triathlete and avid hunter, Harmston is often on hand to chat in the tasting room. Ask her about the time she bagged a black bear in northern Ontario.

The oldest winery in the Galena area is also the second-largest producer in Illinois after Lynfred Winery in Roselle. Galena Cellars was founded in the early 1970s by Robert and Joyce Lawlor. The family business now spans three generations with Christine Lawlor-White as winemaker.

Though it produces about 25,000 cases of wine annually, its vineyard covers just four acres. It buys grapes grown near and far. Its 40-plus wines are made from French hybrid and Riesling varietals, Illinois grown St. Croix and Frontenac grapes, rhubarb and fruit, such as peaches, blueberries, blackberries, Door County cherries and Wisconsin apples and cranberries.

Galena Cellars operates tasting rooms on Main Street in Galena and at the vineyard in the Galena countryside, where a two-bedroom farmhouse and a one-bedroom suite above the tasting room are available for rent. A third tasting room and gift shop is located in Geneva, Ill.

Katherine Rodeghier is a locally based free-lance writer.