History of Missouri Wines

Missouri wines are getting more famous. But this overnight success story dates back to the 1830s.

This is part 1 of a 3 part story on Missouri’s Wine Country. Click for Part 2 and Part 3

This history of the Missouri Wine industry is like something out of a movie. In fact, it was recently made into a movie in Hermann that made a big splash over the holidays. Missouri Wine Country also made national news recently when the wealthy Hoffman family started buying up huge swaths of land near Augusta. So a lot of people are suddenly paying attention. It feels as if our wine country was just discovered, which can be a bit frustrating for those of us who grew up in the area and have loved it for decades. But I guess it’s hard to be frustrated when people around the world are finally realizing what a gem we have in the rolling hills of Missouri.

The Early Years

Although it’s impossible to determine the exact date when Missouri’s wine industry began, the founding of Hermann is a good starting point. German immigrants and settlers formed a town along the Missouri River in 1837 and realized that the area provided the perfect conditions to plant vineyards. While some Native American tribes also grew grapes, the industry took off after Hermann became a settlement.

According to some estimates, a mere 20 years after Hermann was founded, winemakers were producing upwards of 100,000 gallons of wine annually. That number continued to skyrocket every decade and made Missouri the top wine producer in the country by the mid-1880s. Yes, the top in the country a little more than 50 years after Missouri became a state. Things were rolling along nicely until a change in America brought things to a halt.

Prohibition and Missouri

Americans had a change of heart in regards to alcohol in the mid to late-1800s. Religious-based groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Saloon League, and other powerful Protestant organizations called for restrictions on drinking. Their calls for temperance got the attention of politicians across the country who wanted to remain in the good graces of these voters. So the effort began to spread across the country, including Missouri. The Show Me State became the 37th state to endorse prohibition in 1919. The 18th Amendment went into effect in January of 1920.

Prohibition devastated the wine industry and forced numerous wineries out of business. In fact, one year before it went into effect, Missouri was still second largest wine producer in the country with nearly 50 wineries operating across the state. In addition to Hermann, towns like Augusta, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. James, Boonville, Ste. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau, Hannibal, Owensville, and Stanton also had wineries operating. But most folded in the following years. The only winery to survive prohibition was St. Stanislaus Seminary in St. Louis which still made wine for religious purposes. Some alcohol manufacturers across the state changed their operations to survive, while other still produced alcohol illegally until prohibition was repealed in 1933.

Missouri Wineries after Prohibition

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The industry didn’t exactly come roaring back after Constitutional Amendment 21 was signed repealing prohibition. It took several years for farms to begin harvesting grapes again and wineries to resume production. By the mid-1960s, Stone Hill Winery in Hermann and Mount Pleasant Estates in Augusta had re-established the industry and proved that it could again be viable. Once that success was proven, winemaking operations began opening across Missouri in other parts of the state that were conducive to grape production.

Missouri Wine Industry Today

Over the past few decades, the wine industry in Missouri has exploded. Today, there are more than 140 wineries in Missouri while the wine and grape industry is now responsible for more than 28,000 jobs. The state is once again a major wine manufacturer, responsible for about 7-percent of all wine produced in the United States while attracting nearly one-million tourists every year.

The Wine Making Regions