Southern Illinois has nearly two dozen wineries

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

By Tom Uhlenbrock, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ALTO PASS, Ill. -- Paul Renzaglia noted that being first has its advantages, and disadvantages, in the wine business.

"We made a lot of mistakes, which the newer people can learn from," he said. "And that's good for them."

They said it couldn't be done when Paul's father, Guy, decided to plant a vineyard and open a winery in Alto Pass. At the time, Southern Illinois had no wineries, and a study by Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where Guy had been a professor, determined that growing grapes in the area was not feasible.

Alto Vineyards released its first vintage in 1988. Customers lined up -- in February, in a blizzard -- and bought out the whole 1,200 gallons in a day and a half.

I had visited with Guy five years ago at his home. We sat on his deck, talked wine, and enjoyed a bottle for breakfast. "We were discouraged by everybody, laughed at by everybody," he said at the time.

Today, Guy Renzaglia is enjoying the last laugh, while son Paul runs the winery, which produces about 30,000 gallons a year.

Paul said of his dad, "He just turned 90, but he still enjoys his wine. When my father and I opened the winery, there was nothing around. We thought the industry would grow, but not at this pace. It's phenomenal. Now there are all the wineries, and the B&Bs have followed."

Southern Illinois now has nearly two dozen wineries, and 10 of them are situated along the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail, which meanders for 30 miles in and out of the Shawnee National Forest on both sides of Highway 127, between Murphysboro and Jonesboro.

For my annual fall drive through Illinois, I accepted the challenge of visiting all 10 in a whirlwind, two-day tour. In between wine-tastings, I managed to sneak in a visit to two of the region's colorful farm markets, sampling the bountiful peach crop at Rendleman Orchards and finishing with peach cobbler topped with soft ice cream at Flamm's Fruits & Cream Stand.

"Later, we switch to homemade apple dumplings -- with ice cream it's $3.75," said Kathy Cochran of Flamm.

Heading south out of Murphysboro, Kite Hill Vineyards and Bed & Breakfast was the first stop on the trail. Opened by Jim and Barb Bush in 2006, the winery has five acres in grapes and produces nine wines. A gravel road ran through the vineyard to the small tasting room, where a deck with tables looked out on a five-acre lake.

Lake views, I found, were a common denominator at most of the wineries.

The Bushes had worked for a phone company in the Chicago area when they went shopping for a B&B to operate. "We looked at about 150, all over the United States," Jim Bush said. "We came down and looked at this one and fell in love with the property. We ended up buying the vineyards."

The Bushes have two guest rooms in their home, which they rent out for $115 a night to visitors, and learned wine-making from the former owner. Jim Bush recalled a visit shortly after they opened from the man who proved a vineyard could grow in Southern Illinois.

"I was in the tasting room and Guy Renzaglia walked in," Bush said. "I thought, 'He's been making wine longer than I've been living. And he's coming to taste my wine!'"

Immediately south of Kite Hill, the wine trail took a right turn and headed onto the back roads of the national forest, where the tree canopy at times covered the sun-dappled blacktop -- like driving through a tunnel of green that will turn russet, yellow and gold in autumn. White markers led the way eight miles to Pomona Winery, one of the most unusual on the trail.

Owners George Majka and Jane Payne make award-winning wine from apples, blueberries, peaches, strawberries and black currants, but not grapes. The fruit all comes from Southern Illinois, except for last year, when a warm March coaxed out blossoms that were destroyed by an April freeze.

As he wrapped up my purchase of his luscious Once in a Blue Moon Blueberry port-style wine, Majka was the first of several winery owners to report a pleasant pickup in visitors to the tasting room, possibly because of the rise in gasoline prices.

"My theory is people had planned trips to Napa Valley, Washington state, Silver Dollar City, Disney World and then decided instead to take a less expensive, more local vacation," he said.

Jim Temple, who was pouring tastings down the road at Von Jakob Vineyard, said the increase in wineries and B&Bs in Southern Illinois is leading visitors to discover the area's natural beauty at places like Little Grand Canyon, Giant City State Park and Pomona Natural Bridge.

"Trail of Tears State Forest is one of the prettiest drives in the fall because it's an oak, maple, poplar, beech forest," he said. "It's primarily yellow and, if you drive through in late afternoon, it has this golden aura. It's beautiful."

I had covered four wineries before stopping for lunch in Alto Pass at the Root Beer Saloon, where owner Michael Blank was serving some tasty crab cakes as the daily special.

Hedman Vineyards was just outside of town and a familiar stop. Gerd and Anders Hedman, relocated Swedes, have a cozy, two-room guest suite in their peach barn, and I had spent a night there in a previous visit. Nora Inman was working the tasting room and served a delicious Traminette, which won a Governor's Cup in 2006 for semi-dry whites. I plunked down $14.85 for a bottle.

Inheritance Valley was the last stop before heading east from Highway 127 toward Cobden. I drove by the "closed" sign and was met by a trio of slobbery hounds, followed shortly thereafter by owner Tim Waller, who invited me inside.

While the previous wineries had boasted of their dry reds and whites, Waller said he was having surprising success with his small bottles of Cobden Cream Sherry.

"It's $21 a bottle, and we're going to run out," he said. "It's the highest priced one I've got, and it went out the door the fastest."

Waller explained that he used the same methods as winemakers in Jerez, Spain, where sherry originated. "The only thing I didn't do is put it in an attic that gets 140 degrees, like they do in Spain," he said. "It's 19 percent alcohol, compared to 11 to 13 for most wines."

After a hard day's work, the sip of sherry made for a delicious dessert.

Man cannot live by wine alone, so the next morning I headed outside of Cobden to Vines Road and found Rancho Bella Vista, where Jerry and Carol Jimenez run Darn Hot Peppers. They grow about 20 varieties of peppers, and darn hot would be the polite way to describe the habaneros, Thai, pequin and tepin peppers.

Their small retail store sells three types of salsa, six pepper jellies, dried pepper flakes, ground spices and pickled peppers. A new product was "Chocolate with a Zing," a pepper-shaped chocolate confection on a stick. All are available at www.darnhotpeppers.com.

Driving out, I was in need of a beverage and found Owl Creek Vineyard. Its owner, Brad Genung, and the owner of my next stop, Scott Sensmeier of StarView Vineyards, had similar stories. Both proudly describe themselves as corporate burnouts.

Genung was an equity research coordinator for a St. Louis brokerage when he was converted to winemaking by Ted Wichmann, who was an early partner with the Renzaglias. Wichmann also submitted the application that awarded the Shawnee Hills region the state's first American Viticultural Area designation. Wichmann had established a vineyard in 1980 and built Owl Creek in 1994. Genung and his wife, Christine, took over the winery in 2005.

"We're known for having a drier wine selection, even our sweet wines aren't that sweet," Genung said. "The dry red Chambourcin grape is what built the place."

Sensmeier was in "software implementation" in Atlanta, when he gave up his suit and tie to take over a struggling winery near his roots in Cobden. He opened StarView Vineyards three years ago, with a handsome new tasting room and a spacious deck, overlooking a pond, of course.

Sensmeier noted that his newly released Norton red and Seyval white had won gold medals in numerous competitions. "These awards just go to show that Illinois can and does produce unique, award-winning wines that can compete with and win against wines from California, France, Italy and other well known wine regions," he said.

Two wineries to go, including what was definitely the splashiest in Southern Illinois.

Barrett Rochman made his millions in real estate investment and decided to spend several of them opening Blue Sky Vineyard in 2005. The winery has a faux Tuscan villa perched on a hilltop as a tasting room, a hillside waterfall as a backdrop, an amphitheater for live music, an events facility for weddings, and, of course, a lake.

Rochman also loves art and has scattered works inside and outside of Blue Sky. One of the latest is a tall outdoor metal sculpture near the drive that Rochman said represents a phoenix rising. "We tell him it looks like a dead chicken," joked winemaker Karen Hand, who also is a protegee of Wichmann.

"Barrett did have a vision and put a lot of money into this building," Hand said. "But our goal is to make quality wine. He is learning about wine and supports what we do."

My last stop was at the wine trail's newest addition, Orlandini Vineyard, which is owned by another veteran of the area's wine industry, Gary Orlandini. "I met the Renzaglias -- they were out there planting wine grapes -- I thought they were crazy, at first," said Orlandini, who later planted his own vineyard and sold grapes to the Renzaglias.

"My great-grandfather brought the winemaking with him from Italy; as kids, we drank wine once we were old enough to hold a glass," Orlandini said. "I thought if I grew grapes down here, I could make wine as good as Ernest and Julio Gallo's Pisano jug wine. I've done a little better than that."

Orlandini has a new tasting room amid a park-like setting of picnic tables, around a lake, of course. "If you've got a nice pond, you might as well build a tasting room next to it," he said.

Like Guy Renzaglia, Orlandini enjoys wine, and life, and doesn't take himself too seriously. One of his pet projects will be an "Elvis and the Space Aliens" event at his winery on Oct. 12.

"Everybody knows Elvis never died but was abducted by space aliens," he said. "It's an established fact. You can read it in the Enquirer.

"We encourage everybody to come in costume. It ought to be a hoot."

SHAWNEE HILLS WINE TRAIL

These are the wines most popular in the 10 tasting rooms at the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail:

Kite Hill -- Chambourcin, dry red. $15

Pomona -- Jonathan Oak Aged Reserve, semi-dry white made from Jonathan apples. $11.29

Von Jakob -- Cave Creek, bone-dry white. $10.95

Alto Vineyards -- Chambourcin, premium dry red. $16.99

Hedman -- Traminette, semi-dry white. $14.85

Inheritance Valley -- Cobden Cream Sherry. $21

Oak Creek -- Bald Knob Chambourcin, dry red. $14.99

StarView -- Seyval, dry white. $13.50