My wife and I had the opportunity to visit 3 different wineries on our trip to Branson, MO to attend a family reunion. Missouri is not known for big bold reds, however they due have a native grape called Norton that tends to be dry. Norton is not a wine you should run buy until you have had a chance to try it. It will only be liked by folks that like a certain style, like me. They tend to have more middle of the road table wines, sweet wines, and fruit wines. They also do a good job with the Vignoles grape, a hybrid of the Viognier.
The first winery was
St James Winery. St James, named after the town it is in, has a long lineup of wines from dry to sweet. Nothing they make is expensive or classified as high-end wine. Their niche is every day table wine. I have been enjoying their wine for years. They have multiple wines in the $6-$10 range that are really quite good. A couple of examples are; Friendship School Red, Country White, and Cynthiana.
The second winery we stopped at was in Branson itself,
Stone Hill Winery. In order to taste their wines you are encouraged to do a winery tour. The tour was their try to make it entertaining, after all we were in Branson. They tended to take to everyone as if they were in Kindergarten. At first I didn't care for it, but after a while it did get amusing. The tasting was not so enjoyable because we with a group that did not enjoy wine as much as we did. They tend to have similar wine as St James but the prices were a little more. Nice place to visit.
Our third stop,
Mount Pleasant Winery, was definitely a step up in quality and price. Their wines were good but we didn't think they were worth the price. Many of their wines were in the $30+. I would never turn them down but I will probably not be buying them for myself.
We ended up buying wine from St James but not the other two.
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