Ann Londrigan, who works for the Illinois Association of Park Districts, is a free-lance writer in Springfield.

WINE TOURS
This brand of culture draws a crowd
by Ann Londrigan
I'll have a glass of the house Chardonel. Or maybe the Vignoles. These could be the opening lines of evenings out at fine restaurants everywhere, but it would be a tall order.

Sure, Chardonel and Vignoles are among the top five grape varieties grown in Illinois vineyards. Yet they can't compete in sales with the Merlots grown by industry giant California, which produces 91 percent of U.S. made wine. They don't enjoy the name recognition of the more established wines produced by such states as New York and Washington. And they aren't as readily available as the labels produced by neighboring Missouri, where wine is a major tourist attraction, thanks to a special tax that funds wine research and promotion. But Illinois' grape-growers, who are pushing similar state subsidies here, hope to raise the profile and profitability of their product over the next few years.

It's not out of the question. Though Illinois is better known for growing corn and beans, before Prohibition the state produced a quarter of the wine consumed in the United States. In fact, Baxter's Vineyard in Nauvoo, the state's oldest winery, dates to 1857, when Emile Baxter planted his first vineyard. He was one of several Icarian colonists who followed French philosopher Etienne Cabet to Illinois and found the soil and climate in the westcentral region of the state comparable to that of his native France, and good for the cultivation of grapes. During Prohibition, though, Baxter's wine-making was reduced to family consumption, and grapes grown in other regions simply died on the vine. Only in recent years has Illinois' wine industry shown signs of a renaissance.

Illinois' 14 wineries are concentrated in the south and along the Mississippi River, with northern locations in Galena, Galesburg and the Chicago suburbs of Roselle and Grayslake. And last year, they produced a combined 200,000 gallons. Still, this is a mere taste for a state that annually consumes more than 25 million gallons of wine.

The Chardonel and Vignoles are hybrids of the familiar European grapes (Chardonnay plus Seyval equals Chardonel), chosen because they're more cold-hearted and disease resistant, and thus easier to grow.

But will they make good wine? Well, yes, the wines produced using Illinois grapes are considered flavorful and have good color. But enologist — wine- making specialist — Bruce Chassy of the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign says gaining market share from California is not the industry's long-term goal. The more immediate interest is tourism dollars.

Who cares about the wine snobs and the West Coast, anyway, when Illinois wine sells and draws day-trippers with their Visa cards to such economically challenged regions as southern Illinois? The Illinois Grape and Wine Resources Council estimates Illinois wine sales at more than $3 million. But the overall estimated economic impact of wine- making is $7.5 million. And visitors bureaus in the bottom third of the state are positively giddy about the stuff.

In fact, the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau created the

24 / June 1999 Illinois Issues

Shawnee Hills Wine Trail in 1997. That agency drew up maps connecting four wineries in Union and Jackson counties. And this month, the bureau is using a $31,000 state tourism grant to host the first Shawnee Hills Wine Festival in Carbondale.

The narrow wine trail meanders through the pastoral Shawnee National Forest with stops in Pomona, Alto Pass and Cobden. Its wineries range in age from 11 years (Alto Vineyard) to 2 years (Von Jakob Vineyard), with a fifth expected to open this year. Their relative newness is apparent: Sundecks and tasting rooms are under construction; there's fresh paint and young help.

Amateurs run amok is how Jane Payne of Pomona Winery describes herself and co-owner George Majka. Their winery grew from a cider-pressing party 25 years ago and now produces 2,500 gallons of award-winning fruit wines from locally grown apples, peaches and blueberries.

Payne is proud the wine is served only in southern Illinois restaurants, and she worries that too much growth would cause parking problems.

This brand of southern Illinois culture draws a crowd. The wine tastes fine, but the experience matters more. It's called agri-tourism, a move to make working farms into places where visitors get a chance to milk the cows or, in this case, taste the wine.

And along the trail, tourists will do more than drink. They'll buy bottles as mementos, purchase cookbooks and hats, corkscrews and cheeses. They'll stop for gas or barbecue in Murphysboro, stay overnight at Giant City Lodge.

They're part of the reason for a legislative push to provide permanent funding for Illinois grape growers and winemakers. Steeleville Democratic Rep. Dan Reitz and Okawville Republican Sen. David Luechtefeld want to direct an annual state appropriation of $500,000 from the state's general revenue fund to the Grape and Wine Resources Fund over the next five years. The original plan, promoted by the Illinois Grape and Wine Resources Council and the Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Association, would have tapped sales taxes on wine. But California vintners complained their wines would effectively subsidize Illinois' industry; and Illinois' revenue department worried about calculating and collecting the funds. So the state's wine industry is pushing an appropriated subsidy, to be administered by the tourism office of the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, that could be used for marketing, research and technical assistance.

In particular, it would pay the salary of the state's first viniculturist — grape specialist — Imed Dami, who starts this month in the agriculture department of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Fresh from a similar post at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., Dami was lured by the tourism activity and the challenge of determining the best grapes for each region.

The key to good wine, he says, is growing a good, healthy grape. They want warmth in the summer and well-drained soil, two requirements met by southern Illinois' climate and hilly terrain.

Still, Dami concedes that Merlots and Chardonnays will remain in the test-tube stage here. And marketing will determine whether Chardonel and Vignoles make the wine steward's list. 

25 / June 1999 Illinois Issues