19 wineries in 2.5 days- Day 2 Winery #5

Saturday, July 24th, we got up and headed to breakfast at Country Bob's Cafe, a small mom & pop restaurant located off of Jefferson's Street. A delicious, homestyle breakfast, complete with a buffet was just what we needed to start the day off with!

Our next stop was St. James Winery, overlooking Highway 44, where we were greeted by Cory, home from college at Kansas State University. He was a hoot to talk with and he shared some great info on the winery, especially about the wine vats that you can see from the parking lot. If you ever visit, ask for Cory!

St. James is wildly known for their fruit wines so when we picked out our 5 tastings, we decided to go outside our comfort zone:

We started off with Winemaker Seyval (white), a dry wine that had hints of lemon and green apple. Aaron enjoyed this one as it had two of his favorite flavors. 2017 Rosette (red), dry with hints of strawberry and raspberry. At room-temp, it wasn't our style but Cory let us sneak a chilled version and we really enjoyed that as it brought out the fruit flavors more. Winemaker Dornfelder (red), dry with notes of blackberry and red plum. Even at room temp, we still weren't quite impressed by it. Winemaker Chambourcin (red), dry with hints of raspberry and dark chocolate. I thought the chocolate was overpowering for the wine but Aaron enjoyed it. Winemaker Norton 42 (red), dry with hints of plum, black currant and red cherry. It seemed too "berry" for me as a Norton is generally not a mixed fruit wine. Aaron quite liked it. Moscato (white), I was curious about this one as my sister-in-law said it wasn't sweet enough. It's a semi-dry wine so that explains it! It was ok for being a mildly dry Moscato. Friendship School Red (red) was another semi-dry wine. It was ok as well. Fiddlers Duet Dessert (port) was so rich and delicious that we had to buy a bottle! Concord (red), sweet and made with their Concord grapes. It got a thumbs up from us. Peachy Sangria (seasonal, fruit) really hit the mark with the peach flavor and I really loved this one. Strawberry Moscato (seasonal, fruit) was also a homerun as well.

Originally, we wanted to visit St. James just to say that we had been but surprisingly, we were really impressed! I'm glad we decided to stop and try wines that we don't normally see in stores back home. If you would like to learn more, check out their website at www.stjameswinery.com