We ate a breakfast of apples and almonds in the car as we drove. By mid-morning we had arrived at the Stone Hill Winery, high on a hilltop above the little town of Hermann. The party was already well underway. We took a quick tour of the winery and did some sampling of their wide variety of wines. Stone Hill, like most Midwest wineries, makes some nice sweet wines but just doesn’t produce a really good dry white or red. They are trying with their Norton grape but in my opinion it still lacks the nose and fruity taste of the west coast or European wines. The vignoles and traminette are getting better but still remind me of table grapes more than wine. But any wine on such a beautiful autumn day in such a wonderful locale is glorious. We had a late lunch of bratwurst, kraut, German potato salad and chunky applesauce that was so very good and matched well with a bottle of their dry vignoles.
In the afternoon we went down the hill to downtown Hermann and did a walk-through of the Hermannhof Winery. I was wined out by that time and was happy to see a new microbrewery, TinMill Brewery. The beer was cold and hoppy, a nice complement to the sweetness of the wines. I especially liked their light amber, Red Caboose. A lively polka and more group called The St. Louis Czech Express Band was playing on the back patio and was drawing a large, happy and inebriated crowd. We ended staying and drinking their brew and people watching until they closed at 6pm.
At dusk we wondered just down the street to a crowded bar with a big screen TV and ate pizza and drank more Red Caboose, augmented by Budweiser, and watched the St. Louis Cardinals trounce the Texas Rangers in the third game of the World Series.
It was a long drive back to Kansas City, luckily I had a sober driver. We pulled into the driveway, locked up the car, and tumbled into bed, exhausted and slept like babies. It had been a wonderful day.
