I don’t usually post wine reviews – I prefer to write about wine experiences. But tonight, I opened a wine that was an experience.
I bought this 2008 Roger Sabon Chapelle de Maillac, from Lirac in France’s southern Rhone, back in January during a sale at Tim’s Wine Market in Orlando. I tasted it in the store and knew I needed to drink it fairly soon. That’s how I rationalized opening an aged wine by myself, to enjoy on my porch on a beautiful summer Sunday evening in Florida.
Independence Day is a great time to celebrate American wines. But I’m not going to talk about California or Washington or Oregon. No, I’m going to talk about … Missouri.
Believe it or not, the Show-Me State was America’s second largest wine producer in the 19th century, thanks to the know-how of German immigrants who settled near the town of Hermann.
Missouri provided much of the rootstock that saved Europe’s wine industry from the scourge of phylloxera in the mid 19th century. The state is also home to home to the country’s first federally-designated AVA (American Viticultural Area).
Prohibition and anti-German sentiment after the first World War decimated the state’s winemaking industry in the early 20th century, but it’s been making a comeback in recent decades.
Continue reading “Missouri Wine Country holds secrets of America’s wine history”
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