Around the Town Thursday: Blue Coyote Winery

Welcome to Around the Town Thursday!  Today we're highlighting a fantastic little winery in Adair, Oklahoma called Blue Coyote Winery.

Gate at the front of the winery

Blue Coyote Winery Tasting Room

The Coyote in the ceiling

All their wines are fantastic.  My favorites are the Catawba, Farmers Daughter, Country Peach and Oklahoma Peach.  Yum!  They also have a very good Oklahoma Blue Berry.  Their claim to fame, however, are their pepper and garlic wines.  Yes, you heard me right...hot pepper and garlic wines!  They weren't my favorites but D1 absolutely loved the hot pepper wines!  The garlic wasn't available for us to try but the last time we went the employee at the tasting room said the garlic wine really was more for cooking.  There are three different pepper wines: one is made with hot peppers, one is made with cayenne pepper and then there's the one made with Habanero peppers.  Oh my!  You can see their current wines here.

The owner works in the wine tasting room on Saturday and if you can stop by when he's there, make it a point to because he's a riot to talk to!  He'll talk your ear off about anything and everything and he's got some really interesting stories about the building of the tasting room and some of the items within the tasting room.

This winery is absolutely worth making a trip to Adair if you're anywhere near that area or if you're passing through...or even if you're not near the area but you're looking for a good winery!  They do have posted hours for the tasting room here, but are quick to tell you to come on in if the gate is open.

Around the Town Thursday: Pirtle Winery

Welcome to another edition of Around the Town Thursday!  I'm very excited for today's post, for two reasons: first and foremost, it's a winery.  If that's not enough there's the second reason, it's a winery in a church building.  Oh but it gets better!  The old church Pirtle Winery resides in is a Lutheran Evangelical Church that was built by German immigrants.  Being Lutheran I find that very humorous.  So for me, it just doesn't get much better than that, LOL!  Until you get to the wine, that is.

Pirtle Winery
Weston, Missouri

Pirtle Winery has been open since 1978.  According to their About Us page, they've been family owned and operated since they opened.  What a great history to be able to claim.  Located in Weston, Missouri, they're a must stop on the Missouri Wine Trail.

Their wine line up contains the expected red and white grape varieties, but it also contains some fruit varieties such as apple, blueberry and cherry chocolate.  An unexpected treat that you'll find on their wine list is mead.  If you've never experienced mead, you should try it at least once.  What is mead?  The simple definition is that it's a wine made of honey.  Here's a good article on mead (courtesy of About.com).  While many wineries tend to stay away from mead, Pirtle embraces it.  There are currently three different types of mead listed for sale on Pirtle's website.  While I'm not personally a mead fan, I highly recommend stopping by to try Pirtle's mead (and other wines, of course).

When you stop in at Pirtle, allow yourself a little time to look around.  Pirtle has an indoor winegarden and wine bar (a new feature I haven't seen yet) which can be enjoyed but if you're there on a nice day, make it a point to buy a bottle of Pirtle wine, step outside to their vine-covered outdoor wine garden (located between the winery and press house), sit and enjoy the day and your wine.  You won't regret the time spent there.

Around the Town Thursday: Amigoni Urban Winery

Welcome to another edition of Around the Town Thursday!  I'm excited about today's subject, Amigoni Urban Winery in Kansas City, Missouri's West Bottoms.

Amigoni Urban Winery

I love finding new wineries because that means wine tasting which equals finding new wines and that process is so much fun!  Amigoni was started in 1995 by the Amigoni family.  Their About Me page has a very nice history of the beginnings of the winery.

If you like dry wines then Amigoni is definitely the place for you to go.  While I'm not a fan of dry wines, I always like to try as many wines as I can when I go to a wine tasting.  Even if I end up not liking the wine I still want to try it, just in case, because you never know what you're going to end up liking.

So I visited Amigoni during my bachelorette party because a friend of mine, V, (insert shameless plug here) who makes fantastic beads was showcasing her beads at a show being held on Amigoni's grounds.  It was a winery I hadn't been to yet so the girls said what the heck and made it our first stop of the day.  Again, I'm not a fan of dry wines anyway but the crew in the tasting room was fun, perusing the wares at the show was a nice diversion and getting to see V was a bonus.  Little did I realize that the winery was actually housed in a historic location!

By now, no doubt, you've figured out I love history and all things historic.  The highlight of this winery visit for me was the building itself.  Amigoni is housed in the historic Daily Drover Telegram Building.  Constructed in 1909 the building was home to a livestock industry newspaper for 50 years.  Amigoni has obviously put a great deal of effort into returning the Daily Drover back to it's original glory.  The architecture, woodwork and tile are gorgeous.  It's definitely worth your time to go down to the West Bottoms to visit Amigoni.  Several of the girls at my bachelorette party enjoyed the wines there and the view isn't too bad either.

Around the Town Thursday: Holy-Field Vineyard & Winery

Welcome to another edition of Around the Town Thursday!  I'm a loud-and-proud-whino so I thought I might introduce you to one of my absolute most favorite places...Holy-Field Vineyard & Winery.  A family-owned winery, Holy-Field is an award-winning winery located in Basehor, Kansas.

According to their About Us page: "The vineyard is planted with Native American and French hybrid varieties with an emphasis placed on growing superior grapes."  I've been to their tasting room on several occasions and not only found their wines to be enjoyable and superior to other wines I've tried but their staff is friendly and helpful as well!

I was recently introduced to their Late Harvest Vignoles at my bachelorette winery tour and I fell in love with it.  Having just gotten back from a whirlwind one day winery tour of Niagara-on-the-Lake (a region famous for its ice wine, a must taste if you haven't yet!) I can honestly say that it rivals some of those ice wines in taste.  However, while ice wine is a late harvest wine, not every late harvest wine is ice wine. Hernder Estate Wines has an article entitled What is Icewine? that gives a good explanation of what ice wine is.

Now, Holy-Field isn't just a taste-and-go establishment.  They have a beautiful deck and gazebo where you can enjoy the bottle of wine you're sure to have purchased from their gift shop while visiting and overlook their vineyards while relaxing.  They also have music events, dinner theater (which always sell out!), Oktoberfest, and picking days (which you won't want to miss).  Most of their events are listed on their calendar of events.

Whether you like red or white, sweet or dry, there's a wine for everyone at Holy-Field and their prices are definitely reasonable.  I have no doubt they'd love for everyone to stop in, say hi and give their wines a try.  Personally, I can't wait to go back!

Poor D1, I'm sure he'll cringe when he reads that last sentence since he recently discovered the...ahem, stash...of wine accumulated from my recent travels for work and the many local wineries I discovered during my bachelorette party winery tour.  As tolerant as he is of my drive to find good, inexpensive, locally-made wines he'll simply smile, pat me on the head and tell me not to buy too many bottles (probably while sipping on the hot pepper wine he happily bought in Oklahoma and Missouri, lol).  Ah, but those are a story for another post (wink, wink).