The 7th annual “Independence Uncorked” Wine Festival was held on the grounds of the Historic Bingham-Waggoner Estate.

This is the largest Missouri wine festival in the state featuring 25 Missouri wineries sampling several of their wines, a guest spirits distiller, and 2400 attendees. The day also featured art, music, beer, food booths and wine classes.

Although Missouri wines, in general, are not to my personal tastes, I have found - while driving the various "wine trails" of Missouri - a couple of vineyards with specific wines I like enough to repeatedly take home. Today's samplings reconfirmed my preferences from the past and maybe introduced me to one new winery. I'll know more how good this their Norton really is after I finish the bottle.

If done well, the Norton grape (which grows very well in Missouri) can make a very drinkable table wine. However, as I shockingly discovered today (from of tastings from 3 different vineyards I've never even heard of before) the wine from the Norton grape can also take on the taste of a mixture of rotten grapes, chemicals, & a used oil drum. UGH!!! Those were a sip and spit occasion.

However, we did take home three bottles of wine today: a Norton "Select" from a winery where I usually buy a case of their "Estate" Norton, an "Estate" Chambourcin form a winery new to me, and a $20 bottle of pomegranate wine from another winery new to me. Although I didn't care for the 3rd winery's other wines, I like Pom Perfect & their pomegranate wine reminded me of that...

BTW, fruit and very sweet wines are extremely popular in Missouri. More popular than dry wines. In fact, statistics say that between 75 and 80 percent of the US wine market NATIONWIDE is sweet. Considering International wines, I found those statics surprising. Although I'm normally not a sweet wine girl myself, impulse however sometimes will cause me to take a bottle of fruit wine home after a winery visit. Hummm? I just realized that I still have an unopened bottle of Raspberry wine that I bought last Summer in Homer, Alaska. Because of the climate, I believe that most all wines produced in Alaska are fruit wines.

Meanwhile, Missouri can successfully grow Norton grapes, native American grapes (Concord and Catawba), plus French-American hybrids such as Vignoles, Seyval, and Chambourcin grapes. Although maybe not to everyone's tastes, Missouri really does have some decent vineyards and wines with history. For anyone interested, here is what Wiki says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_wine