It appears the Neuners have already discovered how to make a great Norton.  Competing in this month’s wine festival held at St. Louis, Westphalia Vineyards learned this past week that it had captured one of only seven gold medals handed out at the festival.  The other gold-medal winners have all been in business for many years.  For a newcomer to achieve such success is almost unheard of.  A total of 114 wineries competed in the event.

Westphalia Vineyards also won another medal recently, when they took a silver in the Missouri Governor’s Cup competition.

While producing wine for two years, Westphalia Vineyards sold its first bottle of wine June 22.  Most sales are by Internet.  The only stores carrying the wines are four located here in Osage County—Joe’s Market, the Annex and the Blacksmith Shop Café in Westphalia, and Thriftway Supermarket in Linn.

Currently the company offers three varieties of red wines, the dry 2006 Norton Reserve that won the gold medal, a dry Cabernet Franc made with the Cabernet Franc grape and Maries River Red, a wine made from a Concord grape.  Terry Neuner describes the latter as “sweet,” with the sweetness coming from the sugar in the grape, not from added sugar.  Neuner describes wine sales as “fantastic,” with the Maries River Red being “practically sold out.”  Sales of wines produced in 2007 are expected to be four times that of wines produced last year.  The sale of wines made in 2008 are expected to be up 10-fold over 2007.

Next year the Neuners hope to add a white wine made from a Riesling grape.  Eventually the Norton and Riesling wines will be their signature products.

While 2007 has been a great year for producing and selling wine, the same cannot be said for grape production.  A hard freeze this spring “severely impacted” the Neuners’ young vineyard, killing up to 30 percent of the plants and completely eliminating all production for this year.

Wine produced this fall will be from grapes raised primarily in California and New York, simply because there are almost no grapes available in Missouri.  In future years it is hoped that all wine will be produced from locally-grown grapes, many from the Neuners’ own vineyards.