A sip of this…. and a sip of that…

An assisted living wing is attached to the local nursing home. This is where people who cannot live by themselves, but who are also not sick enough require nursing home care, have small apartments where they can live semi-independently. A few weeks ago the nursing home celebrated National Assisted Living Week by taking the residents on special outings.

One of those outings was to a local winery. While I was sitting in the waiting room here

waiting for our son to have a radiation treatment, I watched a program on History Channel about the history of this state that has become our adopted home, and found out something I did not know: Missouri was the top producer of wine in this country during the middle 1880s, and Missouri growers rescued the wine industry in France by sending vines to France when the grapes there were hit by some sort of disease that did not affect the Missouri grapes.

I sort of shirt-tailed myself on this outing: I am not a resident of the assisted living apartments, although sometimes I do need quite a bit of assistance with my life, and I don’t have a relative who lives there, but our friends Judy and Charlie do have a relative living there and they went, so I tagged along with them.

This is not an upscale winery like one might find in Sonoma.


 
This is the “down home” variety run by a nice couple and their kids.



 (Click on the picture in case you can't read the notice on the door)

 

They have big stainless steel tanks with wine in various stages of fermentation.

They have baskets of big bottles in other stages of production.

They have entered their wines at state competitions and have won some medals.

And after we had all had a taste of this one and a taste of that one, he came out with a mason jar of peach wine that isn’t quite ready yet. 

 Many of those on the tour thought they might like a bottle of that peach wine by-in-by.


A very good time was had by all.