Tim and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary this fall and did a weekend getaway to Hermann, MO. I’m pretty sure most of our friends have actually done this same thing. It happen to be right in the middle of the town’s month-long Oktoberfest festivities, so the town was really active. We received a gift certificate towards a stay at Abigail’s Grape Leaf B&B, which was perfect for our weekend there. It was just a few blocks from anywhere we wanted to go to in the town and a short drive to a couple of the wineries. The rooms were great (we did the Schiller Parlor), the Innkeepers were super pleasant and the breakfasts were delicious.
After checking in to the B&B, we started our first evening with a whiskey tasting and cocktail at Fernweh, a new distillery. We had dinner at Black Walnut Bistro (delicious pasta), had a pint (or two) at Tin Mill Brewery and ended the evening at the Concert Hall bar.
Not going to lie…Saturday was a little rough for me after the previous evening (whoops!), but it was our day to hit up some of the local wineries and explore town a bit more. The wineries either had a $5 entry fee, which came with a tasting, or offered a tasting for roughly the same price. At first I couldn’t get over how cheap the tastings were compared to Napa, but then I realized very quickly how small the pours are and how informal it was. So it’s really relative to the overall experience.
We started the day at Adam Putcha, which was not our favorite. We didn’t care much for the wines that we tried and the atmosphere was okay. We headed to Stone Hill next, which was one of our favorite of the wineries we stopped at. We did a tasting and a cellar tour while there. Turns out, Stone Hill has the largest series of underground cellars in North America. They also had a good band playing.
We headed back into town at stopped at Hermannhof’s California Room to sample wines from their sister winery in Southern California. We ended up buying a bottle to take back to St. Louis with us, too. We also popped over to Hermannhof’s main establishment to hang for a bit and listen to the live music. We stopped at Tin Mill Restaurant for one beer before heading to Wings A-Blazin for dinner. (Because who doesn’t want to eat chicken wings after a full day of wineries?) Gimme all the wings!
We headed back on Sunday after our final B&B breakfast. There’s an Amtrak that goes between St. Louis and Hermann and I’d love to take the train over for a day with a group of friends. Overall I had a great weekend and can’t wait to go back.
—m.