Better in bunches

VIENNA, Ill. -- Bill Fairless says his wife, Kitty, jokes that their Little Cache Vineyard really should be called "Little Cash," but the truth is that the vineyards might be helping to save their family farm.

Fairless grows about three acres of grapes that he sells to the Shawnee Winery, a cooperative of 11 grape growers in Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri. Most of the growers own small farms and were looking for a way to make some money off their land. Growing grapes seemed to be the answer, but few of the farmers really wanted to spend all the time and money it takes to start a winery. So they formed the Shawnee Winery Cooperative in December and share the profits among the 11 owners.

"We wouldn't be able to do all this by ourselves," said Fairless, the co-op board president. He had toyed with the idea of starting an independent winery but between teaching ag classes at the local high school and farming, he didn't think there'd be enough time.

Fairless said he even thought about ostriches or buffalo but didn't want to go the route of exotic animals. But "I wanted to do something to keep the family farm going," Fairless said.

So did John Severs of Pulaski, Ill., who inherited acreage from his grandfather. For some time, he and his father had cattle on the land. But the cattle weren't really bringing in enough money. Severs looked into growing grapes instead. He plants about five acres.

"It's just a sideline," he said. But he hopes that one day the grapes will bring in enough money to help pay for his children's college education.

Just like any other crop, grapes have their risks. Grapes are finicky plants and take a lot of attention -- pruning that has to be done by hand, spraying for infestations and time spent checking to make sure no diseases have infected the vines. Of course, there's also the danger of a late frost or deer that like to eat the fruit.

And the grapes can't be harvested for four years after planting, so many of the growers are just hoping for the best right now.

Severs supplies most of the red grapes for the winery. Bob and Virginia Housman grow some of the Trauminette, Chardonel and Seyval varieties found in the white wines. They grew many of their vines from cuttings in their Jonesboro, Ill., greenhouses and plant 10 acres of grapes.

Only six months after the Shawnee Winery opened near Interstate 57 and Illinois Highway 146 in Vienna, one of their wines has already sold out. The Vignoles wine, a semisweet white table wine, was more popular than expected and customers bought out everything, said winery manager Tiffany Korte.

But that also points out one of the problems the winery co-op encountered in the beginning, Fairless said. There wasn't any real coordination about what grape varieties the owners/members were growing. "We needed to see the gaps we had and what juices we needed," Fairless said.

"At first, everybody planted whites and we had no reds," he said. But that problem has been corrected with new red varieties being planted. Over the winter, the co-op owners/members bottled much of the wine they made from their grapes.

And although spring is planting season for grape growers, many of them spent Saturday hosting a "Spring Fling" wine-tasting instead of working in their vineyards.

They greeted customers and opened wine bottles for tastings, answered questions about the taste of their wines and about how the winery started.

While they've spent years growing grapes destined for wine, there's still plenty of work for the owners to do in publicizing that the winery exists.

But competing in a region with other independent wineries isn't really the challenge, Fairless said. People who visit one winery often return to visit another in the same area. And winery owners help each other out, he added.

"We have a market for the grapes, and the industry is growing every year," Fairless said.

The challenge is getting people to visit and buy their products. "We don't want to sacrifice quality for quantity, and if we have a good product then people will buy it."

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126