Wine Makes Us Wet

Kansas winemaker Michelle Meyerhad only been in the business for about three years when she had to testify before state legislators. It was 1997, and the Kansas Department of Revenue's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control had mailed a warning to Meyer and her father and business partner, Les Meyer. The two operate Holyfield Vineyard and Winery about half an hour outside Kansas City. The letter informed the Meyers that they were breaking the law. Their crime? Selling port, a traditional dessert wine fortified with brandy that has almost double the alcohol content of a table wine.

The Meyers called state Sen. Don Biggs, a Leavenworth Democrat, and asked for his help. Biggs offered to sponsor a bill that would make a change to the fairly new Kansas Farm Winery Law, which didn't specifically prohibit wineries from selling port but didn't allow it, either. The Meyers testified before a friendly Senate subcommittee that voted to pass the bill, but then the bill moved to a larger House hearing later that spring.

"I was expecting some more friendly folks," Michelle Meyer says. After she spoke, briefly talking about the Meyers' winery and explaining that being able to sell the very popular port would boost their business, Meyer sat down. A prim-looking older woman then rose to speak. She pointed her finger at Meyer, the winemaker recalls, and said, "You're in the alcohol business!" and proceeded to complain that the Meyers and their ilk bore responsibility for every alcohol-related traffic fatality in the state of Kansas.

Taken aback, Meyer tried to protest, arguing that wine is a drink of moderation, but the woman would not be stopped. "We do not need one more way for Kansans to get drunk," Meyer remembers her saying.

A reporter whispered to Meyer that the woman represented the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the group started in the 1870s and made famous by anti-alcohol crusader Carry Nation. At the House hearing, it seemed to Meyers that the prohibitionist spirit was alive and well.

"The people on the committee started fighting with each other and accusing each other's grandpas of drinkin' ripple. It was hilarious," she says. "All I wanted was to keep making port wine. I wasn't asking for the moon or anything."

Though the bill eventually made it out of committee and passed the state Legislature, the port debacle was typical. "It's all a hangover from Prohibition," says Doug Frost, a Kansas City-based wine expert. Missouri, he points out, through its state-sponsored Grape and Wine Program, helps its wineries grow and gain national recognition. "Holyfield hasn't had that kind of support, and in the early days, Holyfield got quite the opposite -- people throwing roadblocks in front of them," Frost says. "The reason most people haven't heard a lot about Kansas wines is because of Kansas state law, no question."

Frost, a wine writer, has some heavy credentials that suggest he knows what he's talking about. The Court of Master Sommeliers, based in London, has anointed only 56 Americans as "master sommeliers." London's Institute of Masters of Wines has named only 242 "masters of wine" worldwide.

Frost is one of only three people on Earth with both titles.

Until about five years ago, Frost believed there were no Kansas wines worthy of his attention -- and he was mostly right. But one morning in the late '90s, Frost was on a radio program talking about wine, praising Missouri wineries such as St. James and Stone Hill, when a woman called in. "You haven't mentioned any Kansas wines," Frost remembers her saying. "Frankly," he says he answered, "I haven't tasted any Kansas wines that I'd bother telling anyone to try." The caller asked whether he'd ever tried Holyfield wines. When Frost said he'd never heard of Holyfield, she offered to send him some wine. A week or so later, when the bottles arrived, he tried the white, a Seyval, and wasn't impressed. Then he tried the red, a Chambourcin. "I said, 'Well I'll be damned,'" Frost recalls. "It had a genuine fruit to it, and it showed some real character and structure."

Frost called the Meyers, complimented them on their reds, and made some suggestions about getting some new equipment to control oxidation in their whites. He asked them to keep him up-to-date on their progress. "I said, 'I want to taste what you do next, because this is cool,'" he says. About six months later, the Meyers sent Frost a few new bottles. Their whites had improved dramatically, Frost says, and their reds tasted even better. Frost loved their most recent Cynthiana. "It's a pretty, classic, meaty, slightly smoky black raspberry that's just a little bit bitter in the finish, which you can fix," Frost says. Of all the wines he's tasted recently from Kansas, Frost says Holyfield is the best. "These are wines that should be paid attention to on a national level."

Michelle Meyer's goal is not to become, as she puts it, a Gallo on the prairie. Rather, she wants to produce a high-quality wine that puts Kansas wine on the map.

But before that can happen, Michelle and Les Meyer and other winemakers have three major obstacles to overcome: lingering attitudes (in Kansas, anyway) that wine is evil, harsh state laws that prevent most people outside Kansas from trying the state's varieties, and -- maybe the biggest challenge -- the widespread consumer perception that wine just doesn't come from Kansas.