Eastern Iowa wineries have created a road map to their kind of good time, and it’s paying off.
Iowa has cultivated five wine “trails” since the first — known simply as the Iowa Wine Trail — was founded in 2006 by members of the Mississippi Valley Growers wine grape production group.
Wine trails have provided a boost to tourism in Iowa, which lacks the kind of blockbuster tourist destinations of many states.
“Any time we can extend the stay of the traveler, they’re going to spend more money and they’re going to contribute more to the taxes,” said Jessica O’Riley, Iowa Office of Tourism communications manager. “It’s a positive.”
Here are some winery statistics:
- Iowa has more than 100 wineries, O’Riley said, a number that has increased from 74 in 2008.
- Winery visitors spend an average of 3.7 days in Iowa, according to the tourism office’s 2010 Iowa Welcome Center Survey, which included 516 winery visitors for that year.
- The length of stay is a little less than the 3.9-day average for all visitors.
- Daily spending by winery visitors, at $239.62, is above the $227.38-per-day overall average, according to the survey.
- The average age of winery visitors also was older, at 55.9.
- Visitors mainly came from Iowa (14.2 percent), Illinois (12.2 percent) and Minnesota (9.1 percent).
Wineries on the Iowa Wine Trail have seen an increase in the percentage of their visitor traffic that comes from the wine trail.
“The wine trail is driving 25 percent of the business to the shops,” said Paul Tabor of Tabor Family Vineyards & Winery in Monmouth, one of the Iowa Wine Trail’s founders.
It took a critical mass of wineries to create the trail. The idea, Tabor said, was to bring new visitors into the region, using the wine trail as an attraction in itself.
Tabor Home Winery owners Martha and Paul Tabor pick grapes during the grape harvest. (Courtesy Paul Tabor)
Wine trail visitors are in some ways better customers than ordinary winery visitors. They tend to travel in groups — often four to a vehicle, but sometimes in 15-passenger vans.
“The average purchase is quite a bit bigger — five to seven bottles versus three to four bottles,” Tabor said. “They’re thinking about shopping.”
Some Iowa wine trails are little more than a list of wineries and directions to reach them. One, the Amana Wine Trail, is easily walkable.
Iowa’s newest wine trail, the I-80 Wine Trail, is roughly that.
Motorists crossing Iowa on Interstate 80 typically find the brochure in a state rest area, with its list of wineries within 10 miles of the interstate.
The rest is up to them.
The Iowa Wine Trail in northeast Iowa, on the other hand, has become known for its intermittent themed weekends to which visitors can buy tickets online. For around $25 per day, they can visit all the wineries they can reach on the trail for a wine sampling with food pairings — essentially food selections that compliment the three or four types of wine offered.
Each weekend has a different theme, typically the cuisine of a different region of the world. The changing themes seem to bring back repeat visitors.
“We’re tweaking the concept,” Tabor said.
Some wineries in the past have hosted music or other events in connection with the wine and food tastings. But the group has resisted offering entertainments at all the wineries because it would inhibit visitors from traveling to multiple wineries in the same day.
“One idea is to have events coordinated,” Tabor said. “The other idea is to have people take the trail the rest of the year on their own.”
The I-80 winery was started in 2011 by the Fireside, Breezy Hill and Jasper wineries, according to Cassie Bott, in-house manager for the Fireside Winery in Marengo. The concept is entirely different in that the promotion is intended to get motorists who already are driving across Iowa on I-80 to detour a short distance to visit one or more wineries.
Bott said visitors are often delighted to find that there are high-quality wineries in Iowa.
And because the primary reason for their visit tends to be a diversion from travel, the I-80 Wine Trail visitors behave somewhat differently. They often walk their dogs in Fireside’s pleasant outdoor gardens and stay outside to enjoy the weather.
Bott added that Fireside has begun to see a fair number of regular visitors from Kansas City, Mo., and Chicago who make regular I-80 trips to visit relatives or have other destinations.
One way the wineries hope to improve the attraction is to expand the wine trail into Illinois and Nebraska sections of I-80, Bott said.
If every wine trail has its own flavor, the most unique might be the Amana Colonies Wine Walk. Four wineries in Amana started the walk seven years ago and now conduct it two or three times a year.
Visitors try free wine-and-food pairings at the participating wineries, according to Les Ackerman of the Ackerman Winery. Those who visit all four wineries and get their card stamped receive a complimentary wine glass.
Amana has one of the few significant winery clusters in Iowa. Ackerman Winery, founded in 1954, is believed to be the state’s oldest continuously operating winery.
Ackerman said wine tastes in Iowa have grown much more sophisticated since the days when Amana wineries sold only sweet fruit wines. But they still have a distinct following for their nichy fruit wines.
While all the new competition has not been all good for the Amana wineries, “it makes more awareness, which is a good thing,” Ackerman said.
“Many more people make a winery their destination today,” Ackerman said. “That was not the case 20 years ago.”
Wine Trails in Iowa
- Amana Colonies Wine Walk
- Heart of Iowa Wine Trail
- Iowa Wine Trail
- I-80 Wine Trail
- Scenic Rivers Wine Trail
- Western Iowa Wine Trail
Source: Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division
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