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Travel across Iowa and you will have the delight of finding wineries in almost every area of the state. The agricultural move toward non traditional products brought the move to the wineries back into the forefront of the minds of people with the land and willingness to create the vineyards you will see.

Iowa has a long history of wine making. In the early 20th century I was the sixth-largest grape producer in the nation. Prohibition saw the decline of the industry, the growing market for corn and soybeans took over. The drift of the herbicides and the Armistice Day blizzard of 1940 caused many wineries to shut down.

The industry re-birth has seen more than 600 acres of land planted to grapes with more being converted to grapes every year. State records of 2007 show that there were sales of approximately 256 thousand gallons of wine sold and that they anticipated a gross of $22 million for 2008.

With over 20 varieties of grapes adapting to the Iowa climate the range of wines is growing every year. Those grapes are: native Catawba, the French-American hybrid Marechal-Fock, La Crosse and St. Croix as well as Delaware, Norton/Cynthiana, Leon Millot, Seyval Balc and Vignoles.

Family run wineries are the most common in the state of Iowa. They have faced the challenge of finding the right grape to produce the best wines that will please even the most discriminating wine lover.

There are wineries that have been in existence for years in Iowa and there are those that have been built in the last few years, and more coming all the time, to provide the great wines that come from the grapes grown in Iowa.

There are a number of “wine trails” in Iowa that will give you the exposure to the different types of wines available and a great tour of the state. For instance the Western Iowa Wine Trail will take you from Elk Horn to Thurman and back to Crescent. All offer free tasting and the time to sit back and enjoy the beautiful countryside.

If you are in the upper Mississippi Valley region you will be able to taste wines at wineries in Lisbon, Baldwin, Anamosa, Bankston, Marquette, Decorah and West Branch. You will be able to sample well-crafted wines and ciders in the comfort of the array of tasting rooms along the way.

Stuart, Iowa Falls, Pleasantville, Des Moines, Tama, Indianola, Adel, Ames, Runnels, Madrid, Osceola, Leighton, St. Charles, and Cambridge all have wineries on the Heart of Iowa Wine Trail which covers nearly the central one third of the state from north to south. Friendly people and beautiful settings wait for you to come to visit and taste their wines in the comfort of their tasting rooms.