Missouri wine country is sprouting a colony in Branson, Missouri. Mount Pleasant Winery of Augusta plans to open a tasting and bottling facility this fall. The new tourist attraction will be on Green Mountain Drive, just east of Branson’s pioneering winery, Stone Hill Winery of Hermann.
Mount Pleasant hopes to net a share of the between-the-shows crowd and capitalize on the same expanding visitor base that has helped Stone Hill export a taste for Missouri wines to other states. The original wineries are attractions in their own right, but the number of people who venture to the quiet towns near the Missouri River pales in comparison with the crowds that flock to the Ozarks entertainment mecca.
Chuck Dressel, president of Mount Pleasant, noted that while Augusta’s visitor count is in the tens of thousands, Branson’s is in the millions – 7.8 million in 2006. Mount Pleasant’s owners decided last fall to open in Branson as a way to spread its reputation. The winery had been serious about selling through wholesalers for about five years, Dressel said.
“We decided going to the general public was a good idea.” The next step, he said, was to go “where there’s a lot of general public.”
The crowds in Branson mean plenty of on-the-spot sales. In the long run, they help spread the word about Missouri wines, said Thomas Held, director of sales and a member of the Stone Hill ownership family. Stone Hill’s Branson facility has grown from one tasting room to six, and it sees more than 400,000 visitors a year.
“Back in 1986, when we started, we were actually a little worried about how the area would accept a winery,” Held said. Branson’s roots in wholesome entertainment have not kept the crowds away, though grape juice is a big seller. Grape juice accounts for about 20 percent of sales in Branson, Held said.
In the end, a winery offers two things that Branson tourist’s desire – samples and a way to spend time between the shows. “I think there are opportunities for any business that could develop destination tours, as long as they’re capable of accommodating the buses, said Dave Conner, president of Mountain Man Fruit and Nut Co. in Parker, Colo. Sales at Mountain Man’s Branson franchise blow away figures for any of the 25 others, including two in ski areas, Conner said.
Dressel said he hopes the two wineries will make a sort of district and become the thing to do between shows. Dressel also said he’s excited about the marketing opportunities. He said the winery will offer a lot of entertainment, as booking musicians in Branson is easier than in Augusta. Everything Mount Pleasant does in Branson will be bigger and a little different. That includes the wine. Again based on the experience of his competitor, Dressel said a winery doing business in Branson has to consider a taste for sweeter varieties. The sweetest wine Mount Pleasant makes now is a Riesling. The winery will add two sweeter varieties, one red and one white, just for Branson. Dressel also is planning to stock up on grape juice.
Mount Pleasant will not produce any wines in Branson, but it will offer tourists a chance to bottle their own wine and write their names in the labels.
“We kind of built our entire tour operation around the love of wine,” Dressel said.
Stone Hill makes cream Sherry and bottles spumante in Branson. The competitor’s success was not the only reason Mount Pleasant was drawn to Branson. Dressel said the city’s investment in a major redevelopment of the downtown lakefront showed that it was committed to broadening its appeal. “Branson Landing was the big splash,” he said.
Branson Landing is the massive downtown lakefront redevelopment project that had city-backed financing. That public financing and other aspects, including the fear that it would open the door to gambling, stirred up some controversy around the Branson Landing. But by last fall, all Dressel was hearing about were the national retailers coming to the mall, which opened last summer. Branson Landing will also include a convention center, which is under construction, a Hilton Hotel and residences.
Dressel said the project’s success made Branson an obvious choice for his own business. “It was a pretty easy decision to make when everybody else was already making it,” he said.