As I mentioned, I'm teaching a Fundamentals of Enology class at the local junior college. Saturday we took a class trip to two wineries; Mt. Pleasant and Sugar Creek wineries, both in the Augusta area. At Mt. Pleasant, I set up a tour with Mark Baehman, the winemaker, and Pat Cummings, the director of sales. The tour and tastings were brilliant, and we had a wonderful guided tour through the tanks and barrels and underground caves. Then we headed to Sugar Creek winery, were we came unannounced, but luckily, Becky Miller, one of the owners, was there and gave us a tour of their winemaking facility. The last stop on the trip was to Lukas Liquor, which is a huge liquor store in West County. This was the students idea, since there really aren't that many great places to purchase wine in our area. Even I came away with a couple great bottles of wine.

I think we got an excellent view of both small and large wineries in Missouri. Large wineries, where they make sparkling wines and port and have dinner parties and small wineries where the owner is there on a Saturday and personally shows you around.

This is a picture of my students at the tasting bar at Mt. Pleasant. Think they are enjoying the class?