Somerset Ridge Vineyard & Winery

What an amazing setting and perfect little slice of the Midwest. Somerset is in the southern burbs of KC and is the perfect setting for wine lovers and/​or adventurers to stray off the beaten path and experience a unique side of Middle America. The setting is already amazing, being tucked between the rolling hills of Miami County KS, and coupled with the amazing Midwest «nice» attitude that everyone has, makes for an amazing and fun afternoon. The owners are extremely friendly and take time to teach and educate the visitors on the art of wine making. Check it out and spend an extremely fun and beautiful afternoon out on the rolling hills of Miami County KS. You will not be disappointed.

We love our Napa wines — and surprisingly Somerset has very good wines! The environment is very conducive to partaking of wine: live music, outdoor seating, and our dog was welcome. They also had a food truck serving delicious pizza. Try the Citron — it is wonderful!
Somerset Ridge Winery is located about 5 minutes from Louisburg Cider Mill, it was a well spent fall Saturday afternoon.

My visit to Somerset was part of a trolley tour. At arrival the owner greeted us and than sat us at some outdoor tables. The tables were sticky to the touch and the mini vases with fake flowers were dirty covered with spiders.
The weather was perfect, sunny with a slight breeze at 73 degrees. There were a couple tents set up with local artists selling their wares. The live musician was also a nice touch. Wine tasting is $ 8 and includes a glass to keep. Tried several dry, semi sweet and sweet finally ending with their fresh lemony citron. About half way through the cook came out to announce she had made a Apple citron bread pudding. Which later I purchased for 5. Bread pudding not being a fave I wasn’t excited about but this was delicious. Warm, sweet thick pudding like center with a browned crisp crust filled with apple’s and raisins highlighted with citrus. Finally topped a smooth caramel like sauce.
My friend picked up a personal pizza. Tasted like it came from a wood burning oven rather than a pizza truck with fresh tomato, garlic, mozzarella and basil.
Nice open shop to pick up some wine to go or grab some cheese and bread to enjoy there. Long counter for indoor tastings as well. Bottled water $ 1.
No indoor bathrooms, outdoor port-​a-​potty. Gravel parking lot. Well maintained premises. Next time I visit I would drive myself, main reason being so I had more than an hour to get through the tasting, shopping, walking the vineyard and to lazily enjoy a glass.

This is definitely our favorite winery on the trail and a MUST visit. We are always greeted with kindness and immaculate customer service. Not to mention, they have all of our favorite wines. They invited you to taste a grape off of the vines as they are harvesting in two weeks. The atmosphere is wonderful and there is always a place to sit, even when it is busy. They had a little tapa food truck there last weekend, and we had the chorizo empanadas and they were to die for! This place is a hidden gem!
Our personal favorites to try are Citron and Concordia. However, you can’t really go wrong with anything they have.

What a disappointment! Rude staff! Did not even know the names of the grapes in each wine served. Only interested in giving the bare minimum taste– not enough for 3 sips to appreciate each wine. Not that crowde, but our server made it clear she wanted to move through the tasting quickly and collect the fee. Was she working on commission? Wine was fine but can’t recommend the experience. Go to Davenport. Better wine. Fabulous service.

3 of us drove over an hour to check it out on my birthday, which is not all that far when you consider that last year we flew out to Napa Valley to satisfy our wine addiction. We saw on the website that they were having tapas so we decided to have our lunch there on the patio. The tapas were absolutely delicious!
We sat down with two reds, one semi sweet and one dry. enjoyed them both with our delectable tapas! Not to mention we had an amazing acoustic vocalist playing and had fun shouting out 80s music for him to play! It was Great!!!
But then we went into the store to do some sampling before deciding which bottles we would be taking home with us. We had to wait about 20 mins, which was not a big deal to us because there is plenty of things to look at inside the store. One lady even brought us water while we waited. So we finally got to belly up to begin the tasting. There were 3 of us with a variety of taste preferences. We were having a fun time with the gal behind the bar trying to decide where we should begin, she was very patient and pleasant, smiling and laughing along with us. The gentleman who I perceived to be the owner stepped in and asked if we could be helped. The mood suddenly changed. He was very abrupt, impatient and flat our rude. He rushed us through our tasting so quickly I could not keep up with which wine we were on, then gave us a very sleazy and intimidating sales pitch at the end. He had no interest in answering our questions, he was distracted by other customers the entire time and treated us like degenerates who were out seeking a free wine tasting (which cost $ 6/​person anyways) but that’s how we were being treated.
We had a lovely time on the patio but he ruined our wine tasting experience. Hands down the WORST wine tasting experience I have ever had in my life!!!

I love this winery! If you have some free time on the weekend or during the week, this winery is very inviting. They have a large patio and lots of places to picnic. I’ve gone here a handful of times and it’s so pleasant. The owner is very very nice and she knows a lot about the wines they offer. They have so many very tasty delicious wines. They offer a wide variety of sweet, semi-​sweet and drier wines. I love their Citron, Avalon, Concord, Buffalo Blush wines. They always have events going on so I suggest getting on the mailing list or Facebook them. It’s always a good time!

I’ve been back to Somerset twice in one month, mainly because I love a relaxing with a good glass of wine in the sunshine. Yes there are many places you could go do that, but the atmosphere here is very inviting.
First head inside to taste the many red and white options, plus some tasty dessert wines. The staff is very knowledgeable and accommodating. Once you decide on a bottle or two, take them outside to enjoy. On Saturdays there is usually some great live music.
Now a few things that don’t make this 5 starts:
The website is rarely updated as far as the Events page. We’ve gone out twice hoping to enjoy Pizza Food truck. But when we arrive, it’s been some other food vender. The food has been decent, but pricey. Not worth the cost to me. We were bummed, hoping to have pizza.
Second they claim you can’t bring outside food on the weekends. You’ll see that most people bring their own snacks. There’s absolutely nothing I can find on the property or on their website that says you can’t do this.
However when my friends and I walked up with small coolers (only food inside, no other alcohol), we were quickly told that there’s no outside food allowed on the weekend. We were told we needed to buy from the food vendor… and again it wasn’t the Pizza Truck as advertised on their website.
These policies annoy me when they aren’t consistently enforced. We watched group after group bring in food and enjoy it. No staff said a word to them. If it’s a policy, okay then, just make it known some where and actually enforce it.
Otherwise get over it and don’t single out random people, make them feel bad for breaking your rule while they watch others do it and not be scolded.
I really do enjoy Somerset and a few of their wines. I just get really frustrated with inaccurate information and inconsistencies. If you haven’t been check it out.

We ended up here after seeing a sign that a winery was nearby while at the cider mill. Originally, we were just going to drive by and see what was happening. We never intended on going in and didn’t think it’d be open on a Sunday afternoon — but it was! We ended up going inside and passed by these cute little bistro tables outside where people were enjoying the beautiful day drinking wine. We were immediately greeted when we walked in and must have looked like newbies! The staff whisked us over to a tasting table where we sampled every single wine they had — amazing! I only tried one that I didn’t care for, and I didn’t hate it — dry reds typically aren’t my thing. But we walked out of there with four bottles of wine! Not bad for just wanting to drive by. :)

Even on a winter’s day this place was busy.
We were at the Cider Mill and saw the signs for this winery. It’s 10min from the highway. They have a nice wine tasting based on the type of wine you enjoy. The small shop has a variety of wine and other local products. The people were nice even though I was dressed like a hobo (as per usual). They were helping some other customers when we came in and gave us a wine list and asked us to look around until they could get to us. It was nice that they acknowledged us.
We ended up purchasing a bottle of Citron wine and though it was pricey, and the bottle was small, it was delicious (tasted liked lemon candy). Don’t take my word for it, go taste some.