Meramec Vineyards

Small quaint Winery with delicious selections for your purchase and consumption.
The employees at the winery are very attentive and accommodating.

We were down in St. James and decided to stop at Meramec. The dry wine offerings were fair Chambourcin ($ 12.85) but overall the wines were rather sweet, fairly standard to Missouri style wines and rather unexceptional. The seasonal spiced pumpkin wine was unique but very sweet. Overall is was fine but just not my style of wine, but I’m glad we stopped for the complimentary tasting. I liked the staff — they were very friendly.
They had a café beyond the tasting room that had a fairly steady lunch crowd. They offered café fare with soups, sandwiches and quiches, but we did not eat there so I can’t speak for the food.

Hop off HWY 44, and you get a little rest-​stop with this place and St. James Winery. This one is the nicer of the two — with free tastings that are quite a bit nicer than the «humming-​bird food» wines of St. James. Wines are very reasonably priced. Great idea in their use of corks along the front entrance, very crafty.
I liked our stop here — even with our tasting attendant being a little aloof.

Quaint little restaurant. I stopped off here with some friends for a late lunch. Great tasting platter, dry (inexpensive) white wine, soup, and quiche. The quiche is their specialty. Dining room is pretty small but it looks like there is a cute patio in the back for warmer months (we came in December). Good service too.

I really liked this winery. No this is not a winery that you would expect in Cali, but the wine was good and isn’t that what really counts? They had some great wines here. This was our last wine stop and I already bought way more wine than I intended. I should state that I’m not a wine person, however I have found some great wines in Missouri! I bought not 1 but 4 bottles here. I bought the sweet cat, new world white, new world red, and harvest which was the dessert wine.
This place was really nice because you can eat at the bistro. However we didn’t. The place also sells chocolate, dipping sauces, cards and more so it gives you something to look at and shop around a bit.
Overall, I found this place to be charming, My favorite wine was the new world red. If you know someone who doesn’t like wine there are some here that are really sweet that they might enjoy =)

I’ve been to a LOT of winery/​vineyards over the past few years, and a lot of those have been grade-​A Northern California wineries. Meramec Vineyards would probably flounder in Napa or Sonoma, but I think it’ll improve with age — or, at least, I hope so… because the tasting building and café are so darned cute!
The tasting was VERY generous for a free tasting. I believe we tried absolutely every wine on the list, in fact. The bottles are very affordable — ranging from $ 8.99 to $ 12.99, with only a few (maybe MAYBE three) being $ 19.99 or $ 23.99. None of the wine struck me as absolutely amazing, but only one was awful (and I just simply don’t tend to like that grape varietal). She did the tasting with white wines first and then red wines, which I thought was very nice after the willy-​nilly tasting we had at Stone Hill in Branson. I really liked their wine made with mulled spices, but my man wouldn’t let me get it because he insisted I could make something similar at home with a better red. We wound up walking away with a bottle of Tony’s Blend (which is a wine made from a blend of grapes from the estate of a deceased man) — a well-​balanced red, not too sweet and not too dry. The bottle was around $ 10 with tax, so not bad at all.
I also appreciated the fresh wine grapes they have out for tasting. That was a neat feature.
Also, we didn’t eat any of the food offered up, so I cannot comment on that.

A little farther down from St. James winery, I ended up missing this place last time I was down there. Luckily I went there this time and it was a great place to go.
Free tasting and I ended up buying a few for a decent price. I think they were around $ 12-​$ 20. They have a little bistro, which I didn’t try so I can’t comment on it.