Decided on a trip to Weston to celebrate a friend’s birthday. If you haven’t been to Weston before it’s a fun old river town just north of the Kansas City Airport.
Our first stop of the day took us to the Riverwood Winery, which technically is in Rushville, MO just about 10 minutes north of Weston. Honestly it was a fun venue (as much fun as possible in these COVID times). In lieu of a traditional tasting they sold wine kits, dry or sweet, which came with a wine glass and 5 dry or 6 sweet wines. They also had a whiskey bar for anyone who was in the mood for something a little stronger. Would love to go back there and give it a full try sometime whenever things return to normal.
After leaving Riverwood, we headed for downtown Weston, we had been there before however our friends had not so we took them to Weston Brewing Company. This brewery has a lot of history which can be read at https://westonirish.com/weston-brewery/. In a nutshell Weston Brewing Company was built on the remains of the Royal brewing company dating to the mid 1800’s. Outside of the fact they make quality beers one of the neatest parts of this venue is that they have created an underground bar in one of the old lagering cellars from the 1800’s. Definitely an experience and highly recommended.
After a beer and a quick bite at Weston, we walked literally across the parking lot to the Pirtle winery which is built in an old church. This too was a pleasant surprise as they had many different wines and meads to choose from and were doing a traditional tasting. We do not normally drink sweet wines but we highly recommend the Cherry Chocolate. We will give our official wine connoisseurs review….no we will not…it tastes like a Tootsie Pop and drinks surprisingly easily.
Weston has more to offer though, so we moved on to the Weston Wine Company. This place is a bit different because they do have a few of their own offerings but it’s more like a wine bar where you can chose from a broad variety of wines from around the country. Their presentation on their tasting is quite a bit above normal so bonus points there.
Did you think we were done? On our way out of town we went to the (and this is the name, not sure how historic it really is) Historic Weston Orchard and Vineyard. This is a fun place in that it’s part orchard, part winery with a lot of farmers market mixed in. Another fun tasting and some nice wines. The location is on top of a hill and the views are great, it would be a fun place to spend a lazy afternoon.
At this point we called it a night.
On the way home we stopped at Top Hat Winery in Independence. This is more of a tasting room as it’s located in the downtown area. The winemaker at Top Hat is adventurous and is not afraid to mix different wines together to come up with very tasty combinations. It is definitely worth a stop if you’re in the area.
That’s it …for now
Going MOwhere 