Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/63248
VINEYARD Kentucky By Tom Johnson Tobacco settlement money and expert guidance set the state on the right path wo decades ago, the idea that Kentucky could become "wine country" was borderline absurd. More than half the state had never repealed Prohibition; there were more dry counties than wet, and even the counties that allowed the sale of alcoholic beverages did so grudgingly. Restrictions and blue laws had been designed to make drinking more trouble than it was worth, and other laws restricted production so thoroughly that it was nearly impossible to produce anything except bour- bon for export. "There's a stigma," confirmed Dennis Walters, who owns Stonebrook Winery in Melbourne, Ky. "People perceive Ken- tucky wine as a kind of moonshine." In the early 1990s, wine culture didn't exist in Kentucky. Vineyards are becoming a more common sight in the state of Kentucky. 62 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT MAY - JUNE 2012 Restaurants didn't have wine lists, liquor stores limited their wine selections to a couple of dozen brands, and wine drinkers faced a fair amount of snickering about putting on airs. The few secret societies of serious wine drinkers bought their stock out WWW.VWM-ONLINE.COM Grows a Wine Industry