StoneBrook Winery

"My great-great-grandfather grew grapes in the early 1800s," says Walter, "during the peak of the wine industry here."

Northern Kentucky used to be one of the largest wine-producing regions in the country. Known as the "Rhine of America," the German immigrant community started dozens of small family vineyards that contributed to the region's economic viability – and its "old world" character, which persists today. 

Immigrants also brought exotic European fungi that decimated grape crops. By the 1870s, Kentucky's Rhineland away from Rhineland had largely given up on its fermented life-blood. 

But the Walter farm stayed in the family. Over six generations, it has hosted a blacksmith shop, fruit orchards, hogs, a dairy farm and, by the 1960s, beef cattle. 

In 2000, faced with rising cost of land, fuel and feed, and looking for a way to help the farm pay for itself, Dennis Walter put in his first vines. 

He assumed they'd do well – "Wild grapes grow prolifically here, left over from the heyday," he says – and his first crops were lucrative. He really enjoyed the work. And he started to notice something unusual about his vineyard.

"Almost immediately, we'd have people stop and ask to walk through the vineyards," he says. "No one ever stopped when we had cattle to visit the herd." (After a bad drought in 2007, the Walter farm gave up cattle permanently.) 

Today, StoneBrook Winery is open year-round. Their tasting room is in a restored 1890s farm house where the walls are decked with antique farm tools used by earlier generations of Walter farmers. They host monthly dinners, live music, vineyard tours, and summer wine cruises with B&B Riverboats.

 

As StoneBrook's success demonstrates, growing grapes – and making wine – means more than the market price of the crop, and it's bigger than the profit margin on a bottle. People want to visit, taste, tour – experience. That's why Northern Kentucky's wineries are a leading edge of the region's growing agri-tourism sector.

When StoneBrook Winery began, it was one of the first dozen or so wineries in the state of Kentucky. Now there are 60-some, by Dennis Walter's estimate. And the competition actually helps everyone.

"You don't want to drive two hours to visit one winery," Walter says. "But you might drive two hours to visit three or four."

Hence the Northern Kentucky Wine Trail – the first formal wine trail in the state. At each winery along the trail – StoneBrook, Camp Springs Vineyard, Seven Wells Winery, Atwood Hill and Vineyard and Baker-Bird Winery – visitors get their VIP passport stamped. When they complete the trail, they receive a gift from the winery and are entered to win prizes, like one of StoneBrook's wine cruises. Each winery has a distinct style, history, and flair – and of course, the wine is all one-of-a-kind.

Another effort to grow the wine industry in Northern Kentucky is the Northern Kentucky Vintners and Grape Growers Association, founded in 2004, of which Walter is the current President. The Association new vintners and grape growers, provides a platform for knowledge-sharing and networking, and promotes cost-sharing programs for marketing and distribution.

"We try to keep the level of knowledge growing as the industry grows here in Northern Kentucky," Walter says.

His vision? A Northern Kentucky that is once again known nation-wide for its wine. 

"I see Kentucky in general, and Northern Kentucky specifically, returning to a time when grapes are what we're known for," he says. "Campbell County could become the Napa Valley of the region. We're surrounded by water, beautiful scenery, great green space – why not capitalize on that?"

And wine is only part of a larger picture of economic success in the region. 

"Here in Campbell County, we've slowly grown an agri-tourism market, quietly and gradually, until we look around and say, 'Wow, look what we've got here,'" Walter says. "We're surrounded by water, beautiful scenery and great green space – why not capitalize on that?"