AgEBB-MU CAFNR Extension

Green Horizons

Volume 22, Number 3
Fall 2018

Outreach & Engagement

Seats Still Available for the 2nd Annual White Oak, Wine and Whiskey Tour

By Hank Stelzer| MU Extension, School of Natural Resources

Openings still exist to attend the second annual University of Missouri Extension White Oak, Whiskey and Wine Tour on Saturday, Oct. 13. The all-day tour toasts the state's unique contributions to the wine and whiskey industries.

The journey will begin in a white oak woodland where participants will learn what it takes for a white oak tree to be considered suitable for barrel manufacturing and how foresters are managing our forests today to ensure there will be barrels in the future. The tour by coach bus highlights two cooperages in the Randolph County town of Higbee, population 568. Attendees will see how white oak logs are processed and made ready for the cooper. The Oak Cooperage, owned by Silver Oaks Cellars of Oakville, Calif., produces barrels for the company's Napa Valley winery. Barrel 53 Cooperage produces barrels for distilleries across the region. Lunch is provided at the oak cooperage.

The tour ends at the Les Bourgeois Vineyards and Winery near Rocheport. There, attendees will see the barreling of wine and learn how the white oak barrel imparts its unique traits to a wine's character. Distillers from Wood Hat Spirits of New Florence will describe how to create unique distilled spirits using Missouri products.

The tour begins at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, at Hilton Garden Inn in Columbia next to Bass Pro Shop, and will return to the hotel around 4:30 p.m. Cost is $75 per person or $125 per couple and includes transportation, lunch and wine and spirits tasting for those of legal age. Registration deadline is September 30th. Cancellations will be accepted until the registration deadline with a $25 nonrefundable fee.

A block of rooms has been reserved until September 21st at the Hilton Garden Inn. Hotel reservations are each participant's responsibility. Seating is limited to 40 people.