BlueStem Winery took just a little too long to come into being!  My wife and I started this business when I was 55 years old (in the fall of 2003) and I was 56 before the doors opened for the first time on June 2, 2004.  Four years in the Air Force, 4 years of teaching high school and 26 years as a bank manager before I found a job that I really, really like!

I had always wanted to own my own business and in the fall of 2003 we bought a building in downtown Parkersburg, Iowa and started remodeling. The original thought had been to operate a winery but twists of fate led to our store opening with an art gallery plus other small shops featuring gourmet foods, Amish made quilts, antiques and wine accessories along with a retail store featuring beer brewing and wine making supplies for hobbyists who wanted to brew beer or get in to making wine at home.  Our store initially featured Brewer's Best brewing kits and wine kits from WinExpert.

The Brewer's Best home brewing kits eventually were replaced by our own BlueStems Best kits which are about 80% clones of the Brewer's Best kits but which we can keep fresher by making our own when needed.

The WinExpert wine kits remain a part of our inventory but have been supplemented by a great lineup of wine making kits produced by Cellar Craft.

The first two years we spent developing our winemaking and brewing supply business including the construction of two websites.  If you are interested in how NOT to build your first website then follow this link for details on the mistakes we made.  This same link will also provide information on our second website (this one) which was built by Andy Mullinex at Impact Marketing from Waterloo, Iowa.  Andy and the staff at Impact have been super to work with in every way possible.

The winery itself finally got off the ground when we started making our first wine in early 2006.  Our wine making exploits are detailed in the right hand column and elsewhere on this website.

If you want to home beer brewing or making wine a try, please contact us for information on getting started and also for all your home brew supplies, winemaking supplies plus for any beer brewing kits or WinExpert or Cellar Craft wine kits you might be interested in trying.

As many of you know, our little town here in Iowa was ripped apart by one of the largest tornados ever to hit the United States.  Winds from this tornado are known to have exceeded 205 miles per hour (what is known as an EF-5 tornado) and are believed to have been as high as 300 miles per hour.

The photo above is of what was left of my son's garage (and of his 2002 Ford Lightning pickup truck).  Several other vehicles were lost including my own 1969 Mustang Mach 1 R-Code 428 CobraJet.

Thank you to all of my customers and friends who contacted me via e-mail or phone or who stopped by the store to see how we were all doing.

My son's home (and that of his in-laws) was totally destroyed by the tornado.  Our own home suffered substantial damage but it is believed that we should be able to repair the damage.  The southern one-third of town (250 homes and 20 businesses) was completely destroyed,  The middle one-third progressed from serious damage at the southern edge to minimal damage towards the north.  The northern one-third of Parkersburg was untouched for the most part.

Our business sustained no physical damage but the impact of the storm was felt economically as we were closed from May 25 through about June 10 (the National Guard was blocking people from entering town unless they had a real reason for being here) and it appears that many people are staying away not knowing whether we survived the storm or not.  WE ARE HERE AND WE ARE OPEN!

If you need homebrewing equipment, homebrew supplies, home brew ingredients or anything for making wine, please stop by, call, e-mail or purchase from the e-Store.

BlueStem Winery released their fourth wine with the BlueStem label on Saturday, the 6th of September, 2008.

The first bottle of Feelin' Groovy was actually sold at the Taste Iowa event in Conrad, Iowa where BlueStem Winery was an exhibitor.

Feelin' Groovy joines Once in a Blue Moon, Red Crescent and Dark Side in the pantheon of BlueStem wines.  Three more wines are scheduled for release later in 2008.

BlueStem label wines are currently consist of:

Once in a Blue Moon (a Riesling dessert wine),

Red Crescent (a Cabernet Franc dessert wine),

Dark Side (a Montepulciano), and.

Feelin' Groovy (a Gruner Feltliner).

These four wines will shortly be joined by

Prairie Fire (a Riesling),

an as yet unnamed Gewurztraminer, and

an as yet unnamed Gewurztraminer dessert wine.

We love to talk to our winery visitors about making their own wines, too!  BlueStem stocks a large inventory of WinExpert ingredient kits and last year we added Cellar Craft wine kits to our inventory line.  Cellar Craft has been a super addition to our store.

Our WinExpert wine ingredient kits include kits from the Island Mist, Selection Original (also known as Selection Premium), Selection Estate, Selection International, the new 10-liter Vintner's Reserve kits and near the end of every year the Selection Limited Edition series kits.

Our Cellar Craft kits inventory includes many of their Showcase kits, a few from their Cellar Craft Classics series, the Cellar Craft Limited Edition kits and just a few of their dessert wines..