Founded in 1847 as the Stone Hill Wine Co. by German immigrant Michael Poeschel, Stone Hill Winery in Hermann, Missouri, is the state’s first winery and was once the second-largest winery in the United States. An acclaimed international award-winner, it earned top honors at eight World’s Fairs between 1873 and 1915. Its stone cellars, completed in 1869, were the largest of their kind in the country and were built just a year before Missouri became the nation’s leading wine-producing state.
However, the arrival of Prohibition in the 1920s greatly altered the American alcohol industry. Wineries, breweries and distilleries quietly crumbled, and speakeasies emerged in basements, down alleys and behind unmarked doors. For decades, Stone Hill’s once-thriving vineyard was left destroyed, its cellars repurposed as a mushroom farming facility.
That all changed in 1965 when Jim and Betty Held took a bold step to revive the historic winery, laying the foundation for Missouri wine and winemakers again. At the time, California’s wine scene, widely regarded as the face of American wine, had just begun regrowing roots. Napa Valley hadn’t yet opened its first post-Prohibition winery. Nationally, there were fewer than 70 wineries, and Missouri had none.
The Held family rebuilt from the ground up. They planted new vines across the region’s lush hills, rediscovered and reintroduced the Norton grape (now Missouri’s official state grape), aged their wines in a naturally cool 50-degree cellar, and embraced innovative hybrid varieties, proving that high-quality wines can be uniquely made in the Midwest.
“Looking back on these 60 years, it’s clear that the re-establishment of Stone Hill Winery was about more than restoring a single winery, it was about proving that the Midwest could produce world-class wine,” said Stone Hill Winery President Jon Held. “We are honored to continue that legacy today.”
In the decades since, the original Old Stone Hill Wine Co. site was designated a National Historic District and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Longtime winemaker Dave Johnson spent 40 years at Stone Hill, becoming the most awarded winemaker in the U.S. outside California. In 2024, the winery ranked in the Top 15 American Wines at the Decanter World Wine Awards and won its 15th Missouri Governor’s Cup for Best Wine in the state.
Today, Stone Hill Winery farms 192 acres of grapes across seven vineyard sites in the Hermann area, making it Missouri’s largest grape grower. With a focus on sustainable farming, it produces around 80,000 cases of wine each year. Stone Hill remains the most awarded winery east of the Rockies and welcomes over 150,000 visitors annually. Pioneered by the Held family’s vision, Missouri is now home to 125 wineries contributing approximately $5.46 billion annually to the state’s economy, according to WineAmerica.org.
Stone Hill recently launched their Heritage Grape Project, continuing its long-standing commitment to cultivating historic American grapes like the Norton and whether these cultivars can offer a sustainable path forward in today’s evolving wine landscape.
“[At this stage], what excites me the most is pushing the boundaries of what can be produced with the rediscovered historical varieties and modern sustainable hybrids that each showcase our region beautifully and thoughtfully,” said Stone Hill’s Vice President of Sales & Marketing Nathan Held.
This fall, Stone Hill celebrated its 60th anniversary with a weekend-long celebration. Friday’s dinner highlighted signature dishes from the Held family through the years. On Saturday, guests enjoyed behind-the-scenes access to the press house and cellars, where they witnessed grape processing and stomping, sampled fermenting wines directly from the tanks, and live music.
Keep the celebration going with a visit to Stone Hill Winery. Take a tour of the vineyard, eat in Stone Hill’s original stable and carriage house, the Vintage 1847 restaurant for German dishes with an American twist, or take a self-guided tour at their museum of historical winery artifacts.
This article appears in November 2025.