Rolling hills of lush greenery beamed with life beneath a blanket of brilliant and comfortable warmth as the sun faded on a beautiful April day. If you didn’t know any better and got dropped into these majestic fields, you might think you had been planted in California wine country.

Welcome to Kite Hill Vineyards in Carbondale, Illinois in the heart of The Shawnee Hills American Viticultural Area, a designation that defines this unique grape-growing area in southern Illinois.

“My husband, Jim, loved the beauty of the land, especially the lake,” recounted Barbara Bush, owner of Kite Hill Vineyards. “My husband and I started this place in 2006. We worked side by side, producing the wine, pruning, doing everything that’s involved with it. Unfortunately, in 2020, he passed away. So, now I’m a solo act.”

This picturesque winery sits on 26 acres of prime growing soil in southern Illinois. Barbara says she has worked hard to turn Kite Hill Vineyards into a destination for wine enthusiasts across Illinois and beyond.

“I never planned on being in this kind of a position where I was growing the grapes and producing wine,” Barbara said. “I was good on sitting at the table, just pouring the wine and drinking it. Now, we’re producing it.”

Kite Hill is a well-respected winemaker that focuses on dry wine varietals such as Chambourcin, Chardonel, and Viognier. They grow their grapes on site, produce their wine, and then sell their product in their tasting room.

“What I want people of Illinois to know about wine retail is that we make an excellent product. It comes right from the soil that we are standing on,” Barbara explained with a smile. “It is a beautiful region for growing grapes, and it makes a wonderful product. You don’t need to go to California to have some of the best wine in America. It’s right here in southern Illinois. Here in the Shawnee Hills, we can achieve greater ripeness in grapes than some other areas of the state and country.”

Barbara has proven Kite Hill Vineyards can produce wine that is not only popular, but recognized across the nation. In fact, Kite Hill has won many gold and silver awards for its wine in competitions spanning from Illinois to San Francisco.

History

Barbara and her husband Jim were looking to run a bed and breakfast business when they stumbled upon the property. In their search, they came upon what they envisioned as a B&B that they could fix up.

“We were looking all over the country for a bed and breakfast,” Barbara recounted as she shared the origin story of this property. “We came down here and found a two-bedroom bed and breakfast. I said to my husband, ‘This is way too small for me.’ He said, ‘Oh, honey, we’ll build another building right here on the property. We’ve got plenty of room.’ Then, he went and talked to the owner. Before I knew it, we owned a vineyard, a winery, and a bed and breakfast. So, now it’s just the winery and the vineyards, which is more than enough work for one person, because now it’s just me!

“We bought it as a working operation. It was basically a hobby for the previous owners. They were in their 70s when they started it.”

Barbara believes the name for Kite Hill Vineyards came from an unexpected conversation.

“The former owner bought this property without his wife seeing it,” Barbara explained. “They had been married 40 plus years. When he brought her here from California to see the property, she was like, ‘what are we going to do with this much land?’ I’m sure there might have been a hint of sarcasm in it, because they’d been married over 40 years. And he said, ‘I’m going to fly a kite.’”

In the end, Barbara and Jim bought this working winery and began their journey to make Kite Hill Vineyards a first-class wine producer in the region.

Making Kite Hill soar

Today, Barbara is not entirely alone when it comes to producing the wines at Kite Hill Vineyards. She has a long-running bond with her highly decorated winemaker, Scott Albert.

“So, there’s a young man that had been working in my tasting room,” Barbara recalled. “He started producing the wine with my husband to give him a hand. When my husband became ill, that young man became my winemaker. He’s been with me for 17 years. He’s just like one of my children. That’s Scott.”

“We’re a very small business,” says Scott. “Labor costs are high, material costs are high. It costs a lot to fruit grapes and, you know, we don’t necessarily here have the scale to produce wine like some other countries and other states in this country do. So, we’ve got to get creative in giving people a reason to spend a little bit more on a bottle of wine.”

Wine lovers feel Kite Hill Vineyards is a special place and they have shown their love by returning here again and again.

“I think Kite Hill Vineyards is unique, because we know our customers,” says Barbara. “When my customers walk in the door, I can ask them, ‘Hey, is it a glass of Chambourcin for today, or do you feel like Broadway?’ I know what they drink, because I have many of the same people over and over again. When we first opened up, no one knew who we were. But now people know who we are.”

The business

This unique retail business requires much more than keeping a brick and mortar store presentable for customers.

“I work nonstop from early morning to late in the evening,” Barbara explained. “That’s what you have to do when you have a small business. Everything is hands-on. You’re pruning the vines back and hoping that you don’t get a frost. It’s making sure that the deer aren’t eating the grapes or the raccoons, because they like coming and eating before the grapes are ready to harvest.”

Barbara certainly did not start out as a wine expert and vineyard owner when she and her husband Jim bought the winery. But time, diligence and determination have helped Barbara to create a thriving business.

“I didn’t know much about making wine itself when we first got started,” Barbara demurred. “I learned a great deal within that first year to two years. I learned how much effort has to go into producing the vine, watching the vine. You have to nurture them, just like you nurture a child throughout the entire growing season.

“A lot of people don’t realize that Illinois is a wine-producing state,” Barbara continued. “In fact, it used to be in the top three wine-producing states in the country prior to prohibition. Now, I think people like our wines because they’re well-made, well-balanced. A majority of our wines tend to be on the drier side.”

It’s a people business

“People from the area know us,” Barbara stated. “They know who we are. They know me on a first name basis. They walk in and say, ‘Hey, Barb, how’s it going?’ I know them by name.

I talk to people a lot. I learned what my customers wanted. I knew that this was a destination point, meaning it’s someplace some people will make a point of going to. They don’t just trip across us by accident.”

Barbara does have help, but most of her employees are part time workers.

“I only have people working on the weekends now, because roughly one-third of my income goes to payroll, even though they just work the weekends,” Barbara explained. “I still have to pay the electric, insurance and all the things that go into winemaking. So, by me working during the week, and often on weekends, it allows me to be able to do the things that need to get done. To put in another vineyard, to spray for bugs, to plant, get more grapes. I’d love to increase my size of my tasting room, but other things come first.”

Illinois

Barbara loves being in Illinois and appreciates that her hard work is paying off. But she readily acknowledges that she harbors frustrations in being a small retailer in this state.

“If I could tell politicians in Illinois anything about retail, I would say watch your minimum wage,” Barbara stated emphatically. “This is not a full-time job for people that work in my tasting room. This is just a temporary job that they work for a couple of months during the summer. The tax base on making the wine production, the sales tax, manufacturers tax, federal tax, and state tax…there’s a lot of taxes!”

Being a retailer

Barbara thinks of Kite Hill Vineyards as a retail operation. She wants to make sure that her customers can experience her award-winning wines well beyond the boundary line of her property.

“I consider myself a retailer because I’m selling my product,” Barbara said. “I want a store to sell it. I want a restaurant to sell it. I want to sell it. I want it in every location I can get it into.

I love being a retailer because I’m producing a product and I’m selling a product to the customer that was grown on this property. It’s wonderful to see them enjoy something and have a smile on their face because that’s what it’s all about.”

Advice

“If I was giving advice to someone going into retail, I would tell them to know your market, know the region that you’re going to be in, who are you going to attract to your store,” said Barbara.

“I think it’s just basics of marketing. Know your customer. Know where they’re from. Know what they want.”

“I want people to know Kite Hill Vineyards produces top quality wines, and award-winning wines. We win out in California. We win in state. We win in various competitions throughout the nation and on an international level. People don’t realize Illinois, and Kite Hill Vineyards specifically, makes some really doggone good wine.”