Marketed as a 'Private Day Trip to Missouri Wine Country' on Viator, 'Your Guy in STL' provided a six hour chauffeured ride for the four of us, to three different wineries and one brewpub on a beautiful but hot Midwest Sunday. It turned out great.
I knew I wanted to do something different for a day when my wife and I revisited our friends in St Louis for a long weekend. This excursion seemed to fit the bill as I knew little about Missouri Wine Country and our friends confirmed they hadn't done this tour before. It included pick-up and drop-off from any location in the St Louis metro area, so that was a big plus not having to worry about alcohol and driving for any of us. The cost was $445 for our group of four, though if one is patient, can get a lot of rebates back (e.g. in this case, it was $14.50 in Viator rewards from previous excursions, $35 promotional credit from AMEX using their card on a Viator purchase of over $350, and 20% back from Rakuten if using their browser plug-in). I was able to communicate with Wayne (the owner and operator) using the Viator website, confirming that we were set.
He picked us up in a Rivian R1S, with three rows of seating, so all of us were very comfortable. Wayne runs a private driver business as well, so needs a luxury vehicle like this...and we got the benefits. It had the largest moon roof I've seen on an SUV, going all the way back to the 3rd row. It was a great touring vehicle, and quiet enough for everyone to have a good conversation without shouting. It's a bit hilly in this part of Missouri, but I hardly noticed due to his clean driving and the great condition of his vehicle.
It took over an hour to get to the first winery, allowing us to get to know each other, with my friend and Wayne trading stories and experiences in the St Louis area (Wayne had more since he is born and raised here).
Our first stop was Balducci Vineyards, where our group had flights to do an informal wine tasting, and found the most gregarious bartenders. Next was Noboleis Vineyards, where we also had lunch and more wine flights. Our final winery was Montelle Winery, which had the best views of the three. I don't think any of the wineries had any dedicated sommeliers...this was all about whatever wine tasted the best, with a lot of Midwest charm and friendliness. One of the things I focused on was trying wines made from their local grape: Norton. Ended up not buying any wine to bring back.
We still had a bit of time left, so Wayne took us Good News Brewery, where they had NFL football on on their bar TVs. Unlike the other times where he set us up with water and a great place to eat/imbibe and then left us alone, here he sat down with us. It was a fun way to finish off the day.
It was more than an hour for him to take us back to our starting point in Edwardsville. He still had to go back home which was in the opposite direction, so he had worked quite a bit more than a full day. But he was great throughout, and I had no problem promising him that we would promote and recommend his business whenever we could. read more