Minnesota Produces Wine
Who needs Napa Valley when wine is flowing throughout the Midwest? In two weeks, Minnesota will unveil its first-ever wine trail in an effort to boost tourism around the state's budding wine industry.
The Three Rivers Wine Trail of Minnesota includes seven wineries and vineyards that wind from Chisago City down to Lake City, along the Mississippi, Cannon and St. Croix rivers. The promotional campaign is meant to trumpet the state's growing wine industry -- now with 19 wineries throughout the state -- and to convince tourists to make a day, or weekend, of traveling from winery to winery.
Collectively, the wineries are producing brochures to promote themselves as a trail, and will each have live music the weekend of June 10 and 11 as the official kickoff of the trail. Similar trails in other states have helped brand areas as wine regions, and spurred further tourism growth. See bizjournal.com for the full story.