(upbeat music) - Welcome to "A Shot of AG."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

I started a podcast, which led to an XM show, which led to me getting a TV show, which led to me being right here today.

But today is not about me.

Today is about our guest, Don Archdale.

How are you doing Don?

- Great, thank you.

- I like that shirt.

- Thank you very much.

- It's very hip.

- Well, like I say, it used to be, I could wear slim but now it's kinda more like regular, so this goes with the age.

- It happens, it happens.

- Yeah, unfortunately it does.

- You know what you need is a desk.

(Rob laughs) - [Don] To kind of hide things a little bit.

- That's fantastic, yes, but hey, this should give a little preview.

This should get people excited.

- [Don] Well, I hope so.

- [Rob] Which one are we looking at?

- This is our most popular, it's called a Romeo Red.

We actually raise a Belgians and our stallion is Romeo so that was a fitting name cause that's our most popular wine.

He's a very popular stallion, that's a very popular wine.

- Okay, I can't wait to get into it because hey, who doesn't like talking about alcohol, right?

- Yup, that's right.

- All right, let's talk about where you're from, Lewistown or Lewistown, what's the name of it?

- It's Lewistown, I'm guilty, it's Lewistown, Lewistown but I'm very guilty calling it Lewistown too, but it's supposed to be called Lewistown.

- Did you grow up there?

- I grew up there, I'm guilty, like I say, I'm guilty.

- Well you should know what it's called.

- I know I should know, but I'm guilty.

- All right in Lewistown do they have a, what we'd call like a liar's table, you know, like where they all the farmers go in and eat breakfast at four o'clock and lie about how much rain they got?

- Well, for sure.

- Okay, so when you're in that liars table, right?

- I don't sit there.

- Let's imagine, all right, let's imagine you go there, are they going to say Lewistown or Lewistown?

- Lewistown, well, probably Lewistown.

It rolls off your tongue easier, Lewistown.

- We're going to move on from the Lewistown, Lewistown.

(Rob laughs) - Your getting me in trouble when I go home.

- All right, you are the owner of Big Horse Vineyards, correct?

- Correct.

- Okay, tell me what that is?

- It's a family farm.

We used to, we always raised Belgians, Percherons, Clydesdales.

And my father passed away, we still had the horses and horses are a very expensive hobby and so we wanted to make, it wasn't really a big enough farm just 40 acres.

So we wanted to make something that would be, kind of, it would justify keeping the horses.

So I always liked vineyards and I thought the atmosphere is neat.

So I thought I like to grow things, so we started putting our grapes in and they just worked out really good for us.

So we started growing grapes, and we started building buildings, and we started doing an event center, and we've been in it about five years now.

- Okay, these Belgians, these are the big horses, hence the name of the vineyards?

- Correct.

- Okay, I'm gonna ask a question that's probably pretty obvious but why the name Big Horse Vineyards?

- Well, the funny thing is, is my dad we've always had horse, my whole family's had them it's been a family tradition.

We go to these parades or the fairs and people look at the horses and they'd ask him, "well, what kind of horses are these?"

And he'd say, "oh, all of them are some big horses like the Budweiser Clydesdales.

So everybody knows the Budweiser Clydesdales.

So I heard that my whole life, big horse.

So I just thought it'd be a fitting name for the vineyard, so.

- Obviously you know, back in the day, these big draft horses were used to work the fields, right?

I still find stuff in my fields from horses.

I find old horse shoes, I find stuff from, (indistinct), It's amazing to think, that's how they used to farm.

So why are we still growing draft horses today?

- Well, there's like three types.

There's the workhorse, the pulling horse and the shire horse.

And we've always kind of had the shire horse.

If you live if you think about... - The Belgians - Well the Belgians, there's three types of Belgians.

There's like they grow them to be a workhorse like the Amish.

They grow them to be a pulling horse where they use them for pulling competitions, where they're really muscular but they don't get as tall.

And what we raise as the shire horse style, it's been if you think of a Budweiser Clydesdale with a wagons that's kind of the shire horse style, that's what we do.

- Okay, am I going to have to draw a chart?

I mean.

(Rob and Don laugh) - The Belgians, they're the pretty ones.

- Well, that's what I think.

My uncle, my family has always raised Belgians and my uncle raised Percherons, so it's always been a family feud which one is better.

If we go to the fairs then, if my dad won, my uncle would get mad, If my uncle one, my dad would get mad so I liked them all.

- Uncle, so they ride, they're brothers or brother-in-laws?

- Yeah no they're full brothers.

- Okay and they do obviously disagree.

- It was family, definitely a family feud.

- Who was right?

(Don laughs) - Depends on the judge.

(Rob laughs) - But, we still have Belgians.

They don't have Percherons, so.

- But everybody, they say the Budweiser ones, the Clydesdales.

I mean, those are, how did they get to be so popular?

- Well, just because Budweiser made him pop early - Really?

- In the horse world really, the most expensive ones are the Belgians or the Percherons.

- Yeah.

- The Clydesdales, they really don't, I mean, they're, I don't want to make anybody mad but the Percherons have got poor feet and they're harder to take care of, they're not as muscular, but they're very pretty.

They're a very pretty horse, I've raised them too.

But the Belgians, the Percherons are black and they don't have, they have a lot more care in the summertime because they fade.

So you have to keep them in the barn.

The Belgians you really don't have to do anything to they're very, very economical horse.

- So if Budweiser made the Clydesdale famous, do you think big horse vineyard and make the Belgians?

- Of course we are.

- Do you think someday you're going to be having super bowl commercials.

- That's the plan.

(Don and Rob laugh) - You remember the hotel?

Remember those frogs?

- Yes.

- But.. but.

- Yep.

- I thought it was funny.

- We'll make some with the horses.

- Okay, I don't, those were frogs.

I don't know what you're going to do with the horses.

You could make like something where the Belgians are talking smack to the Clydesdales.

- I've got a lot of ideas.

- Oh, we don't want to give ideas, I get it.

(Rob and Don laugh) - So you were around the Belgium horses your entire life right?

- Yep, I was born, I don't want to say my age, but when I was I was born real close to the state fair and my mom took me down there when I was about five days old and my dad was showing horses.

So I born into the horses, been there ever since.

(Rob laughs) - And this is passed on to you so I mean, it's just-- this is like a multi-generational, like draft horse.

- I'd say my uncles, my brothers, my older brothers now, my nephews, my brother-in-law we all, right now it's me, my brother-in-law, my nephew and my nephew in law.

- Do you know what I like going down, like to the state fair and that is just looking at the TAC.

Looking at all that stuff, all that leather and at all the shiny stuff.

I mean, that's gotta be some money wrapped up in that.

- Yeah, it can get pretty pricey.

It's well, when we originally started the venue, it was to kind of justify keeping the horses but now the horses have been the raising prices quite a bit.

And now it's actually, they actually have their own standing business by themselves.

- Oh really?

- Horse prices have really gone up in price.

- Why do you think that?

- There's just a lot more companies that get into them for advertising, kind of like Budweiser they use them and there's a lot of money.

This last thing I went to, there's two I brought for $125,000.

- So they're buying those like for a mascot?

- Hmm for a mascot basically, yeah.

- Okay, I guess that works out well for you.

- Oh, I like it.

I wish I can tell a few of them like that.

- Okay, all right.

I raised hogs, right?

I know how many litters you could get per year and how you can turn that over.

What's it take?

- 11 months, 11 days.

- For what?

- One gestation?

- Yeah, 11 months, 11 days is what it takes to get a colt.

- And then how long does it, the colt have to be with the mom before it's ready?

- A minimum of three months.

- Three months so that's a process.

- Lean and wean, yeah.

- That's a process.

- Yeah, and an average Colt right now, just to run a mill colt right now will bring $3,000 at a time.

- Really?

- This is just an average running local.

If you want a really good colt.

Show colt it'd bring between five and 10, easily.

- Okay.

Do you ever pull them?

Like you see.

- No, that's a different breed.

I mean, it's the same breed.

- I should have looked at my chart that I drew.

- Yeah, there you go.

(Don and Rob laugh) - It's very cool, when a team of these draft horses go past you, I mean, just you could feel, their hooves on the ground.

It's like that thunder.

- I still get the excitement every time I hear it.

It's all I've heard it my whole life, but I still get excited about it every time I hear that the harness and the shoes.

- It is, I mean is that something that you want to either your customers for the vineyard, do you want them to know that?

- Exactly, I want them to be, I want them to be, that's a whole part of the, presence of coming to the vineyard is just to come and see the horses and look across there and see him and have a one-on-one with them, that's our plan.

Then we have a lot of weddings, we do like fairytale weddings where we have horses and carriages.

We can do up to three carriages for a wedding.

It's pretty neat.

- Oh man, I bet you that's gotta be like.

- No, it's really neat.

It can be some really high-dollar way.

- You got to deal with the bride so.

- Yeah, they can be fun.

- So brides are all [indistinct] - Well, a lot of times it's just the mom more so than the bride, the mother of the bride.

- Okay.

We'll leave that go.

Hey, but if you're going to make money sometimes you got to put in your dues.

- For sure.

- But I gotta imagine it's like, if I was getting married, if I was a woman and getting married and that would be the fairytale thing, right?

- Yeah.

It, it is.

I mean, it's like the Cinderella story you know what I mean?

They, especially have an outside wedding we have a really beautiful place across two ponds where they sit and we bring them right up there.

It's, it's really cool.

- So, you got into this vineyard now, has your family ever did like the, I don't know I'm going to call it like agritourism part of it or were they just strictly raising horses?

- Well, we've always kind of been agritourism.

My dad always had people come out there and look at the horses and be part, we did praise.

We always pulled Santa Claus, we'd always get sponsored by banks and stuff like that.

It was always been a big part of our business.

- Okay, why the decision to start a winery though?

- Well, like I say, I was originally it was just justify keeping the horses because it was a huge expense there.

They eat a lot, so it costs a lot to feed them.

- Yeah.

- So, and the ground was, it was more rolling, it wasn't really it's on the river bluff kind of so it was a really flat ground so it's really picturesque.

It's a lot of trees, a lot of hills and I thought it'd be really pretty for a vineyard.

So we started planting grapes and see if we could grow them.

Cause we've kind of went around the whole state and the tri-state area trying to see what works and what, you know.

After we started planting them, it kind of worked for us and we could see, we could grow them.

And it just made a more of a destination for us.

- You can grow them though.

This is, all right, I don't want to be mean to vineyards in the area but sometimes I've gone to like these local vineyards and they're like, well, this is from the grapes that we grew here right here in central Illinois.

And the wine tastes like something behind a beaver dam.

You know what I'm saying?

- Yeah, you haven't had our wine, I guess huh?

- I haven't.

- All right.

- I mean you brought the bottle, you forgot to bring an opener.

I bet you, we could get it done.

- I'm sure we can.

- Is it good?

- It's very good, this is very good.

This is if you like sweet wine we have a premium sweet wine.

If you look at, not trashing anybody's wine, I feel like I barefoot out of California, which there they have sweet wines but it's watered down less alcohol.

Ours is pure wine, pure sugar, higher alcohol content.

It's a premium wine.

- Oh really?

So if generally, if you get down to here and this gets you all loopy that's by the time you hit here on this bottle you.

- Oh yeah, a glass will get you starting a little bit.

- Really?

- It's I mean, it's not a, when you drink it, it's almost like Kool-Aid our wineries, the fun winery.

That's why I like to say our wine is fun.

It's not the typical California wine.

We do dry wines also.

We accommodate across the board.

We do dries, we do semis, we do sweets, but our premium market is sweet wine.

- You ever try that at Boone's farm?

- I like it.

- It's not bad.

I mean, you can't find it anymore but the orange Boone's farm, that's a solid wine.

- There's a funny story about Boone's farm is I have three vineyards right next to me and we all are really good friends.

We started up pretty much the same time and the one that's next to me, he likes the more of the dry wines and that's what he grows.

And we went to the very first event, at a tasting and he was making fun of me calling me Boone's farms cause mine's more sweet and I out sold most of vineyards there because everybody wanted Midwest is more sweet.

And after the show, I said, who's Boone's farm now, buddy?

- You got your Boone's farm right here.

- And he said, I got to get some sweet wine.

- All right, you grow the grapes.

Do you actually make the wine?

- Yeah, we have a processing plant right up the road from our vineyard.

- All right, that's gotta be a learning curve.

- Yeah, well I have actually a partner.

That's been in it for 17 years.

It's called Hopewell Winery in Pittsfield, Illinois.

He got me started and I make some of it up here and we still make some of the small matches in Pittsfield.

- Okay - But, we make about 29 different varieties, is what we make right now.

- Wow!

That's from how many different grapes?

- Several different grapes.

But we make a lot of fruit wines too, not just grape wine.

- Oh, what's your best fruit wine.

- Well, it depends what you like.

Peach is probably my favorite, peach has really high seller.

Then we've got a blueberry, blackberry sells really well.

And we got an apple and we got a pear.

We've got a pear orchard, too - About that rhubarb, ever tried that?

- I really liked rhubarb and that's on the drawing table.

- I've made rhubarb brandy.

- That's gotta be really good.

- It's unique it's a, the first class is fantastic.

We'll just leave it at that.

- I liked the strawberry rhubarb.

My favorite pie is strawberry rhubarb and I think that'd be a really good wine.

- Okay, this is pretty cool.

I've tried to put myself into your shoes, right?

You started this whole thing from scratch and now you're sitting there, talking to me, looking at a bottle of your wine.

That's pretty cool.

- It is, it's really justifying.

- Yeah, do you ever just sit and look at your vineyard and go.

- All the time.

My wife will see me just staring at things and says are you doing?

She's like get busy, do something.

I always visualize in my head, more plants.

We're trying grow.

- More plants, all right let's get into that.

What else are are you, you've got a hotel?

- Yeah, our town had a small, old hotel and we didn't have any place for our wedding parties to stay or visitors, so we bought it tore it down and built a new one, right in middle of town.

It's a small boutique hotel.

- Took it completely down?

Started it over?

- Started it over, right in middle of town.

- All right, that's a big investment.

- It was an investment but it's worked out good for us.

It's been in business now three years and with the COVID and everything was a little worried about the COVID but we still had an 80% occupancy rate for the whole year, so.

- You're kidding me?

- We was really happy with turnout - In Lewistown?

Illinois.

- In Lewistown.

- Yes.

- During COVID 80% occupancy for your eye.

I don't think the big ones on the interstate do that, do they?

- Some of them, some do depends on the location but, we get a lot of hunters, Fulton county is big for hunting, big buck hunting, big goose hunting.

In [Inaudible] we have a lot of birdwatchers that are come from California all over the place, they'll have tours.

And we get a lot of young people.

Then we get a lot of contractors.

You know, then we get a lot of people for weddings.

- Okay, I'm trying to, I can't put my hands around you cause I get it, you know horses, right, you know that.

You didn't know vineyards, you didn't know wine, you didn't know hotel but here you are, how did that evolve?

You did one thing and that led to needing another thing.

- Mhm, basically I'm a thinker.

My brain don't shut down.

And I drive my wife pretty crazy.

- The hotel that is, that supports the vineyard or what else do you got going on?

- Well, the vineyard itself, we have it it's an event hall in the vineyard and we also, we do, like I said, we do a lot of weddings.

We do a lot at, during the COVID.

Pre-COVID we did a lot of comedians, we had Jimmy Walker, JJ from the show Good Times.

It was awesome, it was a great show.

- You might as well just hang up your hat right now.

You aren't going to top that.

- No, it was a good one.

He was, he was very entertaining.

I'd say we do a mentalist, we do murder mysteries.

We've got an event hall that'll seat about 350, on the inside.

Then we do.

- Whoa whoa, where's that at?

- It's a part of the winery.

- You got a hall at the winery that has 350 people?

- Yeah, 350.

- And I'm assuming like this stage right?

- Mhm.

And all that, so what is the main use of that room?

- A lot of weddings and just a lot of like, summers is filled with weddings.

I do the, we can do an inside wedding or an outside wedding.

Typically like they do an outside wedding, then they have the event side inside and we do the, we got the full kitchen where we do the catering for the whole wedding.

- You ever been in that house on the rocks?

- I think I have.

- Up in Wisconsin.

It starts with a house and then it literally, you spend the whole day going around because they didn't stop adding to it.

It's like you got an entire day of seeing these most unique things in the world because they just kept adding to it.

That's going to be you - That's wait, I have a good relationship with the Amish.

They do a lot of our build-outs for our buildings and we just keep adding and adding and adding.

We've got a huge outdoor event center too.

We do a fun day Sundays with bands and we'll get seven to eight hundred people sometimes out there on a bands.

Yeah, it's crazy.

- Is that like outdoors?

- Outdoors.

It's under, pretty much under one roof.

- Lewistown, what is the closest big town to it?

- Canton, probably it's about 15,000.

- I mean big town.

- Peoria.

- Peoria, what are you drawing people from?

- Well, if you do a radius from where we're at and your radius about an hour a drive, you've got about a million to draw from.

You've got Bloomington, you've got the quad city - A million people.

- People draw from, yeah.

- And people will drive that?

- That's about the most people.

I mean an hour people drive that on a weekend.

- I think too.

It's like you want to drive that far forward.

Bradford used to have a German restaurant.

I mean it was what it was, it wasn't the end all be all.

But people liked the drive cause when they moved it to Peoria, it didn't do well.

So are you finding that people are wanting to get out of their regular lives get to big horse vineyards, just kind of escape for a while.

- We get a lot of people from Springfield and Peoria, Bloomington that come down Quincy.

Quincy is a little bit farther and in quad cities.

More so than our locals, we get a lot of people from, like say the 45 minute drive that'll come there.

- I used to complain to my dad about farming and he's like son dealing with mother nature is tough.

Just be happy, you don't have to deal with human nature.

- It can be tough deal.

It can be very trying at times.

- How many people does your whole empire, I mean, who all runs it?

How many employees they have?

- My wife will run the hotel and I pretty much do the vineyard.

And then I have a partner, we do the processing facility.

- Brilliant.

And like the, the vineyards?

I mean that I would think that would have to have like a staff of people to run that.

- We do, we've got a manager that's really good.

And we've got, I think usually about eight to 10 people.

- Okay, if people are watching this and they're like, hey I want to check out this place.

I mean, where do they go?

What's the website?

- Bighorsevineyards.com And we got bighorseinnandsuites.com - What's the second one?

- Bighorseinnandsuites.com, that's the hotel.

- You named the hotel after the horses too?

Do you have a stuffed horse in the lobby?

- No, we don't, we've got pictures - Jesus, and it is a hotel, right?

Not a motel?

- That's correct, the hotel for sure A motel when you drive up to the door, hotel is when you have a lobby, we're definitely a hotel.

- Okay, I mean, it seems like that's a sore spot with you.

- Yeah, it is.

Cause since it's a small hotel.

It's a boutique hotel.

Then we actually have a black maple coffee on one end, a little restaurant on one end and they do a spectacular business.

They have three now I think and it's just fun.

- Is that yours?

- Nope, we just lease the space to them, but they, I got to give them kudos for the little town of Lewistown they have a line of cars every morning and just nonstop, so.

- There's so many people that will tell you that getting people out to the rural Illinois, is just not going to happen, right?

You gotta be in Chicago, you gotta be in Peoria.

You aren't going to get people to go out there.

You're just putting your thumb right to their eye.

- Yeah, we're trying to prove them wrong.

We got, they said the vineyard, I got a vineyard right next door to me.

It's called Native Trails.

We're really good friends.

I could throw a rock and hit him that's how close I am to him.

Then right down the road.

- It seems like you've thought about that.

- Yeah, we actually both kind of put it in about the same time.

He just now retired from his job and now actually doing it full time.

And we're really good friends.

We try to do a lot of events together.

Do some fun runs and stuff together too.

- Oh so you do that around the vineyards, a fun rounds.

- Mhm.

- Okay, yeah because why wouldn't you do something else?

(Don and Rob laugh) - We do a lot of Jeep runs too.

We have a lot of trails, ours is really hilly and we've got a creek and stepped down through there.

- Why did they call it a Jeep run?

- Just people love to take their Jeeps out.

And I mean, some of these people have a $60,000 Jeep.

They'll take it out there.

- Also, they're driving a Jeep, they're not running?

- No, no, it's a Jeep.

- Oh that, you know that I would take part in.

- It's crazy cause our, I mean, it's hilly, you know, take these really high-dollar Jeeps and go down to the Creek.

I'm thinking, oh my gosh, but they do.

- What does this mean to you?

I mean seriously, when you think about producing something because as a farmer I know when I look at something that I produced, I'm proud of it but it's not something that I get to see people enjoy themselves.

So when you look at this, when you see someone open this and take a drink of it and truly know that they're enjoying it.

What does that mean to you?

- It's very gratifying when there's a product you've made from the beginning and the concept that you've produced and you see somebody out there enjoying it and especially the name, when you come up with these unique names and you start to hear it everywhere people calls it by it's name.

That's really kind of cool.

- Kind of like sharp farmer.

- Yeah, there you go.

(Rob laughs) - I like it, I love it.

I mean, I love the success stories of course but when you can go out to a place like Lewistown and really establish that, I mean, I've been part of that in smaller communities, they're proud of it.

They're proud because all right, yes we are, we're big of horse vineyards, we're the home of these other vineyards.

That's gotta be good for the whole community building too.

- For sure.

That's what loosens a very historic old town.

And when international harvester went out to Canton it kind of made the area a little bit depressed.

And so people still, I love to see people put money back into town and make the town really nice.

And that's what we've been trying to do is invest in the town because that's our hometown.

That's where we born and raised.

And my wife is not from the area.

So she's actually contributed a lot too, for the, you know she just loves it.

She's very proud of the hotel.

- All right Don and don't tell me, you don't know because I know, you know but what's next on the list?

- We've got several things, we actually were dealing with shark tank, maybe on some things we might be doing shark tank.

- Ooh, which one would you go with?

- Well, this is actually a Kevin Harrington more of the original sharks.

- Oh, okay.

- So we're dealing with him, with some of that stuff.

- So you're not going on the show?

- Don't know yet, maybe?

- That'll be cool.

- Everything's still in kind of the work, so.

- Mark Cuban kind of rubs me the wrong way though.

- Yeah - But he'll probably be the one that gives you.

- Kevin O'Leary would probably for me because he's.

- He's the one I would go with.

- Well he's a wine guy, but he's a wine snob and our wines are the fun wines.

- I don't think, I think he cares about what's going to make money.

- Well, that's true.

- Yeah and obviously you're doing something right.

- We're doing that.

We're getting ready to do canned wines into like a red bull sized can, a candy division, so that would be something unique for a different market.

- Is that being done?

- Not yet.

Oh, the cans, yeah.

Barefoot is kind of doing it, California wines, nobody's locally is doing it.

None of the local vineyards like in the Midwest is doing it.

So we'd be the first in the area.

- You know, my wife's watching.

(Rob and Don laugh) - Canned wines.

Oh Lord, help us.

- We got big dreams.

- Well, I love it.

I love that you do.

So your hope is to bring in an investment dollars so what you can grow.

- Yep, we want to scale it.

We want to be the next Barefoot, I guess.

The premium Barefoot.

- Oh, so you're thinking more just on the wine side, not the whole, a big horse vineyards center.

- Well, the vineyard is actually the storyline.

I always take it back to like Bob Evans.

He looked at all the restaurants that Bob Evans has.

That's the storyline.

Every one of the restaurants was made like the barn to look like the barn.

That's why we want to do the big quartz vineyards to be our storyline.

Then scale it for the product.

- Okay, you need a different example, Bob Evans.

(Don laughs) - It's the only one I can think of.

- Pizza hut, I don't know, Don Archdale again, tell us where people can find you.

- We're in about a hundred different stores right now.

We're in Hy-Vees, county markets, Casey's, UFS here in Peoria, (indistinct), Pekin.

Getting them ready to be in Walmart and Benny's - Walmart, yeah, I mean that might sell a few.

And the website again.

- Bighorsevineyards.com.

And we're also on Facebook, Big Horse Vineyards.

- And the one for the hotel?

- Bighorseinnandsuites.com and also on Facebook.

- Okay.

It's very cool.

I love your story.

I love the story of success.

I love the story of investing in the smaller community.

So, Don Archdale thank you so very much for talking to us.

- My pleasure.

- Yep, we'll catch everybody next week.