(country rock music) (country rock music fades) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

Fruit of the vine, wine, it's one of the things that makes America great, I guess.

Anyway, today's guest knows all about it.

Lisa Barry from Washington, Illinois.

How you doing, Lisa?

- I'm doing great.

Thanks for having me.

- You're the, what, the owner of Tres Rojas Winery?

- Yes, my husband and I own the winery and we're sitting on 51 acres here in Washington.

- Okay.

Tres is three.

- Mm-hmm.

- Rojas is?

- Red.

- What?

- Red.

- Oh, it's red.

- Red.

Three reds.

- Three red winery.

- Three reds winery.

- Okay, are you not a fan of the white wines?

- Actually, I love white wines.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- But we started out making three reds.

It's a love story.

I would have to fill you in from the beginning.

- Oh, we'll get there.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

I always drank wine.

I didn't like reds.

- Okay.

- Until we had a friend, her husband worked for a winery down by St. Louis and they came up and he's like, "You know what, let me get you the right red and let me show you how to drink it."

And I'm like, "Dude, I know.

Believe me."

Boone's Farm.

- Right, right.

- I can drink.

Yeah.

- Right.

- Well, it is.

I mean, the whole sniffing and everything like that, it's amazing how much of a difference that makes.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Alright, let's start with you.

You live in Washington?

- We live in Washington now, yes.

- [Rob] Where are you from?

- Originally, I'm from the suburbs of Chicago and my husband's from Southern California.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- How'd you meet?

- We actually met online in 2013, so.

- [Rob] Really?

- Mm-hmm.

- I had moved down here 'cause my ex-husband took a job with Caterpillar, so that landed us in Morton.

And Bob is a retired federal biologist.

He worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

- [Rob] Okay.

- And retired after 31 years, but he was working at the Chatauqua Refuge when we met.

- [Rob] I don't know where that's at.

- Lewiston.

- [Rob] Okay.

- Yep.

- So you saw a wildlife biologist and you're like, oh.

- Oh, yeah, that's the man for me.

(both laughing) - So you met online, which is, I mean, more and more these days.

- Mm-hmm.

- That is, that's how love starts.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

- So where was the first date?

- It was actually at a coffee shop in Morton.

We sat in front of Eli's and- - [Rob] Yeah.

- Right as the pumpkin fest got started, yeah.

- There's nothing more romantic than a pumpkin fest.

- I know.

Yeah.

- The pumpkin chunking.

I mean that's- - Yeah.

- Whew.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) - All things orange.

- So you guys met, you fell in love.

Now, when did the idea of a vineyard winery?

- Well, we met over a cup of coffee, but we quickly found out we both really enjoyed wine.

When we were out to dinner, or since he would go back and visit family in California, he would join a couple of wine clubs out that way.

And when we would travel, we would stop at a winery and then we would travel specifically to see wineries.

So, you know, that's how we ended up.

(laughing) - I would say it is, it's a lot of fun.

It's romantic because in general, wineries are kind of in a nice setting.

- Yep.

- That's why they're there.

- Yeah.

- And you get to sit there with your loved one and, you know, sip on a glass of wine.

- Mm-hmm.

- And tell her how beautiful she is and all this stuff.

- Right, yeah.

- That's what Bob was doing?

- Connect, yeah.

Very much so.

- He was laying it down, huh?

- (laughs) Well, little did he know that I would actually like, become his muse and he actually felt compelled to go on this adventure with me.

But we were sitting up in Galena at a winery.

It was 2015.

And I said, you know, we really ought to think about this as a second career 'cause we really enjoyed meeting the owners and the winemakers and touring the facilities and seeing the whole process from the vineyard, you know, to what gets poured into your glass.

And he said to me, "Well, let me make sure that I can make wine first and then we'll talk about it."

- That's a fair point.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- Get the hard stuff out of the way.

We thought making the wine would be the hard part.

But he started with three reds.

We enjoyed Malbec, Sangiovese and Pinot Noir.

- [Rob] Mm-hmm.

- And so those were the three wine kits that he started with.

He threw away the instructions 'cause that's a man for ya.

And he- - I don't understand what your problem is.

- (laughing) And he researched the yeast strains that he wanted to use.

And actually he made three really great-tasting wines.

- Wait a minute.

Hold up.

Did he buy the kits.

- Mm-hmm.

- Like, off eBay?

- From Friar Tuck, actually.

- [Rob] Okay.

- Mm-hmm.

- So you guys were literally just starting from?

- Yeah.

- You had no idea how to make wine?

- Starting in the office.

Some big glass carboys, five gallons each.

- Get like some Welch's juice.

(laughing) - You know, we did make a wine with Welch's Concord juice and it took a silver medal at the competition.

(Rob laughs) Yeah.

- Okay.

I'll stop joking, I guess.

So he gets these kits.

- Mm-hmm.

- And was that okay?

- Yeah, they were really good.

And he made a few more other types of wine.

He made a Chardonnay and a Pinot Grigio.

I made a rhubarb strawberry cobbler for dessert once.

And he said, you know, this would make a really great wine.

So we made a strawberry rhubarb wine that we still make today.

And you know, we knew our friends liked what we were making.

But we weren't sure if they just liked it because they were our friends, or if it was really good.

- That's what I would wonder.

I mean, did they really like it?

- Well, we sent them to a couple of amateur competitions just to get some professional perspective on it.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- First competition, we sent nine wines in and eight medaled, two gold and six silver.

- [Rob] Oh, wow.

- So that was encouraging.

- It must not suck.

- It wasn't that nasty.

- Yeah.

- It wasn't that nasty.

And then we sent another dozen to a national competition and same results, 11 of the wines medaled.

We even got a double gold.

So we felt pretty confident saying, "Yeah, let's move ahead with this."

So we put in all of our paperwork and- - Whoa, whoa, whoa.

So your husband Bob, is he that mindset?

Okay, how do I say this without being mean?

Is he kind of, would he be a wine nerd?

- He's definitely a science nerd.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Alright.

- Yeah, he's a sci- - Because you would have to be able- To start out that good.

You're dealing with science, not art- - Yeah.

- To start out that good.

- Yes.

- Okay.

- So he's a biologist, right?

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So a lot of wine is chemistry and understanding what happens during the fermentation process and afterwards and how to manipulate the wine so that it's smooth and not sharp and you know, all of those- - [Rob] Yeah.

- You know, preferences that people have.

So, yeah.

- Okay.

So you've got it figured it out.

- Got it figured out.

- What's the next step?

- Whew, next step then is we got our paperwork and we started to put wine in the tank for production.

And at this point we didn't have any vineyard, any tasting room, any production space.

We did buy 400 pounds of strawberries from Roth Farms in Morton.

- [Rob] Oh.

- And Russ Roth, the owner said, "What are you doing with 400 pounds of strawberry?"

And we said, "We're making wine."

And he's like, "Oh."

So he's got a tree farm.

And on the tree farm, he had a little over an acre planted 'cause back in the day he was supporting Mackinac- - [Rob] Acre of?

- A vineyard.

- Oh, okay.

- A vineyard.

They were supporting Mackinaw Valley Vineyard back in the day.

- Oh, yeah!

- With grapes.

- Right.

- But they hadn't used the vineyard for several years.

And he said, "You guys can have at it if you want."

So a vineyard fell into our laps.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- It was pretty beautiful.

So he took us to see it.

It was really overgrown.

We went in and cut everything out and transformed the two varieties into five.

- [Rob] Mm-hmm.

- And we called it our practice vineyard for about five years.

Made some great wine off of that vineyard.

At the same time, we found a production space in Morton.

- [Rob] Okay.

- So we were in what used to be, I think, Moweaqua's meat packing plant.

And it was a perfect spot for all the water that's needed to clean tanks and work with wine processing.

So we had our production and our inventory stored there.

- Okay, so these wines you're making, are they all from Illinois grapes?

- We did get California juice shipped in, so we did start with California grapes.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And then we did some Illinois fruits, initially to get going.

- Are Illinois grapes, they're a little, not as sweet as a wine should be?

- They're as sweet.

But what grows in the Midwest are hybrid grape vines.

So they're a French American hybrid, different than the viniferas that grow in California or in Virginia or in the Finger Lakes.

- Did you ever think you'd know this much about wine?

- I didn't.

I didn't.

(both laughing) - Okay, so you got a place.

- Mm-hmm.

- You've got this vineyard that fell into your lap.

- Mm-hmm.

- Now what are we doing?

- So now we're looking for where can we open up a tasting room because we were producing wine and selling it wholesale to retail liquor stores or restaurants that would do wine pairing dinners to feature us as a local- - [Rob] Oh really?

- Crafter.

- Was it hard to get into the stores?

- Yeah.

Yeah, it was.

- Did you have to bribe people?

- A little bit.

- Yeah.

(indistinct) - It still is hard.

(both laughing) It still is hard.

But that's another story.

You don't have enough time for that.

(laughing) And so we started looking at properties.

We probably looked at over 30 different options, how we can shoo ourselves into an existing space.

We looked at purchasing land and had a building layout so we can have production and a tasting room and plant a vineyard.

And we just couldn't get through zoning.

We first ran into a spot in East Peoria.

It was a little too surrounded by residential neighbors for them to feel comfortable and they protested.

- They didn't feel comfortable?

- They weren't sure what to expect, I think, with a winery.

- For a winery?

- They kind of thought we were gonna be a biker bar and they didn't want loud music.

- You know.

- And traffic.

- I'm not a expert on biker bars, but I don't think they specialize in wine.

- They don't.

But it was a real issue for people not wanting the traffic in their neighborhood, not knowing what kind of noise was going to be there.

And they weren't sure.

- You know, I would love to have a winery like next door.

- Mm-hmm.

- That would just, I mean, just walk over there.

Have, you know.

- Yeah.

- Just have a drink and a discussion and go home.

- This property would've had such potential.

There was a bike path that crossed the driveway, so it would've been very recreational.

It had a ravine, which we wanted to turn into a nature walk off of the bike path.

And it would've been super low key, but just didn't come together.

- Mm.

Did that piss you off?

- We cried a little bit.

- It would infuriate me.

- Yeah.

- Because.

Why?

- I think that people just didn't understand.

For us, then, we tried again in the Mackinac area and we tried again in Peoria, got to the zoning meetings and at this point, you know, we learned a little bit what to expect and how to prepare and how to present.

We just couldn't get through some of the infrastructure stuff with the Peoria property.

And after that third really big failure that the Peoria Journal Star reported on, the city of Washington called us the next day and said, "You know, we would love to have a winery in our community.

And we've got a couple of parcels that the city owns that aren't being used for their intended purpose.

If they work for you, we'd like to work with you."

- You're kidding me?

- Yeah.

- City government with some common sense.

- My husband almost didn't take the call.

- Good for you, Washington.

- Yeah.

(bell dings) Ding, ding, ding.

- Good for you.

Did you ever like feel like you wanted to go and burn down people's houses with them inside?

- No.

We're being recorded, right?

(laughing) - Why are you winking at me?

- Oh.

(laughing) It was frustrating.

Absolutely.

It was frustrating.

- Oh, I couldn't imagine!

I would be so upset.

- Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

- Oh, okay.

Anyway, so Washington.

- Mm-hmm.

- They come through.

- Did you like the place?

- There were two properties and on the USDA soils map, you can look at what its ability for growing grapes is.

- Yeah, the soil types and- - Mm-hmm.

The soil types.

And the one property was red.

It was like a no-go.

It was flat.

There was no opportunity there.

The second one where we landed was like green green.

- It was like ready for- - [Rob] Nice.

- Screaming for grapes.

So we're on a bit of a hilltop.

We're on the actual glacial moraine.

- [Rob] Mm-hmm.

- And so part of the Bloomington Moraine.

And so we've got some nice rolling hills and that's excellent for airflow, for the grapes so that they don't get trapped in moisture and things like that.

- Gotcha.

Okay.

- Yeah.

- So that's.

- We're there now.

- Yes.

- We're there now.

And we purchased the property in June of 2019.

- [Rob] Mm-hmm.

- And then my husband retired from the Fish and Wildlife Service.

And then we got the building situated.

Got the concrete footings poured, and then it snowed on Halloween that year.

And so the concrete guys were like, "Hmm," not so sure they wanted to pour the rest of the foundation through the winter.

And with the road restriction, we couldn't actually start building until mid-April.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And then Covid hit.

- Oh, fantastic.

Yeah.

- So, we were there, but we poured the concrete, so we were going on with it.

- Now was this your full-time gig at the time?

- No, I was working with a software tech company for higher ed.

My background's in university administration.

- Okay.

Now, so you eventually got it built.

You're using it.

Tell me about this harvester.

Sounds like that was fun.

- Yeah, so we planted seven and a half acres of grapes.

There are 11 varieties.

- Which is, for something that's especially harvested, that's a lot.

- It's a lot of manpower.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And a lot of coordinating, 30-some people to spend a morning, early afternoon picking an acre of grapes.

And I didn't think we were up for it.

And we looked at harvesters, they're quite expensive.

But we found a used machine up in Canada.

It was originally built in California and a vineyard owner in Canada was using it.

And he retired.

So he was selling all of his equipment.

But we went up to go look at it and it was raining so he didn't really get to drive it around, but we went ahead and purchased it and had it shipped to the vineyard.

And I'll be sending you some video, but Bob said the first time he got on it, it's huge, it's like 14 high, 14 wide.

It's like a big box.

And it raises and lowers so that you can drive over the height of your rows.

And internally the beaters knock the berries off the vines.

They fall on a conveyor, they come up, they get dropped into a side container that he can just drive over and empty when it fills up.

But he said it was a little frightening the first time he was up that high- - [Rob] Oh, I bet.

- Driving over this row 'cause you can't see around you.

You just have to trust the process.

- It's frightening, like with a corn combine.

- Mm-hmm.

- And the like per foot, the difference in revenue is day and night.

I mean.

- Yeah.

- If I go a hundred yards with a corn, I mean, it's not the end of the world.

You want a hundred yards with your (laughs), that would not be good.

- Mm-hmm.

It would not be great.

(both laughing) - So is that how you're harvesting all your grapes now?

- That's how we're harvesting nine out of the 11 varieties.

- [Rob] Okay.

- We have two varieties in the vineyard that the clusters grow so close to the cordons that the beaters don't actually take them off.

- [Rob] Gotcha.

- Smoothly.

So those do need to be hand harvested.

- You call them berries?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- That's a grape?

- Yeah.

Grapes.

- Okay.

- The berries, the clusters.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- So a cluster is a berry or the berry?

- All the berries form a cluster.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) So we do have a couple of harvest parties in the harvest season where people can come out, join us in picking grapes and have fun with the experience.

And we serve lunch and a glass of wine, so.

- Do you do the foot stomping?

- We haven't yet, but I have ideas for that, so.

(laughing) So the vineyard itself is only, gosh, we planted in May of 20, so it's in their sixth year 'cause we got 1-year-old vines when we planted.

So we're still in the process of getting full harvest, so.

- [Rob] Okay.

- Last year was a little disastrous for farming, at least grapes?

- [Rob] Why?

- We had 70 degree weather in February last year.

- [Rob] Oh.

- Which sounds great on paper, but the vines said, "Whew, it's time to get up."

- [Rob] Party time.

- Yeah.

And so when we got a frost in April, which wasn't terribly late, the vines had woken up.

And the frost really just, in some cases, everything froze from trunk to cordon and we lost a lot of primary buds and yeah, it was not fun.

- So who's coming to your place?

Like the average?

Or do you have a bread and butter average customer?

- We see people of all ages.

- [Rob] A lot of bikers?

- No bikers.

Well, we get bike riders.

(both laughing) And we do have people who come in on their motorcycles.

I will say that, to be fair.

And they're able to buy wine- - [Rob] See, all those people in Peoria.

- And stick 'em in their satchels.

- "See, I told you!"

(both laughing) - We see a lot of folks locally, but being between Peoria and Bloomington and Springfield, we do get quite a good crowd on a regular basis.

We see folks from Chicago, down in St. Louis.

We're a nice central meeting place.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Sometimes, we've seen families meet their kids in college down in the St. Louis area at our winery.

We also offer parking for harvest host members.

- [Rob] What's that?

- So people who have RVs can join- - Ah.

- The Harvest host membership and that allows them to stay at different wineries, breweries, farms across the nation when they're traveling.

And it's just a fun experience for them to stay somewhere, learn about the local product, have a free nights lodging.

- [Rob] Do you have the hookups?

- We don't have hookups.

So we're dry camping, but usually our RVs are self-contained for a night.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So.

And we've met a lot of people.

We have a huge map on our wall and it's just stuttered with pins everywhere from where people come from.

- [Rob] Oh, I bet.

- So, it's neat.

- So you guys obviously have worked hard on this dream.

You've had a lot of hiccups.

Now, are you to the point where you can sit back and go, "This is fun?"

- Oh, absolutely.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, the first year, it's a learning curve, right?

Learn as you go.

We were coming outta Covid, which changed everything that we believed about serving wine, pouring wine in a tasting room because people couldn't sit inside for the first few months until maybe Valentine's Day.

Yeah, we're having fun.

I'm having fun with the people.

- Are ya?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Are you a good host?

- I think so.

I hope so.

It's just, I love people watching and I love meeting where people are coming from and finding out what they like and what they don't like and helping them enjoy it.

- Well, people probably don't get too hammered at a wine place, do they?

- Generally, not.

- Just a little?

- Yeah.

- Loud.

- You could tell when the volume rises that the house is full.

We don't really do a whole lot of weddings because I think that we deal a lot more with people overindulging in that kind of celebration.

- Well, they're not paying per glass.

- It depends.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- On the bride and groom and what they decide.

But we see a lot of bridal parties and other kinds of celebrations that rent out our space.

- Okay.

Well, what do you want people to know?

Because everybody looks at what you do and they're like, "Man, that is, that's the dream."

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

What do you want people to know about, like, what's tough behind the scenes?

- There is a lot of, there's a lot of moving parts to owning your own business.

We knew that going in, but to live it, we're constantly solving problems and I feel like we've gotten good at, well, what's the easiest, you know, what's the most logical way to fix this or make it better?

We have a great staff that works with us.

The folks that work with us in the tasting room, out in the vineyard and in the production space feel like family.

So it's great to have people to bounce ideas off of and make things work.

Otherwise, I would just want people to know that our wine is really drinkable.

It's great.

It's award-winning.

Dry wine, sweet wine, fruit wine.

- Eh, we'll be the judge of that.

- Okay.

(both laughing) - I once interviewed a guy that had a vineyard down in Texas, like in a desert.

- Mm-hmm.

- I mean, nothing.

And then he had this beautiful vineyard and I asked him the same question.

I was like, what don't people know?

He's like, "You'll see when we get out there."

I'm like, "Okay."

You go out there, we're walking down the rows, rattling everywhere, they had rattlesnakes all up in their grapes.

- Ooh!

- You probably don't get that.

- We have deer and we have starlings.

- [Rob] Starlings?

- Oh, the birds are horrible.

Yeah.

- They eat the grapes?

- Oh yeah.

Yeah.

As soon as they start to ripen, they're like, "It's a free buffet."

- Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

And so we have to throw nets over all of the grapes and it kind of looks like cobwebs kind of hanging over all the grapes, but.

- Is there any way to keep the deer off them?

- We do have an electric fence laid out around the perimeter of the property.

- I repeat.

Is there any way to keep the deer out?

(laughing) - Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, for the most part, it's not an issue.

They do cross by the creek where the RVs park.

- [Rob] Mm-hmm.

- And so we love to have harvest host to deter the deer- - [Rob] Oh, sure, yeah.

- From coming through, so.

- Okay, where can people find your website, social media, all that stuff.

- Website, tresrojaswinery.com.

We're on Facebook and Instagram.

Yeah, stop into the winery.

And our hours are posted on Google, so we do have summer hours and then we have off season hours.

- I don't care.

- Okay.

- Are they right?

- Yes, yes!

- Because.

(laughing) - I manage it.

- I'll tell you what.

- I manage it.

- I never go by hours on Google because they're- - (laughing) Okay.

So, I should stop working on that?

- Well, just keep 'em up to date.

- I do.

- Yes.

- I do.

Yeah.

- Yeah, you running the social media?

- I'm running the marketing, I'm running the tasting room, the coordinating of events and- - Is it just you and Bob?

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay.

- Yep.

- Do you like working with your husband?

- He has a very different mindset than I do.

But it comes together so well.

We have opposite strengths.

- I've only known you for the past, whatever.

If I could make an assumption, it seems like Bob is the science and the, you know, the formula and you are the hosting side.

- Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Very true.

- I got a feeling that both of you are comfortable with that.

- Yes.

Yes.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Yes, very much so.

But you'll see Bob in the tasting room, and if you do, it's likely that he brought back samples from the production space out front to give people a little taste of what he's working on.

- Well, I don't even care if he doesn't like hosting like you did.

If you get people talking about his wine, I bet ya, you can't shut him up.

(both laughing) - I'm sure some of our customers would say that.

They've gotten cornered by Bob.

(laughing) - [Rob] Well, you gotta be proud of what you build.

- Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah.

It's- - [Rob] Because literally not everybody can do that.

- Yeah.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- You might live next door to an insurance agent or you know, another professional, but it's probably rare that you live next door to a winemaker.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Again, I would like to.

- True.

We're back there.

- It's too bad you didn't.

- Yeah.

- I just don't like people around me, but I would, you know, if you could come in for a couple hours in the afternoon, open your winery and then leave.

- And then leave, that'd be great.

- I'd be okay with that.

- All right.

(both laughing) - Well, it was really cool getting to know you, Lisa.

I love stories of people that just don't stop because I imagine after the first time you were rejected, it would've been easy to just go, "You know what?

Forget this.

We're just gonna move on."

- Yeah.

- You guys kept going.

- Yeah.

- And now it seems like you are extremely happy in what you're doing.

- Yeah, yeah.

It was pretty organic the way it grew.

- [Rob] There you go.

- Mm-hmm.

Literally.

- You could sell it that way!

- Right.

(both laughing) - Lisa Barry from Washington, Illinois.

Tres Rojas Winery.

Yeah, I cannot say any, you know Mexican names, but Tres Rojas, I can say that.

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay.

- Mm-hmm.

- Tres Rojas.

I'm gonna stop by.

- Okay.

- Yeah, and you're gonna show me how to drink.

- Yep.

- Correct.

- You guys let me know when you're coming and you'll get VIP treatment, I promise.

- Really?

- Mm-hmm.

Yep.

- What are you doing this afternoon?

- Right?

The winery's open.

We can give you a tour.

Of course, he might hand you some pruners.

(laughing) - I'll check the Google hours.

- Right.

- Lisa Barry, thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

(Lisa chuckles) (country rock music) (country rock music continues) If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to explore more of our local content.

You can connect with us on our social media platforms, visit our website or download and watch the free PBS app.

We can't wait to see you next time on "A Shot of Ag."