Winery toast of mid-Missouri
Drinking a glass of red wine on the porch of the A-frame and winegarden and looking out over one of the most beautiful blufftops along the Missouri River, one might not know how grounded Les Bourgeois Winery is in the local community.
Since its first bottle of Jeunette Rouge sold in 1986, Les Bourgeois, a family-owned business, has become Missouri’s third-largest producer of wine, winning dozens of awards over the years for its homegrown varietals.
After buying 15 acres of wooded blufftop along the Missouri River in 1974, the Bourgeois family made a huge impact on the small town of Rocheport.
Curtis and Martha Bourgeois moved their family, with four children, into the existing A-frame while they built their new home. After establishing their living space, the family planted grapevines on the blufftop to beautify their property. What was first a project of home-brewed winemaking in the garage quickly turned into a serious endeavor when the family harvested almost 500 gallons of red wine in 1986.
“We were looking for a family-owned-and-operated business that could continue from generation to generation where all could be involved,” said Curtis Bourgeois, who is the eldest son of the founders and CEO of the Bourgeois family business. “We wanted to create a business that had long-term cultural roots within the community.”
Involving the entire family in its operations has played a big role in the success of Les Bourgeois.
“My sister is a lawyer, whom we consult with on legal matters,” Curtis Bourgeois said. “My brother, an architect, designed the bistro and has been involved in the design and development of the new winery at the corner of Interstate 70 that we’re planning to open. My older sister and her family give advice and critique the business. My father plays a big role in what the visionary ideas of Les Bourgeois should represent and where we’re going in the future. He set the vision and aesthetic for us from the very beginning.”
Les Bourgeois purchased more acreage and in 1996 opened the well-known Blufftop Bistro, which serves about 69,000 customers a year. The winery is one of the biggest cultural attractions in mid-Missouri.
“I think that in this area we’re the No. 1 main attraction, but as everybody knows in small business, everyone feeds off of each other,” Curtis Bourgeois said. “Twenty years ago, there wasn’t much going on in this area. Look at our growth and the growth of Rocheport and the dynamic merchants we have there and what the state has done with the Katy Trail. It’s everybody getting involved that’s making it happen.”
Les Bourgeois has built strong relationships with the Missouri Department of Tourism, the Department of Natural Resources, and the community at large. In fact, the state of Missouri gave Les Bourgeois Vineyards, which has one of the most scenic parts of the Katy Trail running underneath its bluff, permission to allow direct access to the trail.
“That’s one of the big things that we’re trying to do,” Curtis Bourgeois said. “Just continue to offer more and more activities and availability of services to the people interested in the cultural and geographic points of mid-Missouri.”
Despite Les Bourgeois’s considerable growth, the business has returned to its original grassroots effort to reach out to people on a one-on-one basis to market its products. Curtis Bourgeois says that the key to Les Bourgeois’s success in the early years was word of mouth. As the business grew, it went along with traditional advertising methods. Now it has come full circle back to face-to-face customer interaction through community wine tastings across the state.
“We’ve revamped our whole marketing plan for the company and said goodbye to the traditional way of advertising,” said Laura Royse, director of marketing and sales for Les Bourgeois. “Our main priority is education of the consumer — letting them know that wine is not an intimidating subject. We try to keep the wine snobbery out of wine.”
Les Bourgeois also interacts with the community by donating wine for not-for-profit events, as well as hosting fund-raisers and functions for charitable causes.
Besides promoting its own homegrown business and family farm, Les Bourgeois supports many local food producers, such as Lakota Coffee Co., Goatsbeard Farms and Patchwork Family Farms.
“We believe in the slow-foods movement and the idea that consuming foods that are grown as close to home as possible is a big part of where we want to go in the future,” Bourgeois said.
The family’s long-term goal is to make Les Bourgeois Vineyards into mid-Missouri’s premier destination point.
“We didn’t get into this business to try and make a quick dollar,” Bourgeois said. “We’re looking at this as a long-term business where we’re going to be here for many years. We just want to establish ourselves and weave that into part of the cultural fabric and continue to grow with our community. That’s really our ambition and goal.”