Draft:Jim Held

Leon James "Jim" Held (1933-2019) was a pioneering Missouri vintner and businessman throughout the 1960s-2010s. Known as the "Father of Midwest Wine," he is credited with revitalizing Missouri winemaking.

Early Years
Held was born in Pershing, Missouri and served in the United States Navy as an engineer. Returning from his service in 1957, Held and his wife Betty would continue life as farmers. Along with pigs, the couple had a 4.5 acre vineyard of Catawba grapes on their family farm. Knowing the rich wine history of their region, Held thought to resurrect the forgotten industry. In 1965, the couple purchased, restored, and reopened Stone Hill Winery which reestablished Missouri's wine industry after Prohibition shut it down for 45 years. That same year, the pair would discover the thought to be extinct Norton grape on a local homestead and returned the variety to commercial production.

Success
The winery found commercial success but was limited by Prohibition-era gallon limits on wine production. Held worked to change the 5,000 gallon limit on wine in 1968. With the help of the Missouri legislature, the law was first changed to a 75,000 gallon limit, but then amended to 500,000 gallons in 1980. At this time, Stone Hill Winery was Missouri's largest winery and grape grower. Held was instrumental in establishing the Hermann American Viticultural Area in 1983, one of the first federally recognized AVA's.

After hiring Dave Johnson as winemaker in 1979, the duo, along with Held's children, would lead a native and hybrid grape wine quality revolution. During this time, the winery would become one the nation's most awarded wineries, and Dave Johnson would be one the nation's most awarded winemakers. The flagship of the winery's success was the Norton. In 1993, noted wine writer Gerald Asher would say that their Norton would be the "indigenous grape that might yet do for Missouri what Cabernet Sauvignon has done for California. I was astonished to find [Stone Hill's Norton] wines so remarkably good. They were more meaty than fruity, with something of the Rhone about them. The 1985, in particular, rounded out by its time in wood and fully developed by several years in the bottle, was quite delicious."

Recognitions and Later Years
In 1982, Held was presented with Missouri’s Small Business of the Year award by Ronald Reagan. In 1988, Jim and Betty would be the first inductees into the Missouri Tourism Hall of Fame. The Held family would be named the Wine Growing Family of the Year by the Wineries Unlimited Conference in 1995. In 2014, the University of Missouri would bestow Held with an Honorary Doctorate of Laws for revitalizing Missouri's wine industry.

In 2011, Held would retire from the winery which transitioned to his son Jonathan and the 3rd generation. In 2019, Held died at the age of 86 and is remembered as a pioneer of the Midwest wine industry.