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Lincoln Heritage Winery
Southern Illinois is home to Lincoln Heritage Winery, a small family owned and operated winery and vineyard in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobden,_Illinois Cobden] that opened in 2010. The winery, located in Union County, is at the southern end of the Shawnee Hills American Viticultural Area (AVA) which is south of Route 13 and west of Interstate 57. The owners, Homer and Bonnie Cissell, grow Riesling, Corot Noir, buy some fruit juice, and produce 11 wines. Their wines range from dry, semi-sweet, to sweet in both the reds and whites and the blush wines range from semi- sweet to sweet. As of 2013, Lincoln Heritage Winery was the newest winery in the Shawnee Hills area.

History
The owners of Lincoln Heritage chose their property based on many factors; location, soil type, drainage, and microclimate. The Shawnee Hills area is one of unglaciated hills comprised of dramatic sandstone and limestone bluffs and normally more than sufficient rainfall. It also has a warm continental climate which provides more than adequate growing degree days for the grapes, resulting in a longer growing season, optimum ripeness, and few below-zero days which can kill buds and damage wood on many grape varieties.

Although both owners have their roots in Illinois going back to the 1800’s they come from opposite ends of the state. While conceptualizing what the winery identity would be, they realized celebrating the Land of Lincoln as a whole would be their guiding principal. As a result, Homer drew the blueprints for a Prairie style structure as homage to Frank Lloyd Wright and Bonnie created the logo – the state of Illinois drawn in grapes (rendering produced by Homer). They continued the Illinois theme with their labels that include both a graphic and a story explaining the connection of that label to Illinois history.

“Since we have lived in deep southern Illinois for much of our lives, we have always heard the area referred to as ‘Egypt’. I researched the origins of the nickname and tell the story on the back label of our Egyptian Gold,” stated Bonnie.  “I created similar labels with the Illinois theme such as ‘Water Tower White, Railsplitter Red, and Black Jack (after a local Civil War hero, Gen. John A. Loganhttp://loganmuseum.org/biography/item/19-biography). It was really fun to research these themes and come up with the best graphics for the labels.”

Future plans for the winery include additional wines made from recent plantings of Cabernet Franc and Muscat.