Bluestem Winery

It is hard to believe that we have been in business now for over 8 years.  After Vern retired in 2003 from commercial banking (Bonnie is retiring after teaching high school here in Parkersburg for 35 years after 3 in Plainfield) we purchased a vacant storefront in downtown Parkersburg, Iowa and converted it into our retail store selling anything needed for home beer brewing including beer brewing equipment, brewing equipment and home brew supplies as well as Brewers Best beer kits and a complete line of supplies for making wine including winemaking ingredients, wine making supplies and winemaking equipment plus wine kits from both Cellar Craft and U.S. Elite Micro-Winery. Our original business plan was to build BlueStem Winery and produce and market our own label wines.  The plan swerved right out of the gate with the wine making and beer brewing supplies business taking precedence and the ordeal of building our own web site going to front and center.  Only after we finished our web site did we begin the process of getting our Federal and Iowa wine licenses and then we started producing our own label wines.  We presently have 9 of our own wines available with one which will be ready in about 6 months.