The Black Hills Travel Blog

Prairie Berry Winery brings home the gold

By Joe • Jan 20th, 2010 • Category: Discoveries

PrairieBerryWinery623

Prairie Berry Winery, of Hill City, recently got rave reviews at the nation’s largest competition for North American wines. The local winemakers were honored with several awards at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, but their raspberry and rhubarb wine stole the show.

Prairie Berry’s famous raspberry/rhubarb combo earned a Best of Class (judges unanimous gold) award, and was further recognized with a Judges Choice award.

I’m certainly not a professional wine-tasting judge, but I have had this rhubarb wine and it is fantastic!

Prairie Berry also received a silver medal for their Phat Hogg Red and a bronze medal for their Phat Hogg Chardonnay, a dry white wine.

One of the 63 judges for the San Francisco competition was Jessica Yadegaran, staff wine writer for the Bay Areas ness Group, the largest newspaper chain in Northern California. She also writes a wine blog and mentioned the local winery in last week’s post “10 Things I learned from judging the SF Wine Competition.”

Number three on Yadegaran’s top ten list was, “I absolutely have to drink more fruit wines, particularly those from South Dakota’s Prairie Berry Winery. Everyone on my panel loved their sassy rhubarb wine.”

The Vojta family, who owns the winery, has been crafting wines from South Dakota fruit since 1876. They started producing wine commercially in 1998 in Mobridge, South Dakota before moving to their current Hill City location in 2004.

Prairie Berry Winery is located on Highway 385, just north of Hill City, and offers free wine tasting daily.

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1 Comment

  • On January 21 10, Chris said:

    You should see their trophy display in their tasting room. It’s packed full of awards!

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    About the Author

    Joe is a resident of Spearfish, S.D. He grew up in the tall-corn state of Iowa, where he developed an early interest in all things outdoors. After high school he moved to Vermillion, S.D., where he earned his bachelor’s degree in public relations and advertising. During his college years, two things caught his attention: the beauty of western South Dakota’s Black Hills and a girl from those Black Hills. After graduating from college, Joe traveled across the country as a recruiter for the University of South Dakota. He saw the sights from Pittsburgh to Las Vegas and everywhere in between, but it was the Black Hills (and the girl) that kept drawing him back. He and wife moved back to the Black Hills in 2008. He's an avid hiker, mountain biker and road cyclist whose future plans include trying to fit a pair of kayaks into the spare bedroom.
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