Amigoni Urban Winery brings a wide variety of wines to Kansas City in the historic Daily Drover Telegram Newspaper building located in the Stockyards District of the West Bottoms. Producing small lots of dry handcrafted wines, they focus on traditional European grape varietals, including Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Viognier.
Winemaker Michael Amigoni and owner Kerry Amigoni are the husband and wife founders. It all started when Michael fully committed to his homemaking wine hobby by planting 40 Cabernet Franc vines in the backyard of his home in Leawood. It took over 10 years to develop techniques to perfect growing grapes in the challenging Midwest conditions.
“Michael was a home winemaker since the late ‘90s,” Kerry says. “We had started a vineyard east of town in Centerview, Missouri selling mostly fruit. We realized there was more money in winemaking than selling fruit, so we incorporated in 2006 and began on a very small scale.”
Amigoni Urban Winery sold its vineyard and now brings in fruit from northern California and Washington state to create their locally made wines. Varietals include Cabernet Franc, Viognier, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Mourvedre and Malbec.
“We offer wines not typical of the area and introduce people to wines they may not have heard of—we want wine to be approachable. Our wines are all French and Italian varietals we bring in from California. We ship in whole cluster fruit and crush, ferment and age here in our urban facility. Our bestselling wines include our Cabernet Franc, Urban Drover, a blend of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, and our newer Sparkling Pinot Grigio.”
The tasting room was built in 1909 and served as a daily newspaper for the livestock industry for 50 years. Ink is still visible on the ceiling in the back of the barrel room. Jay Neff ran the newspaper and was also mayor of Kansas City from 1904-1905, and a journalism building is named after him at the University of Missouri. Designer John O’Brien restored the space to resemble the early 1900s using reclaimed doors and tile. Renovations were fully completed in May of 2012.
Their daily wine tastings include five wines that change weekly. They also offer a variety of local beers on tap that change with the seasons. Enjoy small plates from local businesses, including meat and cheese from Weston’s Green Dirt Farms, Kansas City’s Farm to Market crackers or bread with dipping oil, olive boat, house made chips from Kansas City’s Golden Ox and Leawood’s Panache dark chocolate.
Tour Amigoni’s production facility with their Cellar Experience. See grapes crushed and pressed, learn about the fermentation process and how to age wine in oak barrels and stainless steel tanks. The Barrel Experience takes you into the cellar with over 100 Missouri oak barrels used for all their red (and occasionally white) wines. Learn how the age, origin and type of barrel impacts the wine and sample from barrel and bottle in a side-by-side tasting. In their Blending Experience, teams enter their blends into a blind tasting. Winners get to cork and take home a bottle of their special blend.
Production started at around 300 cases. Today, Amigoni bottles approximately 4,800 cases per year.
“We offer a wine club and continue to grow it. We add different varietals each year to continue introducing customers to different grape varietals.”
Expect a twice per year subscription of small-batch blends, club-only wine releases, shipping to all over the country as well as fun local pickup parties and personalized service that takes the Amigoni wine experience to the next level. For more information, visit amigoni.com.