The Winery at Aerie's Resort

When visiting Aerie's Riverview Winery, which is located atop a hill overlooking the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Illinois River at Grafton, we saw a sign that boasted "Best View in the Midwest." That may or may not be true. But, certainly, Aerie's Riverview Winery has one of the best scenic views in the St. Louis metro area.

The name Aerie's Riverview Winery understates what goes on here. The facility is neither large nor fancy but it includes an upper deck dedicated to wine drinkers and a lower deck + an indoor bar dedicated to beer drinkers. The upper level deck is on the same level as the macadam parking lot since the building is built into a hillside. Next to the parking lot is a concrete patio which had a post tent providing shade on our Saturday afternoon visit in mid-August. We sat there and ordered a glass of wine and food. We also saw beer by the bottle being served on the patio.

Aerie's Riverview Winery offers wine by the glass or by the bottle. The food menu included some small plate items to go with wine plus sandwiches, salads, and pizzas. One thing that we found odd was that when we asked for water, we were brought bottled water and charged $1 per bottle. We weren't wanting bottled water (we had iced tea with our meals) and wouldn't have ordered water if we knew that there was a charge. As far as I could tell, there was nothing on the menu stating a fee for water or even mentioning bottled water. We ended up taking the water bottles home.

We enjoyed the Aerie's Riverview Winery hamburgers which were home style and juicy. However, the included potato chips were all broken up into small pieces (must have been from the bottom of the bag). I would suggest that the owners don't serve broken potato chips from the bottom of the bag and that they include a pickle spear with their sandwiches.

During our visit we only saw one motorcycle here. We saw a fair amount of semi-upscale cars. Attire is casual but some of the ladies were dressed on the high end of casual as you might see at wineries. We were told that Aerie's Riverview Winery is open four seasons as long at they can get up the hill.

One final drawback that we both noticed is that the restrooms on the upper level had not been checked on during our visit and had toilet paper littered on the floor. Frankly, the restrooms could use upgrading. All the same, the view is very nice and we'll probably return to Aerie's Riverview Winery when we are in the area.