By Lauren Quick
This morning we took a break from our wine-tasting ways to check out Stonie’s Sausage Shop and Deli in Perryville, where we’ve been staying this week. We’d heard good things about Stonie’s, so we decided to grab some sandwiches there to eat at Cave Winery later in the day.

As with just about every place we have been so far, Stonie’s was a unique place with small-business charm. And although I say “small business,” Stonie’s is quite an impressive operation.

The store had a number of meats, cheeses, jams, salsas and other snacks available for purchase which includes 30 varieties of bratwurst. One of those varieties was Gummi Bear bratwurst, which they said was kind of a joke that ended up turning out to be something that people actually wanted to buy.

Owner Roger Wibbenmeyer was nice enough to sit down with our group and share a little bit of Stonie’s history. The shop was opened in 1959 by Roger’s grandfather, Stanislaus (Stonie) Wibbenmeyer, and it is now in the third and fourth generations of ownership.

The shop makes all of the meat-related products, Wibbenmeyer explained. The facility they are in now was built in 2006 and has been expanded upon since that time, making Stonie’s quite an impressive “little” business.

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About the class

Students in the Wine Country Writing class, taught by Nina Furstenau, will be getting a chance to examine not only wine culture and how to write about it, but also how wine is produced and agricultural issues in the vineyard. During this four-day field reporting trip to Missouri wineries in the Ste. Genevieve, Augusta and Hermann areas, students will see A&K Cooperage in Higbee, watch Missouri oak barrels being produced, talk with winemakers and vineyard managers, and learn directly from experts in the field. Join the class with their blog series as they meet the people behind the Missouri wine industry.