An Immigrant with a Dream
Early Life
He was born in Rhine Hessen in 1845, an area in Germany that in modern day is known as the Rheinhessen region and is the largest of the 13 wine regions that Germany formally recognizes (similar to an American Viticultural Area in the USA, or AVA). Situated on the Rhine river, it has been an active wine region since the times of the Roman Empire. Not much is known about the particular details of his young life, the state of Europe in that time was such that a young man desiring to test his fortunes in the new world was hardly remarkable.
Likely having some familiarity with the wine industry in his youth based on where he was born and lived until he was 23, it is unsurprising that he ended up in Hermann.
Stone Hill Winery
George Stark moved to Hermann, Missouri soon after coming to America in 1867 and likely enjoyed the apparent familiarity that the Missouri Rhineland (what would become the Hermann AVA and by extension the Ozark Mountain AVA). He worked for John Scherer and Michael Poeschel when the company was known as the Poeschel & Scherer Wine Company and the Stone Hill Vine Yards before those two sold parts of the company to Stark and another manager, William Herzog in 1883. Sources suggest he moved to the USA specifically due to the job.
When George became the sole proprietor in 1893, he incorporated with his two sons Ottmar G. and Louis J. Stark to further expand the winery and its offerings. By this time, the business was known just as Stone Hill Wine Co. This era would see the winery grow to become the second largest in the country, with a total capacity of over 1.25 million gallons of wine. He would also dabble in distillation, opening a new office and eventually a new branch in St. Louis to sell spirits, distribute his wines and imported wines, and partnering with an established distillery in Kentucky under the Stark Distilling Company.
Legacy
George is the cheeky name that we have for one of our resident “Ghosts” at Stone Hill Winery. The winery and its environs are some of the oldest places in the city of Hermann so whether the strange movement that spooks our cellar workers is an old building shifting or George reminding them to stay on task is largely up to interpretation. The disconcerting feeling of being watched in the quiet of a late afternoon golden hour when you know that no-one should be in the salesroom or the sounds of people talking at the very edge of your hearing in the darkness of the cellars can definitely all be attributed to the mundane foibles of the human mind. Many folks who have worked at Stone Hill Winery over the years have some manner of tale about something that they could not quite explain, though never anything that could be construed as truly terrifying.
The more interesting and amusing answer is that George has a vested interest in his legacy.
Though the Stone Hill Winery left his sons’ hands only a few years after the 18th Amendment passed in 1920 (the amendment to the US Constitution that started the formal prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the country), he had established the winery as a powerful fixture in Hermann and had also left a strong foundation for future generations to build upon.
We hope we are doing him proud even now, 132 years after he took over the winery. I like to think that legacy has more to do with the durability of ideas, the attachment to land and location that endures beyond the small time that we get to be caretakers.
Legacy is an additive aspect of our personal histories, not subtractive. We will continue to build on the work done by those who came before us, whether it is the worker who dug the first foot of our cellars out of the titular Stone Hill or George Stark helping to cement the name and usher the company through the trials and tribulations of the turn of the century or the Helds who resurrected and revitalized the land to bring the story of Stone Hill Winery full circle and onwards into the 21st century.
Taste our history, you can shop our wines Here.
Michael Haggerty is the Shipping Coordinator at Stone Hill Winery and handles all DTC wine shipments.
You can reach him for shipping inquiries via email at shipping@stonehillwinery.com or by phone at 573-486-2221.