Odds are, you’ll find a winner at 7C’s

Owner Dwight Crevelt behind the tasting bar at 7C’s.

The winery is about 20 miles north of Springfield.
Take Missouri 123 just beyond Walnut Grove
and turn east on 560th.

Among several discoveries at 7C’s Winery, I had one big surprise: I tasted a mead that I actually liked.

Until last Sunday, I have known the honey-based wine, which was popular in Europe from the Roman Empire through Medieval times, as a drink with an bitter kick at the end. But I’ll try anything more than once.

When I sipped Dwight Crevelt’s mead, I enjoyed the floral nose (he didn’t name it Wild Flower Mead for nothing), the light, soft nutty notes on the tongue, and a finish that you might call bashful. I kept waiting for the dreaded aftershock, but it did not arrive. I’d never tasted a mead this smooth, I told Crevelt.

"Oh, you were expecting that punch right at the end — Yeah!" he shouted, pumping his fist. Then, in a matter-of-fact tone, he gave me the reason for my unexpected pleasure: "Mead has to age."

I was surprised to learn, though, that by aging, he meant as little as 5-6 months. Apparently I’d been tasting one bad mead after another by a crowd of woefully impatient mead makers.

The name of the winery, by the way, refers to the initial of the first names of the extended Crevelt family.

Noteworthy 7C’s wines include: an earthy, spicy and fruity Norton; Branding Iron Red, a dry blend of St. Vincent and Chambourcin; and Cattle Drive White, a semisweet Vidal. All of these choices will meet expectations for state-of-the-art Missouri winemaking for these grapes.

The wine titles and labels have a cowboy theme, which threw me a bit in light of the winery’s location in the hilly Ozarks. Maybe the theme derives from the Crevelts’ years out West, though Las Vegas is not exactly a cow town.

In Las Vegas, Crevelt worked the gaming industry — hardware and electronics. Among his achievements, Crevelt developed and updated card-reader electronics for electronic gaming machines while working for a Las Vegas maker of slot and video gaming devices.

For a sampling of his work, see this search result from IPEXL, an intellectual property exchange directory. He also has his own gaming consulting firm that explores vast areas of automated gaming.

The 7C's building stands on high ground.
Click on the photo to enlarge.

The winery holds regular Sunday afternoon
musical get-togethers on the grounds.