When Thomas and Andrea Held became owners of Curling Vine Winery in New Florence in 2016, they took over a business that has attracted many people throughout Missouri.
Now that nine-year run as …
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When Thomas and Andrea Held became owners of Curling Vine Winery in New Florence in 2016, they took over a business that has attracted many people throughout Missouri.
Now that nine-year run as owners will soon come to an end for the Helds as they plan to retire. Curling Vine Winery – located at 485 Booneslick Road – will close as early as March. Another employee, John Huddleston, will also retire from the business.
“We’ve been talking about it for a long time,” Andrea said. “Then, when our employees decided they were ready to retire, too, we decided it was a good time to do so.”
Curling Vine Winery was formerly Stone Hill Winery before the Helds bought it and changed the name nine years ago.
“It was an agreement between me and my brother,” Thomas said. “We decided to split the company a little bit. He kept the historical Stone Hill Winery.”
Curling Vine Winery not only sells wine and gifts, but offers free wine tasting to the patrons. Thomas said plenty of I-70 travelers come to the shop.
“It’s been a good fit,” Thomas said.
Andrea said she and her husband participated in the Hermann Wine Trail for three years, which brought in more customers to the shop.
“A lot of things are closed in Hermann on Monday,” Andrea said. “We’re open seven days a week, so people would come up here.”
The Helds also owned a Curling Vine Winery location in Branson before it became affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“Branson shut down all non-essential businesses,” Thomas said. “We were shut down for almost two years in Branson. That didn’t help our plight any. No income. We were still having bills. It was a slow trickle of ready to be done.”
Thomas, a Hermann native, started working in the wine industry when he was 2 years old, when his parents opened Stone Hill Winery in Hermann. Andrea started working at Stone Hill Winery in Branson in the late 1980s and went on to become the store’s manager. The couple got married in 2002.
“We had a family rule that spouses and kids couldn’t work for the winery, which was a silly rule,” Thomas said. “Finally, we changed that. A lot of kids and their spouses worked. We made it more of a family business.”
With the Curling Vine Winery closing, Thomas and Andrea will get to spend more time with their children and grandchildren.
“We live in a little cabin that overlooks the Missouri River,” Andrea said. “It has a beautiful view. I like to quilt while he likes to farm food plots for deer hunting.”
Currently, Curling Vine Winery is having an everything must go special in which patrons can buy items for 40 percent off and purchase wines for $5 and premium wines for $8. The business opens every day at 10 a.m.
“We got rid of a lot of stuff,” Andrea said. “The wine barrels went first. Everybody wanted a wine barrel. We’ve got some wine to move. Once we get the wine gone, then we’ll call it quits.”
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