August Hill Winery Tasting Room

I have been here many times, always enjoying a nice bottle of Berlyn. So the last time I was in the area, I just bought a case of it. What a disappointment. It tastes so sweet that you can’t drink it. What happened? You had a winning wine and this is not it! If you were a fan of this wine do yourself a favor and taste it first. I wish I could return this expensive case of juice.

This is a must stop after hiking at Starved Rock. The almond infusion wine is amazing!!! This winery is a bit different than the others. Their wine seems more vibrant and bubbly. I really enjoy the blackberry port as well. I love the Illinois shaped chocolate! I’ve always had a good experience with the people behind the counter doing the tastings. Everyone has been polite and knowledgable. Definitely check it out if you’re in the area!

For $ 5 you get to create your own tasting. We were pleased enough with some of our samples that we bought a few bottles to bring home. The chocolates are yummy too. I wish they had actual meals to dine in as dining options are non-​existent in the area for the health conscious.

What a pleasant surprise! We were visiting Starved Rock State Park and Lodge for a getaway and mosied into Utica to check it out and wandered into this beautiful tasting room that could be at any of the well known midwest wine area. Our server Krystal was very knowledgeable and guided us through the wines then we spent almost an hour relaxing on the back patio talking and listening to the water fountain. This is a beautiful venue and very suitable for a private party, fund raiser, business reception, etc.

Some great wines are made by August Hill. The «5 for 5» tasting helps you decide what you want to buy. Be careful though. The 4 bottles that I bought never made it home, because the box they were packed in was evidently assembled wrong. The bottom fell out and all 4 bottles became a clean up job on my garage floor.

Very nice tasting room and excellent service. The low rating is because the wine is pretty bad. I will skip this place in the future.

We stopped in on a Friday afternoon on out way to Starved Rock. On our walk in we weren’t greeted and no one spoke to us even as we milled around the bar. There were other people at the bar, but not so many that a bartender couldn’t even say hello. That being said, the wines were ok. Many were too sweet for our liking, but my husband did enjoy the Norton grape wine. All in all, it was worth one trip but we probably won’t be back.

Wonderful ambiance with knowledgeable staff and great wine! The lounge is now open with wonderful appetizers!

Excellent range of wines. Back patio is very nice. Best place in Utica. Perfect for a stop after starved rock

We did not one, but TWO wine tastings in this place…
My last trip to Utica was Memorial Day weekend a year or two ago and we stopped in here, but it was way too crowded and we didn’t feel like hanging out for a tasting. This place is a little more high end than Illinois River Winery down the road. We stopped in right after they opened yesterday and we were not disappointed. You can buy wines by the glass, flights, or do a tasting of 6 wines for $ 5. They have a patio out back to enjoy your glasses of wine and flights.
I’d say they have a large number of wines on the sweeter side as well as sparkling… they were all very tasty, though for health reasons I opted for a dry red called «Berlyn» very good. They have a semi-​sweet wine which would make a great sangria, and a bunch of fruit infusions, caramel apple, almond, etc. They also had two kinds of «wine slushies» we were able to sample one of them. The staff here were super friendly. Good stuff in this place.
They have a small gift area, I found most of the stuff a tad overpriced but I left happy after purchasing a bottle of wine after two tastings, practically tasting the entire menu of wine!

Some of the best Midwest wine I have tried. The Stereo sparkling wine is truly a hidden gem. Knowledgeable & friendly staff. A must if you are passing by!

This is probably the nicest of the three wine tasting rooms in Utica (we haven’t tried the Cattails tasting room in the Marketplace yet).
August Hill’s upscale, contemporary-​style tasting room is located right on historic Mill Street in downtown Utica. They offer six wine tastings for $ 5 at the bar (you can get a voucher for a free tasting if you stay at the Landers House B&B around the corner!), and all of their wines are located in neatly organized and labeled racks right in the front room so they’re easy to find. They also sell cheeses, chocolates, and artwork by local artists, and feature a nice outdoor patio.
As for the wines — let’s face it, you’re not going to find California-​style vintages in Illinois; we just don’t have the climate to grow those kind of grapes. August Hill’s vineyard is located on the south side of the Illinois River in nearby Peru on the same property as their winery, and uses hybrid French grapes.
Their best red in my opinion was the Ginocchio, a full-​bodied dry red aged in oak, and they also had a nice Chardonel, a smooth dry white with a buttery flavor. If you’re into fruit flavored wines, they also have a variety of sparkling infusions. They start out with a base of their Sweet William, which is a fruity white similar to a sweet Riesling, and then infuse it with various flavors such as apple, raspberry, cranberry, and almond.
BTW, expect a small sales pitch for their wine club, which I thought was rather pricey. I prefer to say «no thanks» and just drive into Utica every once in a while to bring a few bottles home with me.

This cute little storefront in North Utica is definitely out of place. The town is old with a lot of establishments which have clearly seen better days. Then there’s this place. «Wow,» I thought. «It’s contemporary!» A long bar spans the front of the building where two or three wine stewards work at making sure the patrons can enjoy the surprisingly good wines.
We found out that this winery was awarded best wines in Illinois for 2014! Unlike the other winery in town, it doesn’t specialize in sweet, flavored wines; rather, it’s actually finer quality wines of varying dryness to fit your palate.
I’m a pushover for sparkling wines. We saw that they had $ 10 sparkling wine flights for 3– 2 oz. pours and had to try them. They offered 6 different sparklers served in a cute little caddy with bites of cracker, spicy cheese and a bit of jam. I was impressed with them. From the brut to the rose to the franken, they were delicious! My favorite was the Stereo, a full-​bodied California-​style dryer sparkling wine. We stayed for another single glass of this bottle, which ran about $ 9 per glass. It’s not a bargain, but this is quality wine.
I had heard that you can get six samples of the other wines they offer there from the reds to the dryer and the sweeter whites for only $ 5, which is a bargain. A couple of locals were there sampling the selections and they had about 8 – 10 of each type.
If you do like a sweeter wine, they had sparkling infusions which were about $ 6.50 and included interesting flavors like berry and almond.
The atmosphere is upscale. The people that work there are also very nice and helpful. If you want to try some local cheese, it’s availalble in the cooler. We tried a couple of the dark chocolate truffles and really enjoyed them. They also sell some local art and wine paraphernalia. We ended up getting a raku pottery cup which would be perfect for a glass of sake. On the way out, we sampled some of their wine slushies from the machine. I’d go back just for those things. Awesome and deliciously dangerous!

I wasn’t sure what to expect for a wine tasting but this place exceeded my expectations.
Our guide, Chase, was incredibly friendly and professional. He helped me pick out the wines I would most likely enjoy based on flavor profiles that I enjoy.
After reading other peoples comments below and raving about the Carmel apple wine, I had to try it! I was very disappointed. Not by the taste but it was WAY too sweet for my pallet!
Loved the reds that I tried as well as the Stereo champagne and other champagnes. The wine slushy at the end really completed the experience :-)

I enjoy August Hill, we have been wine club members for about 2 years and spend several Friday nights there (we miss the wine club ½ price glasses on Friday).
The staff is generally very friendly and knowledgeable. We will continue to go back to August Hill, especially during the warmer months when we can sit on the patio.

August Hill has a nicer presentation tasting bar/​store front than the Illinois Winery and we DID buy a bottle for a friend who loves one of their wines, but none for us. Also quite a bit busier, probably not in a good way, than Illinois Winery which was a lot more laid back including couches. August Hill is SELLING, and they have a wine club too.
We did like the Seyval Blanc with a little sparkle and a SUPER oaky «Chardonel» that wasn’t bad, but TOO oakey imo, but then I got oaked out in the 90’s. The Seyval Blanc is kind of like a french white burgundy and you don’t see that very often. I probably wouldn’t normally buy these wines myself but they would be a nice GIFT for somebody. I didn’t like the reds at all, but I think my wine snob partner didn’t dislike them as much as I did, but then that all flipped on the whites as I would have bought the Seyval Blanc to take to Thanksgiving, so nada.
We prefer dry, and didn’t try any of the infusions or sweeter wines. $ 5 for six tastings and we split ours like we usually do if we expect we aren’t buying, and we were spitting the reds. If making GOOD wine was easy, then anybody could do it.
Knowledgeable servers, and nice back room patio where a local musician was playing WAY too loud, I actually saw some fingers in ears. Could be a really interesting community if you are local our want to pick up your wine club purchases.
No reason not to try it if you are on your way back from Starved Rock.
Happy Trailz.

The wine here was really tasty. But…
The service here was terrible. I stopped in here around noon on the Friday before Labor Day. I had been hiking at Starved Rock all morning and was in jeans and comfy shoes. Before heading back to our cabin for an afternoon of relaxing and grilling, we stopped here to get a couple of bottles of wine. My husband waited in the truck with our dog and I went in alone. I stepped into the store, it was empty, except for two employees, one working the bar and the other towards the back of the store. (The store is tiny.) Nobody greeted me, asked me for assistance, or suggested a wine tasting. I walked around the store for a solid 5 – 6 minutes, reading wine descriptions, when another couple walked in, and they were promptly greeted by both employees. One of the employees made eye contact with me but still did not say anything.
Disgruntled and disheartened (it takes a lot of dishearten me, I get pretty excited about food and booze), I selected two bottles and made my way to the bar’s cash register. The employee, still not saying a word, rang me up and told me the total. I said hi and asked him if the wines were good that I picked, to which he responded, ‘Sure’.
I’m not sure if I received poor service because I was in jeans and a t-​shirt, or because I was alone and they thought I wasn’t worth it, but I will not purchase wine here again because how hard is it to at least say hi to a customer. Maybe they think their wine is so good that they are above friendliness, but friendliness/​helpfulness is always in fashion.
After leaving here, we stopped by the other main wine store in town and they were so nice. The wine was good, too. Take the hint August Hill.

Mardi Gras, ftw!
I’m not talkin’ about the debauchery in NOLA… no sir. I’m referring to the delissssh infusion that they serve here at August Hill WInery. It’s sweet, it’s bubbly, it’s refreshing — what more do you need in life? At $ 6.50 a glass, I was hooked!
The bf and I did the $ 5 tastings (6 tastings total) on a rainy Saturday afternoon. (The whole Starved Rock outing had to be postponed for a day… totally fine by me!) Anyway, our server was really super friendly and knowledgeable about the wines. It’s pretty informal how they do the tastings, so I really liked it. You literally just walk up to the bar, they give you a menu with all the wine options and then you circle the 6 that you want to try. Perfection. The server also let us try those infamous wine slushies (which were really good and tasted similar to Italian ice!).
The bottles of wine are VERY reasonably priced, but I sadly forgot to pick up a bottle as I was feeling the effects of the two glasses of Mardi Gras. Oops. We sat on their cute patio and were treated to some live entertainment (great singer, btw!) and it was a great place to just unwind and enjoy the weekend!

So the BF and I were camping/​hiking at Starved Rock this weekend (yes, it was super cold at night) and decided to check out August Hill since I’ve had the Almond Infusion and thought it was amazing. We split a tasting, because neither of us wanted much after our late lunch. We sampled Mardi Gras, Orange Infusion, Cranberry Infusion, Berlyn, Niagara, and Muscato. The BF loved the Cranberry so he got a bottle of that. I grabbed a bottle of Almond Infusion, because it rocks, Niagara and two of Berlyn. I also had an order from my Dad to get the Orange Infusion, Cranberry Infusion and Mardi Gras. We ended up leaving with eight bottles lol. I wish I could’ve gotten more. The Berlyn is the perfect light red table wine and I can’t wait to pop some open on our homemade pasta nights.
And with all these awesome wines, the store itself is super cool. Very modern and a great way of displaying the wines. I also spotted a patio out back, but we were done with the outside after camping and hiking. I can’t wait to come back and get more of their amazing wines. The staff was also very friendly and helpful during the tasting and checkout.

Locally owned vineyard & locally produced wine; this is where magic happens.
I have stopped by August Hill on a few occasions and while I have not always met with the greatest people behind the counter every time I still give them 5 stars becasue they are that good at what they do.
I first became aware of August hills wines at a wine show and gave them shot, needless to say I was intrigued and the young lady behind the booth was intelligent and pleasant. Not long after I noticed them at several wine shows and so I went to go check them out. The tasting room is not just a place to buy wine but you sit and visit you can order by the glass or buy the bottle. Prices range from around $ 10 — $ 35 depending on what you are going after.
August Hill is a truly memorable experience for people passing through & a great addition to the down town area for the locals.