West of Wise Winery

West of Wise Winery is a winery in Springfield, IL, located at 14096 IL-97. The family-owned, small-batch winery crafts wines from 100% Illinois-grown grapes, many sourced from its own family vineyard. The tasting room is open for walk-ins Wednesday through Sunday from 12:00-5:30 PM. Groups of ten or more are asked to notify the winery in advance.

Owners Darrell and Tina Simmermaker began planting grapes in 2008 on Darrell’s mother’s farm in Iowa with the help of his brother and their families, after reading an article on grape production in the Iowa State “Vision” Alumni magazine. For five years, the family commuted from Louisville, Kentucky, selling the harvest to local wineries while Darrell honed his winemaking skills through classes and experience. The family moved to central Illinois in 2012 to pursue the winery full-time. Construction on West of Wise Winery was completed in 2015. Darrell has received medals from the Illinois State Fair Wine Competition over the last eleven years. The name “West of Wise” was suggested by Darrell and Tina’s oldest daughter as a sarcastic reference to the move from Louisville to Central Illinois during her college and high school years.

The winery holds a 4.70 rating based on customer reviews.

West of Wise Winery brings its award-winning, family-crafted Illinois wines to Springfield, offering a welcoming space for locals and visitors to unwind.

BizScoreAI awarded the business a Discoverability score of 75 out of 100, which measures whether AI crawlers can find every page of the website to enable recommendations. The winery ranks number 3 of 6 Winery businesses that BizScoreAI has scored in Springfield.