CROOKED CREEK WINEY CELEBRATES10 YEARS IN CENTRALIA

Crooked Creek Winery

618-352-3234

24585 W. 10 th St. Road, Centralia IL

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Since purchasing Crooked Creek Winery and opening in 2015, Shannon and Mindy Cooney have made an undeniable mark in the Centralia community.

In addition to expanding their W. 10 th Street location and producing a growing inventory of award-winning wines, the couple have opened a downtown wine bar – which celebrates its 5 the anniversary this year – a restaurant, downtown office space, and a host of community-driven endeavors meant to enrich and revitalize Centralia’s historic downtown.

Their journey, which both Shannon and Mindy strongly insist is far from complete, began at the end of 2013, with a fateful trip to visit Mindy’s family in Clinton County for the holidays. It was on this trip that the pair decided to visit the winery under its previous ownership.

Already interested in winemaking at the time, Shannon would ask several questions about the winery’s operations during their visit. His questions were so informed that the former owner – who was looking to retire – asked if he and Mindy would be interested in purchasing the winery.

“Mindy and I came back a couple of days later and looked at the house and even through a lot of aspects of our life, like moving from California, the job that I had, and some other things that would make it difficult to move. But it felt like this was something that was meant to be. So, we worked through the difficult parts and moved here in April of 2014.”

Admittedly a novice in wine making and wine production upon acquiring Crooked Creek Winery, Shannon said there were more than a few learning curves and challenges at the onset, all while commuting to St. Louis for his day-job which he maintained until 2022.

Despite the professional grind, Shannon said local grape growers like Ryan Heiman helped him discover the methods for not only making great wine from scratch but excelling at it.

“The first few years were definitely an adventure. We went through a rebranding effort in 2016 and started going to markets and different events to try getting our story out there,” Shannon recalled. “We slowly started to add equipment that we needed to make the wines that we wanted, and we were starting to experiment with different styles.”

Eventually, we were starting to find the portfolio of the wines we wanted to make. 100 percent of it was all done with Illinois fruit, with the exception of some of the sweet wines,” Shannon continued. “In 2019, we were nominated and given the award of top winery in St. Louis Magazine, which included all of the Illinois and Missouri wineries. We have won some of the Illinois State Fair awards over the years, including Top Red Wine in 2019.”

The Cooneys would eventually shift focus, pulling away from competitions in order to shift their energy into community development. Yet despite the couple’s ever-growing handprint on downtown Centralia, they continued to grow Crooked Creek Winery’s brand, product, and location, while also launching their own in-house restaurant, Farmstand 161.

“I think what’s cool about the farm now is the inclusion of Farmstand 161,” Shannon noted. “Having the restaurant completes the package. It’s our love of food paired with the love of wines. It really gives you a better sense of the place, the farm, and what we’re all about.”

An enthusiast of Italian foods, Shannon said he was excited to infuse his personal tastes into the restaurant’s menu.

“The menu at Farmstand 161 is definitely a more rustic country-Italian style,” Shannon said. “We make our own focaccia bread, our own pizza dough, and our own ricotta\ cheese. We are trying to do as much as we can from scratch, but in a very rustic sort of Italian way.”

Regarding additions made to the winery building since he and Mindy purchased it in 2015, Shannon said the pair installed a temperature-controlled porch last fall, as well as a new kitchen for the restaurant.

“The temperature-controlled front porch seats about 20 people, which allows us to stay open all 12 months of the year. We would always close in the winter, and we don’t have to anymore. That was a big deal,” Shannon explained. “We’ve also done a lot of things in the winery with equipment and obviously the kitchen was a big addition.”

Shannon said he and Mindy have made a conscious decision over the last decade not to alter the winery building any more than they had to, insisting they wish to keep its rustic, country charm.

“We purposely are trying not to change the winery too much. We want to retain that small, quaint, country winery feel,” he said. “We got to a point where we had to decide if we were going to add here and do a lot of construction, and we ultimately decided that wasn’t the right call. That’s why we started doing the pop-ups downtown.”

With 10 years in the rearview, Shannon said he has enjoyed being able to entrust some of his duties – both at the winery and downtown - to his ambitious and talented staff.

“It does feel good after 10 years to know the stress of knowing how to make good wine isn’t necessarily there. We’ve got some aspects of that figured out,” Shannon said.

“There is a big reward in knowing that I’ve been able to pass that knowledge onto [full-time staff member] Chris [Becker] and let him pursue his passion for making wine and put his own style on what we’re doing here within the framework of what we’ve created.”

Shannon spoke on his staff further, saying, “We couldn’t do this without our full-timers – Chris Becker, Alex Hyer and Aaron Lorence. We have the opportunity to bring people on full-time and be part of our family and be a part of our team and help grow these businesses and treat everything with a true ownership mentality.”

Above all else, Shannon wished to praise his wife and business partner, Mindy, for all of her invaluable contributions to the winery. Be it the branding and storytelling of their business, or the example of quality that she sets for him and their team.

“Mindy and I are partners in this, through and through,” Shannon said. “In life and in marriage and in business. None of this would be possible without Mindy. She sets the bar really high, and she has great attention to detail. I think that she has pushed us all to continue to be better.”