Riverwood Winery serves as ideal meeting place for a car club

Whether it is the lush green of spring and summer or the colorful fall foliage, the 40-minute drive to Rushville, Mo., on Route 45 to the Riverwood Winery makes for a pleasant trip, said owner David Naatz.

Last Saturday about 20 Porsches from the Kansas City Porsche Club made the scenic drive to the Riverwood Winery, 22200 State Route 45, Rushville, Mo., for an afternoon of wine tasting.

“There were some beautiful cars,” Naatz said. “We had live music and things like that. They sat around, drank and talked and ate food and had a good time.

“The rain held off. It turned out to be a beautiful day.”

Naatz said it was the second time the Kansas City Porsche Club has been to Riverwood Winery.

“We are open any time a car club wants to take a trip here,” Naatz said. “It is a beautiful drive. It is a great place for them to park their cars out front. It is fun to see nice cars.”

Any car club interested in arranging an event at Riverwood Winery can call 816-579-9797.

Riverwood Winery opened eight years ago. It is situated north of Weston, Mo. The tasting room and gift shop is in a 1950s-era renovated school building on the east bank of the Missouri River.

From the 1950s through the early 1980s the building housed Lakeview Elementary School. After the school closed its doors in the early ’80s, the building was purchased by a local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), and used as the VFW meeting hall. An Atchison couple purchased the building from the VFW in the mid-1990s and it was used as a consignment and antique shop.

In 2005, David and his wife, Ginah, purchased the building for conversion into Riverwood Winery.

“It has been great fun, just a blast, really,” Naatz said. “You can meet a lot of different people. I like working outside. Growing grapes and running a winery, you have to be willing to work outside.”

One of the benefits of all the hard work outside is to be able to play host to a car show where Naatz is able to view some remarkable automobiles.

When asked whether any of the Porsches at the winery last week stood out, Naatz sounded like a kid in a candy store.

“Oh, yes, pretty much all of them,” he said.

Naatz recommends anyone from the Kansas City area interested in wine should take a drive north to Riverwood Winery.

“There are other wineries in the area as well,” he said. “I always thought the more wineries, the better because you get more people to come up here.”

This story was originally published June 19, 2015 at 10:03 PM with the headline "Riverwood Winery serves as ideal meeting place for a car club."