Featured image credit: Shawnee Hills Wine Trail

All 11 wineries of the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail have created a delicious weekend of wine and food pairings perfect for picnics Saturday-Sunday, August 3-4. Enjoy a scenic drive along the wine trail while enhancing your appreciation and enjoyment of some of southern Illinois’ award-winning red, white, and rosé wines.

Some of the featured picnic foods to be paired are potato salad, charred corn salad, pulled BBQ pork sliders, grilled sausages, homemade watermelon and habanero ice cream, and frozen peach shortcake squares.

Here’s how to participate:

1. Buy your ticket online by July 28 and choose your starting winery.
2. Receive your souvenir wine glass and tasting ticket at the starting winery.
3. Bring your ticket to each winery along the trail to enjoy the tastings and pairings.
4. At the last winery you visit, leave your ticket to be entered to win prizes.

Tickets are $37.74 each, which includes the service fee, for wine pairing participants and designated drivers. Buy your tickets online at Brown Paper Tickets. Ticket sales end on Sunday, July 28.

Tickets for the wine pairing participants include one sample of wine and a sample dish chosen to pair perfectly with the selected wine at each winery, one souvenir Shawnee Hills Wine Trail logo wine glass, and an entry into a prize drawing.

The designated driver tickets include the food samples and a non-alcoholic drink at each winery. Designated drivers can also enter the prize drawing.

The Shawnee Hills wineries are open for Midsummer Picnic Pairings from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, August 3, and 12:30 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, August 4. Your ticket covers both days of this 21-and-over event.

Midsummer Picnic Pairings is one of three wine and food pairing weekends hosted by the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail each year.

Learn more about the Shawnee Hills wineries at shawneewinetrail.com.

The trail is a two-hour drive southeast of St. Louis, Missouri; four hours west of Louisville, Kentucky; 4.5 hours southwest of Indianapolis; and 5.5 hours south of Chicago.