My name is Tracie Trotter and I opened Wyldewood Cellars Illinois seven years ago to help expand the family business. Wyldewood Cellars was founded by my father Dr. John Brewer twenty-three years ago. He has his PHD in solid-state physics and always wanted to be an entrepreneur. He started making wine in our basement in Pennsylvania and kept being told he needed to make elderberry wine. Come to find out his mother had wild elderberries growing on the family ranch in western Kansas. My family and I moved to Kansas and built our business around elderberries while profiting from the family ranch. I have learned everything I know from my parents and growing up in the wine industry. While working at the Kansas Winery I met my husband whom was stationed at McConnell AFB and is from Champaign. After he got out of the military we moved to St. Joseph and opened the Illinois Winery. We receive a variety of the wines in tanks from the Kansas winery, we then finish and bottle them right here in St. Joe. We also get the juices and ferment some of the wines here in Illinois as well. We started with a family in mind and that is exactly how we treat our customers, like family.