The Wine Journal pours history by the glass
STORY AND PHOTOS by Paul Newton
The room at the back of the downtown building has always carried a distinctive smell. For decades developer, stop bath and fixer filled the darkroom as photographs of community festivals, Friday night football games and city meetings came to life. Today, the former Adrian Journal darkroom smells of bacon jam, spinach dip and flatbreads baking beneath a blanket of mozzarella.
For more than seven years, Daniel Horner has served homemade dips, burgers, paninis, flatbreads and more than 100 wines inside the former newspaper office. The Wine Journal has become a gathering place in downtown Adrian while preserving reminders of the building’s past.
The Wine Journal’s menu and distinct decor lean into the building’s newspaper nostalgia. Daniel grew up in Adrian and knew the family that owned the Adrian Journal. He returned from Springfield in 2017 to work on his family’s farm but realized farming wasn’t for him.
A friend who knew little about wine asked Daniel to help him learn more. Daniel’s mother suggested a tasting in her basement. One gathering led to another.
The newspaper had been sold and moved. Daniel approached the former owners about renovating it into a wine bar. The Wine Journal opened in 2019 with a dozen food options and both national and local beers and wines.
Made in Adrian
Adrian had few places serving dinner and few options for anyone wanting a glass of wine. Some people warned that opening a wine bar in the Bates County town was risky. “I assured them we were going to have food,” Daniel says. “We’ll get people to come in and eat, and while they’re here, they can have something to drink.”
The original focus was on the wine, but the food quickly became central to the business. The restaurant makes its own wine jam, bacon jam, apple-cider dressing and dips. Meat and many other groceries come from the local grocery store, which grinds the restaurant’s Boston burger blend of 65% beef and 35% pork several times a week.
“If we make it here, we have control over what’s in it and how it tastes,” Daniel says. “It means a little more to me that we’re making it here and not just buying all these sauces off the shelf.”
Start with a charcuterie board filled with salami, cheeses, grapes, stone-ground mustard, pita bread and housemade bacon jam. Other starters include bruschetta, stuffed mushrooms and three baked dips. The spinach artichoke dip is the most popular. Cream cheese, mozzarella, spinach, artichokes and ranch seasoning are topped with Parmesan, baked and served with grilled bread.
Daniel says many customers order the spinach artichoke dip after they’ve tried similar dips at chain restaurants. “Then they get ours and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so good,’ because we make ours here in-house,” he says.
The bacon gorgonzola dip is served with kettle chips and green apple slices, while Buffalo chicken dip and stuffed mushrooms round out the starters.
Between the Bread
Burgers start with a third-pound Boston burger blend. Options range from the traditional Tom Burger to the Wine Burger with Parmesan and wine jam or the Fried Egg Burger with bacon, egg, cheddar and garlic aioli.
The Bacon Jam Burger features a patty topped with cheddar and housemade bacon jam — a sweet combination of bacon and brown sugar — served on a toasted pretzel bun. “You cook the bacon jam like you would candy because you have to get it to the right point where it doesn’t set up hard, but it’s not super runny,” Daniel says of the bacon and brown sugar mixture. “It takes a little bit of an art to get that cooked to perfection.”
The Tom Burger is named for a local farmer who was skeptical of a fancy wine bar in Adrian. He told Daniel he wanted a “plain old hamburger on a Best Choice bun,” so Daniel added it alongside the more adventurous options.
The panini press stays busy with sandwich choices such as Cuban, caprese and chicken bacon ranch. Daniel’s favorite is the Reuben, made with corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing on rye bread.
The Meat Lovers flatbread is among the top sellers, layered with marinara, mozzarella, burger blend, ham, bacon, pepperoni and Parmesan. Other options include caprese, Buffalo chicken and chicken spinach artichoke.
Lighter choices include Greek, Caesar, Buffalo Chicken and Apple Gorgonzola salads. Chara’s chicken salad — made with grapes, celery and dill — uses a childhood recipe from the daughter of the newspaper’s former owners.
Beyond the Bottle
Wine remains at the heart of the restaurant, with 30 local wines available by the glass.
“I get people all the time who say they don’t like wine at all,” Daniel says. “I say, ‘Well, I think you haven’t had the right one.’”
Daniel watches former Adrian residents return for dinner, run into old classmates and reconnect across the tables. The Adrian Journal once connected the community through the stories produced inside its walls. Today, The Wine Journal brings people together around meals, glasses of wine and conversations.
“Before The Wine Journal opened, there were six or seven vacant buildings on Main Street,” Daniel says. “Today, there are none. There’s always something happening on Main Street.”
Email Paul Newton at pnewton@ruralmissouri.coop.