Each year, the Kansas City Symphony goes on the road to the Flint Hills of Kansas to put on a charity fundraiser to support the preservation of open prairie lands. This year my wife and I attend this spectacular event. The location moves each year. This time it was about 130 mile outside of Kansas City and 5 miles from the nearest paved road. The site was on a private ranch of about 30,000 acres of open prairie.

Because of the remoteness, the Symphony in the Flint Hills becomes an all day event with various forms of entertainment, education and food available all day. In the evening, the Symphonic Orchestra performs in the middle of the open prairie. Ah, to sit back with a glass of chilled sparkling wine and enjoy the evening with a spectacular sunset and great music…except this is Kansas. It is one of the states with difficult liquor (and wine) laws.  
 

 
Let me take you back to 1881 when Kansas passed the first Prohibition law. In 1888, Carrie A Nation began her quest to nationalize Kansas’ form of Prohibition. Kansas narrowly repealed the statewide prohibition in 1948, but each county had the right to enact their own laws. Even today, 29 counties remain dry. From 1971 to 1975, Kansas Attorney General Vern Miller raided Amtrak trains serving any form of alcohol as they travelled through Kansas. He also forces the airlines to stop serving alcohol while in Kansas airspace. For the last several years, wineries could not direct ship wine to addresses in Kansas. When the U.S. Supreme Court produced the opinion that if a state allow intra-state direct shipment of wine, then they had to allow out-of-state shipments, Kansas responded by repealing the laws allowing intra-state shipments.  In case you are interested, Kansas does have nineteen wineries. I have not tasted anything I would actually buy that is made from grapes grown in Kansas.
 

 
With this in mind, the event promoters did inform us that we could not bring beer, wine or liquor to the event even though it was on private property. Our carry-in items (we could bring or rent chairs, bring soft drinks, food, etc.) were searched to enforce the rules. One the positive side, they promoters did set up a tent with wine and beer, two choice each. You could have Chardonnay or Merlot, Lite or lager. The wine selection was Black Box. I will concede that Black Box does a surprisingly good job for a box wine. It is reasonable true to the varietal and very consistent from box to box. I should probably be thankful they provided anything, but I really would have enjoyed a Domaine Carneros Brut Rose to go with the sunset.  
 
 
 
MikeR

MikeR is a Consultant, Level-1 Sommelier, Independent Journalist and blog contributor to VinVillage.com