Wichita’s AIWF chapter turns 30 with plan to start a new wine festival for Wichita
%20(1).jpg "The Wichita Chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food was started in 1992 by Guy Bower, center. He’s pictured her pictured here at the organization’s 20th anniversary party with Larry Evers, left, and current AIWF chair Beth Bower, center.")
Much has changed in the 30 years since Guy Bower launched Wichita’s chapter of the American Institute of Wine & Food — a group that helped Wichita grow into a town full of foodies.
Wichita’s chapter, which started in 1992 — after Bower arrived in town and persuaded the national office that he could get a smaller Midwestern town to support such a group — is now one of only four active chapters across the country. The others are all in California.
And although the Wichita chapter is still going strong, Bower said, it’s no longer associated with a signature event he helped start in 1996 — the Midwest Winefest.
That event, which hasn’t included a big grand tasting since 2019, is now run by the Guadalupe Health Foundation, which this year put on two wine dinners in February and the annual Old Town Walkabout in April. AIWF pulled out of the event in 2019, the same year as the festival’s longtime wine distributor, after the foundation decided not to invite bars and restaurants that had an LGBTQ clientele to participate.
Now, as the local AIWF chapter turns 30, it’s attempting to launch a new wine festival, and its first installment will happen this weekend.
Decant ICT is scheduled for 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday at Prairie Hill Vineyard, a venue at 3660 N. 215th St. West in Colwich. It will include a wine tasting featuring more than 100 wines as well as hors d’oeuvres and a special tasting with wines poured by past AIWF chairs. Attendees will get a free Riedel stemmed wine glass to keep, and the event will also include live music. Tickets are $45 for members, $50 for the public and an extra $25 for the chairman’s room. They’re available at aiwfwichita.org
Bower and his wife, Beth, the current chair of the group who conceived the new event, hope that it will grow in coming years and become as popular as the Midwest Winefest once was.
“The whole intent of the Midwest Winefest in the beginning was to make it a destination wine event, and we did that. In year three, USA Today called us one of the top 10 Wine festivals in the country,” Bower said. “So that’s the goal: to get us back into a destination event that is beneficial for the city and a showcase for the great products and wine distribution and restaurants in town.”
Wichita’s AIWF chapter in 2022 still has a membership of around 120 people — down from 300 in its heyday — and members still get together at least monthly for tastings, dinners and other parties. The chapter also still raises money for culinary scholarships in Wichita, something that’s always been part of its mission.
Seeing the chapter survive for three decades has been satisfying for Bower, who was an Air Force Pilot in 1990 when he moved to Wichita from Miami to take a job flying F-16s with the Kansas Air Guard. He brought with him a passion for wine that he’d developed growing up with restaurant-owner parents and traveling to countries such as Spain when he’d been on active duty.
But Wichita did not have much of a wine scene back then, which disappointed Bower. So he called the national AIWF offices and persuaded skeptics there to let him give it a try. He sold out his first event, a “Chardonnay Shootout” at the former Olive Tree in April 1992. Membership grew and grew. Soon, Wichita’s AIWF was the fastest-growing chapter in the history of the organization.
In addition to the Midwest Winefest, Bower also started the Midwest Beerfest in 2001. That event, which began at Century II then relocated to the Kansas Star Casino in 2018, has been on hiatus since the pandemic in 2020, but the organization and the Bowers haven’t completely ruled out the idea of someday bringing it back.
In the meantime, they’re excited to launch the new festival, which they have high hopes for. After year one, they anticipate it will outgrow the Prairie Hill Vineyard and move to a larger venue in Wichita.
“It’s destined to be the best wine event in Wichita,” Bower said.
This story was originally published June 2, 2022 at 12:11 PM.
.jpg)