Douglas County winery passport boosts local vineyards and tastings

A free mobile passport is trying to turn Lawrence-area curiosity into wine-country spending, offering discounts at participating Douglas County wineries and pointing visitors toward the stories behind each stop. In Eudora, Davenport Orchards & Winery shows why the pitch has legs: what began as 82 vines in 1990 has grown into a 24-acre vineyard with 13 grape varieties, five acres of apples and more than 40 wines.

How the passport pulls visitors into rural Douglas County

The new Winery Passport comes from the Kaw Valley AVA and Explore Lawrence, and it is built to do more than hand out a deal. Users can unlock special discounts at participating wineries while also learning the backstory of each stop, a combination meant to make a rural tasting room feel less like an isolated outing and more like part of a connected countywide route.

Kim Anspach of Explore Lawrence said the group supplied the technology behind the passport using a digital system it had already deployed for other projects. Marie Holsclaw of the Kaw Valley AVA said the campaign is the first of its kind for the group and is aimed at people who might not normally make winery visits a priority. That matters in a place like Douglas County, where the gap between downtown Lawrence and the vineyards outside Eudora or Baldwin City can still feel larger than the actual drive.

The program also fits into a broader push to package rural businesses as agritourism destinations. Instead of selling only bottles, the passport sells a reason to keep moving through the county, stop longer at tasting rooms and look at wineries as part of the local economy, not just a special-occasion sideline.

Davenport Winery shows what the county is selling

Davenport Orchards & Winery is the clearest example of what that approach can do. Greg Shipe and Charlee Glinka planted the first grapes in 1990 after Glinka said they “looked so pretty,” and the operation eventually expanded to about 12,000 vines. The winery says Shipe and Glinka first made wine as amateurs before going commercial in August 1997.

A Kaw Valley Farm Tour listing calls Davenport the first licensed winery in Douglas County and the seventh in Kansas. The same listing says the business’s goal has always been to make wine from 100% Kansas-grown fruit, and Davenport says all of its wines are made from its own grapes. The winery’s own history makes the local identity even clearer: it became the first winery in Douglas County to sell its own wine in 1997.

The numbers behind the vineyard help explain why it has become a regional anchor. Davenport’s site describes a 24-acre vineyard with 13 grape varieties and five acres of apples, and says it makes 40-plus wines, with most of them sold on the farm. A separate Kaw Valley Farm Tour listing says the winery produces 40 wines from 17 grape varieties and apples. However the count is taken, the scale is far beyond a hobby vineyard.

Shipe has also collected national awards, but he says the work matters more for the relationships and feedback than for the hardware. That is one reason the passport has value for places like Davenport: it pushes new customers toward a business that already depends on repeat local traffic as much as on one-time visitors.

This is not just a weekend stop for tourists

The county’s wineries already live in the rhythm of ordinary life. Shipe says KU professors come by nearly every Friday for free tastings, and he sees customers who drive in from Oklahoma and then turn around and head home after buying bottles. That kind of traffic tells the story the passport is trying to amplify: these are not remote attractions reserved for anniversaries or wedding weekends, but places with regular customers, familiar faces and steady sales.

The passport is designed to help lesser-known vineyards compete for attention against better-known attractions in and around Lawrence. For a smaller operation, a digital discount and a built-in story can be enough to turn a casual stop into a bottle sale, a tasting into a return visit and a first visit into a habit.

The broader Kansas wine map is getting clearer

The local campaign is landing at a moment when Kansas wine is trying to build a more visible identity. The Kansas Viticulture & Farm Winery Association says the Kaw Valley AVA was approved in 2023, making it the first AVA in Kansas. The association says the region includes 33 established Kansas farm wineries and vineyards and covers about 5,493 acres in northeastern Kansas.

The group says the AVA is meant to bring positive attention to Kansas wine and highlight wines made from local grapes. That is part of a longer recovery story as well. Travel Kansas describes Kansas wineries as carrying a winemaking legacy that dates to the pre-Prohibition era, while the Kansas Viticulture & Farm Winery Association says the industry was badly damaged by Prohibition and has only been rebuilding in recent decades.

The county is already being stitched into that larger route. The Kaw Valley Wine Rally in De Soto advertises samples from more than 10 local wineries and breweries, and the Kaw Valley wine trail currently lists Holy-Field Winery in Basehor, Crescent Moon Winery in Lawrence, Davenport Winery in Eudora and Haven Pointe Winery in Baldwin City. Together, those stops turn the region into a practical weekend loop rather than a collection of isolated tasting rooms.

For downtown Lawrence regulars, that is the point. The passport gives them a reason to keep driving a little farther, spend a little longer and see Douglas County’s vineyards as part of the county’s economy, identity and weekend calendar.