A Hidden Gem in My Own Backyard

Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Well, practically in my backyard anyway. This is Kevin and I arriving at Lynfred Winery. Lynfred is in Roselle, Illinois also known as the town my folks live in. Well, mostly Kevin as you can see, because, well… someone has to man the camera. Mostly that person is me.

Our stop here at the Lynfred Winery was our first official stop on our tour of the Northern Illinois Wine Trail and the closest to our house.

The strange thing is that while I have had their wine before it was only the Christmas Red which was always available for sale at Marshall Field’s wine shop back when we had Marshall Fields in town. For all I know they might still carry it at Macy’s. I just don’t go into stores and malls at the holidays anymore if I can avoid it. The internetz is my friend.

Any way, Kevin and I headed out towards my folks house but turned off on Roselle Road instead. The building that houses the winery is one of the oldest in town and was built on land owned by a member of the founding fathers Roselle Hough. Lynn and Fred Koehler who started the winery in 1979 restored the building and built it into the largest and oldest continuously operating winery in the State of Illinois.

In addition to producing over 50 varietals and over 25,000 cases of wine, the folks at Lynfred run a bed and breakfast (formerly run by my Mom’s neighbor, Kelly) and host public and private wine tastings and other events.

I loved the attention to detail in every part of the winery. The gallery around the fermentation tanks. The cameras around the winery that show what is going on in every part of the winery. the stunning stained glass and the carvings in the the tasting room (on the floor and in the bar).

I also got to meet Chris Anderson-Heller who is the winery’s marketing director. I was bold enough to offer a business card hoping that I could meet her as I had heard so much about her from our mutual friend, Tom Wark. She was everything that he described to me and more. And surprisingly enough, has read our efforts here at VinoVerve. (I never really believed that the hits from Roselle were from my folks. They often have trouble with their email and my father blows through at least 2 hard drives per year, and no, I am not making that part up)

That being said, the measure of any winery is the wine. And so, in my next post I will discuss wines that we tasted as well as the fantastic breads that they bake at the winery and sell as well as use during the tastings.

This entry was posted on January 13, 2009 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Gems, Lynfred, nearby, Northern Illinois Wine Trail, Roselle, Win(e)ding Roads. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.