Posts Tagged ‘ Wisconsin ’

Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Sometimes we VinoVerver’s go visit wineries while on well planned excursions… and sometimes, we wing it. Why? Because that is the way we roll.

And so it was last week when Kevin announced on a Friday that he had a meeting to attend up in Wisconsin. He asked if I wanted to go along for the ride and see beautiful Waukesha. And I did. Particularly when I determined that there wineries in and around there.

After his meeting, Kevin and I headed over the Mason Creek winery. The winery is in the Old Lynndale Farms which has been converted into a series of cute little shops. The perfect environment for a winery.

They specialize in lighter, sweeter wines that are perfect on a summer day by the pool (so long as you don’t drink too many and try to swim) and have also introduced a dry red called ’47 Pickup. The wines are largely are grape wines but there are a couple of blends that use local cherries and cranberries.

Mason Creek Winery
Open 10am-5pm daily
7 days a week
N47 W28270 Lyndale Rd.
Pewaukee, WI 53072
ph: 262-367-6494 or 866-511-WINE
masoncreekwinery.com

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Kevin has a day job that occasionally requires him to travel. Sometimes near. Sometimes far. Sometimes to Wisconsin.

Over the years, as we have traveled the road between Chicago and Milwaukee we have passed an icon, the Mars Cheese Castle.

The Castle is not really a castle but a road-side stand selling Wisconsin made products, the most famous of which is cheese. You want a salami shaped like an Old Style bottle (beer)? You need to stop at the Castle. You want Wisconsin art? The Castle is calling you. You want a wheel of Swiss cheese the size of your head. Yeah, you know where to go!

So naturally, Kevin on his return trip managed to find himself pulling into the parking lot on his return trip from the Dairy State.

And what did he find? That giant wheel of Swiss? Well, yeah. But that was a given.

He found WINE. Genuine Wisconsin wine. One of the wines, Orchard Country Wine is a blend of Chardonnay and Door County Montmorency cherries. We haven’t tried this yet, as I haven’t figured out what we should serve with this wine.

The second wine, the 2006 Cedar Creek Winery Vidal was interesting to me because it is produced at a winery within 100 miles our house making it a locavore choice. Kind of anyway. It turns out that most of the grapes used by the winery are contract grown at vineyards in Washington, Oregon and New York. Still shipping fruit is less of a burden on the environment than shipping filled bottles so I took some hope from that. Also, they are growing some grapes at the winery, mostly Marchel Foch which are being used to produce estate wines and given that the wine I had was made of cold hardy Vidal Blanc, it is possible that this wine could be estate produced in the future.

The taste of the wine was wonderful. Crisp, with a nice acidity and tasting of peaches and pears. We drank it while eating pasta which was a great match and through the dinner we marvelled that this wine was produced so close to home.

When I started researching the winery for this piece (yes, I do research!), I discovered that the winery has a sister facility Wollersheim Winery in Prairie du Sac. This winery is just beyond my 100 mile mark to be an ideal locavore choice to me, but not by much. Additionally the winery is in the Lake Wisconsin AVA. Which means, that I foresee a map and a trip of Wisconsin coming in the near future!

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