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This year the area of focus was Southwest MN, an area I haven't spent much time in. The itinerary held 6 wineries and 1 brewery for us lushes. Before all this drinking, we had better start with full stomachs! So that brought us to Blackbird Cafe. Love it! Wonderful dishes and fun atmosphere. Ok, now we were ready - bring on the wine! First stop, Crofut Winery, only 45 minutes away. Well... I thought it was the first stop until someone actually read the itinerary I made up and it clearly says: Open Saturday and Sunday. Um, it was Friday. DOH! I had ruined everything! :) Thankfully it was spotted in enough time and we could easily redirect and head straight to New Ulm and Morgan Creek Winery. Oh, little tangent here... you know why I love road trips? Cuz you stumble upon cute little towns that you would never see or visit otherwise. Like, Henderson. Adorable. Totally looks like it frozen in the 1950s. We had to explore and do a bit of antiquing.
The drive to Morgan Creek Winery was just one of my favorites. Once you leave the city of New Ulm you travel on lonely country roads and pass by farms where cows linger under trees and near shaded creeks. The final turn even brings you onto a gravel road. The grounds were just lovely, with a nice large patio out back with chairs and a fire pit. The thing that surprised me the most during the tasting - the wine was good! I know, people wonder why I do this wine trip sometimes because, well, MN does not have good wine. We have lots of fruit wine, cuz that is what grows - apples and strawberries. But lately the University of MN has been producing really hardy grapes and I think Morgan Creek is finally benefiting from such engineering. Their wine was at a level of sophistication that I haven't found in MN before. They say the first 100 years are the toughest in wine production - I think once these U of MN grapes really mature then we will be noticing more and more decent wine from the land of 10,000 lakes. Morgan Creek also serves appetizers, which provided us with a great excuse to buy a bottle of wine or two and sit outside, enjoying the spring sun.
We thought we would explore New Ulm for a bit - turns out it is like all the small towns of the world and it pretty much shuts down at 6pm. So it was mostly just window shopping for us and compiling a list of places we could eat at. Ignoring the advice of the winemaker, we sought out the most German looking place - Kaiserhoff. I don't think any of us regretted it. Of course there were no vegetarian options, but I like salads! Even if it comes with like 8 slices of American cheese. The deep fried sauerkraut balls were a hit! After dinner we had the pleasure of retiring to our humble abode for the night: Super 8. And boy do I mean humble. It worked for the evening though! An air mattress and a sleeping bag were all we needed to make the cozy accommodation even more cozy.
After slyly heading down to the continental breakfast in shifts, we had time to really shop in downtown before our 1pm Schell's brewery tour. We were determined to squeeze in every highlight in New Ulm that we could and then meant, after our shopping spree, we had to visit Herman. For some reason I still don't know who Herman actually is (the information will not stick in my head), but they have a monument of him and for $1.50 you can climb to the top. I mean, how can you not spend the $1.50? After signing a waiver dissolving the park of any liability (um, ok) Pam and I raced up the stairs. My thighs burned but I was going to concur Herman! Triumph! Once on top I got to experience some stunning views!
We could now move onto the Schell Brewery. This was my second time there, I wish it was my second home. The whole compound is lovely and has such history. The tour lasts about a half hour and then we get to visit the basement pub and partake in a generous sampling of beer. We were on a schedule so we couldn't linger all that long. We had to get on the road and get our focus back on wine, next stop: Fieldstone Vineyards in Morgan. Very cute mom and pop winery. The owner was there running the tasting, with his wife for extra help and their kids were out back playing. They even had wine called "The Wine-ing Farmer" and "The Wine-ing Farmer's Wife" - it was cute. They were very sweet. They were also very helpful in getting us to the next stop: Olde Country Vineyard in Lake Lillian.
So I had heard this winery was in an old school. I guess I took that to mean old schoolhouse - like those old one room schoolhouses you see. Well no, this was in a 1954's building, looking very similar to my intermediate school. I was getting so use to the cute that I wasn't ready for that. However, the owner's wife that was running the tour - well, I think she is the sweetest woman alive. They had the most wines I have ever seen, I don't know if I even got through half of them. It was mostly all fruit wines and with this being my third tasting stop this day I had reached my limit.
We needed to get to our hotel for the night: Spicer Castle. I heard about this hotel because they host Murder Mystery Dinners on the weekend. Something I have always wanted to do, but we were not going to arrive on time, plus I don't know if I could have gotten the other girls in my group onboard! We checked in quick and then headed out for dinner. We were told to head to Melvyn's on the Lake as I think everyone else in the state of MN was told to do also. When we got there we were warned that we could take a table outside, but that the wait on food was pushing 1 hour. Wow - not use to hearing that in small town MN! Oh well, at least they could get us drink and we had the lake to look at. This area is very much like Up North - tons of lakes. We returned to the Castle for spa night and then settled in for a good night's rest. The next morning we were treated to a three course breakfast while the owner regaled us with stories of the Inn and of the town.
The next winery was right in Spicer. We thought we would check-out a bit early so we could see the Main street and then head over for our tasting. Um, Spicer has no Main street. There is one antique store and it didn't open til noon! Oh well, we bummed around for a bit - it isn't that hard to find ways to waste time! Time to taste at Glacial Ridge Winery. The owner was celebrating his birthday and had cake for all his visitors. Yummy! Ok, time to head home and stop at our final winery: Woodland Hill Winery. Truth be told, I have been here before (it is right by the best orchard in the world, Fall Harvest Orchard) and I clearly remembered the apple wines still! It was another beautiful day so we got to sit outside and enjoy some live music and just relax.
Biggest lesson learned from this trip: Bring some snacks for the wine tastings. Not all of the wineries provide a way to cleanse your pallet and sometimes water (if you can even find that) is not enough.
~posted by Ann
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