First Trip with the New Sunflower
Huh? Let me explain. For those who don’t know me, I’m a big guy, not a four bucket of chicken a day kinda big, but over 6’4″ and weigh more than I care to admit to. Also I like minivans, much to my wife’s chagrin. My old one, a 2008 Town & Country affectionately called Betsy, has 217,000 miles and is not as reliable as it once was for long trips (an understatement, wait for the posting of the Minhas Adventure). So here is Sunflower, a 2013 Town & Country. Not new but new to us.
Lisa is from Kansas, the Sunflower State, and has a love for sunflowers – hence the name. Also it replaced her Nissan Altima with her custom plate, SNFLWRR, which she makes me explain to people as punishment for putting it on a minivan. All that being said, we have been planning our Wisconsin-Michigan road trip and are excited to set sail in Sunflower.
Anxious for Spring
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been collecting all sorts of information on places to go and things to do in Wisconsin. Really, it has gotten out of control. My dear friend, John O’Brien, suggested researching supper clubs after a book that he had heard of. Wow, a book of places to eat – I like to eat. The book, Wisconsin Supper Clubs: An Old-Fashioned Experience by Ron Faiola, is well put together by areas in the state with excellent pictures and nice back stories. The book is a must see for those planning a vacation in Wisconsin. A sequel is coming out in June of this year and I can’t wait.
I’ve been using Google’s My Maps to plot all of my various points of interest in Wisconsin, well, at least they’re interesting to me. They include all the breweries, wineries, distilleries (see a theme, sorry Mom), as well as some flea markets, museums, bakeries, restaurants and now supper clubs. The map really is cool. I was looking up street addresses for supper clubs, early one Sunday morning, and “pinning” them on my map. I noticed that one of them, The Duck Inn, is right across the street from a winery, Staller Estates. What a find! Two of my favorite things to do, eating and drinking, right next to each other and less than an hour away – can you say ROADTRIP?!…I knew you could.
Armed with a map of all sorts of stuff, I expanded my view out from Delavan, home to The Duck Inn and Staller Estates Winery, to see that another winery, Northleaf Winery in Milton, was only 20 minutes away -let’s add that to the trip. The power of the Internet is amazing, thank you Al Gore.
Armed with our travelling equipment – camera, phone for map, phone for phone, and iPad for research, we headed out on the back road to Milton and the Northleaf Winery. Our back road took us through Clinton at lunch time and we thought about Boxcars Bar and Grill. Boxcars is a place that we’ve stopped at before and really like. It’s a neighborhood bar that instantly makes you feel like your part of their neighborhood. The food is good. The people are warm, funny (haha, not strange) and friendly. Like I’ve said, we have stopped there before, unfortunately in the name of adventure, we tried Copper Falls right next door.
It’s a pretty place with brick and wood features in the bar area and an elegant dining room but lacked any real warmth or character. We stopped there because of a sandwich board sign out front advertising a Crispy Cordon Bleu Sandwich. I like chicken cordon bleu so what the heck let’s try it.
Now we might have been in a hurry to get on with our adventure, but almost 40 minutes to get a sandwich and quesadillas is a bit crazy. The place really wasn’t that busy. The food looked good, the onion rings were, but the sandwich was so dry that even the 5 glasses of iced tea I had while waiting didn’t help.
I tell my kids, always try things twice, in case they were screwed up the first time. We will try Copper Falls again…if Boxcars is closed.
On to Milton
I like to take pictures, although Lisa is MUCH better at it, and it is my intentions of loading up this blog with them (The blog is my guilty pleasure and I can do what I want to, so there.). Although on this trip Lisa quickly pointed out that we were too early in the season to take any outdoor pictures that could do this route the credit that it deserves. When things turn green, this trip will be the kind of pretty that only the rolling hills and farmlands of Wisconsin can offer.
Looking at all the road pictures we took, I decided to post only this one. Not because it is scenic in any particular way, its not, but because it showed what a true “back road” looks like. Now imagine with green field on either side and a bright blue sky and it really does look inviting.
Northleaf Winery is located in a building with a lot of history, details are on their website and worth the read. Suffice it to say that it seems to suit them well. The place was near full on an early March Saturday afternoon with people having a good time drinking wine and painting wine glasses. Yes, painting wine glasses. They hold wine glass painting parties, wine bottle painting parties, wine stopper making parties, and wine charm making parties – notice the operative word, Party! Although their tasting room was rather cramped, it was nicely renovated and covered with interesting things to look at while you enjoyed their wine, and enjoyed we did. Lisa and I sampled a cross section from their wide selection. We tried the following:
Savage White Sauvignon Blanc
Chardonnay
Park Place Pinot Grigio
Liquid Happiness (60% Sauvignon Blanc/40% Muscato)
Volstead Red (Cabernet/Syrah Blend)
Super Vol (Volstead Red with additional oak treatment)
Deep Roots Red Zinfandel
Cherry Chocolate Bliss Port
White Port
They were all quite drinkable though there were a couple of real standouts for us. Lisa found the Liquid Happiness and wow was it good. Generally we tend to stay away from the sweet wines, the Liquid Happiness is an excellent blend of dry and sweet and left us, well let me say it – happy. For me, I really liked the Super Vol, their oak treated Cabernet/Syrah blend. I’m not a fan of the heavily oaked reds but in this case the oak knocked the edges off the wine and left you with a smooth, extremely drinkable, full bodied red. The thought of it makes me want to have a glass even though it’s 8:30am on a Sunday morning (again, sorry Mom). Also a favorite that brought back some memories for me was their White Port. I had a white Port many years ago at Prager Port Works in Napa Valley and I was hooked. Made from Chardonnay, it’s generally not something that you think of when you think of port. It has a pleasant taste combination of fruit and nuts – it’s like drinking Raisin Bran with a coating of sugar. The Northleaf version of it was all that I remembered and I was happy to bring a bottle of it home. An honorable mention goes to the Deep Roots Red Zinfandel. Granted, I am a Red Zin fan and might drink versions of this variety that others would not. I think that the Northleaf version is one of the more drinkable I’ve had in a long time and can be enjoyed by everyone.
Onward to Delavan
The great part about the one-two punch of Staller Estate Winery and the Duck Inn is that they are RIGHT across the street from each other as you can see from the picture below.
It’s not the greatest pic, not even close, but you get the idea. Staller Estate Winery is setup in an excellently maintained compound of farm buildings, I’m a sucker for a red barn. It has a clean modern tasting room. You can taste “at the bar”, so to speak, or have a seat in their beautiful sun room and gazebo areas which are loaded with windows and would support lovely views in the green seasons.
We chose to enjoy the sun room and enjoy we did. The flights were presented nicely and the wines were charming. As you can see from the picture, Lisa and I did up the tasting right. Of course I added in the Ports, a red and white, because that’s just how I do it and we were off.
I am just going to say that there wasn’t a single wine here that wasn’t drinkable. I define drinkable as a pleasant experience – good nose, taste and mouth feel. Now that doesn’t mean I always want another glass of a particular one. Sometimes, although pleasant, the wine is simply not my “thing” but I encourage you to try your “thing” here. I’m sure you’ll find something to bring home.
Here are my honorable mentions:
Whitewater Rush – As mentioned earlier, we shy away from the sweet wines but the Whitewater Rush is a unique blend of full grape taste and aroma that finishes surprisingly dry – it kind of disappears from your tongue. For me that type of finish would allow me to enjoy more than one glass. When the wines are too sweet they build up on my tongue and like a cheesecake that is too rich you just can’t muster down another one because it’s “too” much. Whitewater Rush is just right!
Lady In Red -As we are coming up on summer, my wine choices go the way of my clothing choices – put away the heavy (reds) and move into the lights (whites). This Lady In Red is going to be a red that I keep out and enjoy this summer. It is a medium bodied, semi-dry red with loads of black cherry and raspberry overtones. It has just enough tannin in it for a smooth finish. It’s light enough for summer and would be perfect with a grilled steak at sunset.
Maiden Blush – When out wine tasting, I find it too easy to get wrapped up in the moment and fall in love with everything. No two wines are exactly the same and there are so many different reasons to like a particular wine. On these occasions, I end up with a car load of wine that after I get them home and crack one open some time later I get that “what the hell was I thinking” moment. Many times I can remember exactly what I was thinking – the property was beautiful, the server was charming, my wife’s blue eyes had that glow that enhances the flavor of the wine I’m drinking, you know what I mean; you get swept away. Ok, get back to the point Eric, the Maiden Blush is wine that tasted BETTER than we remembered. The picture above is from our dining room table last week. In the mood for something light to enjoy, I pulled out a Maiden Blush and it certainly did not disappoint. Maiden Blush is a semi-dry blush with a fruity aroma and subtle citrus tones. Although it looks like a White Zinfandel, this is a real wine (not fruit punch in a wine bottle marketed to the masses) with excellent qualities that make you just want to sit outside on the porch and enjoy the day. On these excursions I rarely buy more than one bottle of a particular wine, it saves me from those moments I spoke of earlier and gives me a reason to travel back and stock up, but the Maiden had me from the beginning so I bought 2 now I wish it was 12.
Dinner Time!
It’s time to Duck Inn. First on our tour of supper clubs, I only hope the rest of them are half as good as the experience we had here. Bold words but I mean it, I still will have a memory of the prime rib flash into my head and wonder how I can re-arrange my schedule to get back. Let’s start at the beginning. It is said that to be a supper club there has to be a relish tray so we started with the relish tray.
I know it’s simply vegetables on a tray but really the vegetables are simply the vehicle to get their special buttermilk ranch dip into your mouth. Very yummy, even for veggies.
I have to mention here that they pour an excellent cocktail – just so you know.
I ordered the Beef Rouladen with spaetzle and red cabbage.
Beef Rouladen is a German dish consisting bacon, onions, mustard and pickles rolled in thinly sliced beef then cooked. The Rouladen came covered in a delightful brown sauce and was very good. I understand any doubts that appeared at the word pickles in the list of ingredients but there was also the word bacon and everyone knows bacon makes everything better. Spaetzle is a kind of soft egg noodle that when covered in butter makes you wish you could eat them at every meal.
Lisa is the prime rib lover between us and she said it was fabulous. We ordered the king cut so we could enjoy some with our eggs the next morning and we are so glad we did. The prime rib was cooked to perfection. Prime rib can be a little mushy for me, this one was firm and flavorful throughout, not just around the edges. You could tell that it was an excellent cut of meat and was prepared by people that knew what they were doing. It was served with Yukon Gold smashed potatoes that simply melted in your mouth.
Did I mention the prime rib was AWESOME?! I just didn’t want you to forget. The service was pleasant and efficient and the atmosphere was comfortable woodsy with just enough class to make you wish you had dressed nicer.
We’ve decided that we will be taking this backroad again real soon and bringing some friends with us. It was an experience that we will enjoy as much again if not more.
-Eric, March 12, 2016