Finally, the long awaited first day of our spring vacation has arrived. Our new van is loaded with tech, snacks and gas and we are off to explore our neighbor to the North – Wisconsin.

A little background here, the whole reason for this blog was to document our road trips but primarily this road trip. Our idea was to take a spontaneous, meandering “stroll” through the backroads of the Dairy State, stopping on a whim, going where the proverbial wind takes us, releasing ourselves to the freedom of a full tank of gas and a rockin’ tune on the radio…picture Lisa and me standing on a high bluff with a stoic, resolute look on our faces, satisfied with all the lands spread out before us, comfortable and confident that we will embark and conquer the challenge before us. What is the challenge you might ask?  To enjoy ourselves in spite of my overthinking and over planning of a trip that was to have no plan. You have no idea how much work goes into spontaneity.

Now really folks, how does one take the “just drive and you will find” approach to a road trip? Well, I know this guy (meaning me), starts by collecting data. Information is king. You can never have too much information, right? As it turns out, you can have too much information. Information equates to choices and too many choices starts to feel like a Greek restaurant’s menu – everything under the Sun with no idea what to eat. Here I was a week before the trip was to begin, staring into my refrigerator full of choices, letting the cold air out and not knowing what to sample first (ok, enough with the food analogy, it has worn a bit thin, sorry dear).

Funny thing, the first stop on this trip, as with all trips, was to be Doc’s Diner in Loves Park, IL for breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and no better place for that important meal than Doc’s. So my first destination point on Google Maps, Doc’s Diner. Satisfied that I have at least started, I started grouping destination points into a string along a general direction with the thought of a supper club and a hotel at the end of the day. Here is what Day One looked like as planned.

Day One

• Doc’s Diner
• Whispering Bluffs Winery
• Kearns Vineyards
• Whispering Winds Winery (there must be a lot of secrets in WI with all the whispering)
• Spurgeon Vineyards
• Weggy Winery
• Karen’s Supper Club
• Ramada Richland Center

Attached here is a snippet from my spreadsheet – this shows the level of over planning I am truly guilty of.

Here is what our planned Day One looked like on Google Maps.

 

In hindsight, wow what was I thinking! This map represents 4 hours and 52 minutes of driving time. This doesn’t include time to stop to eat, drink or smell the roses along the way.

Here is what it quickly morphed into after a couple of stern reminders from Lisa  as to the true purpose of the trip – to relax and not drive her crazy.

As noted on the picture, this route is an hour less driving time. It still meets the criteria of a backroad, no expressways for these explorers, and added time to go astray if we so desired. And go astray we did.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me start at the beginning, Doc’s Diner.

Doc’s is a gem of a place! Owned and operated by Ron and Mary, this place is always bustling but never to the point where the food or service ever suffers. Really, I can’t say enough great things about this place. The picture of my standard Corned Beef and Swiss omelet might as well be a stock photo for me. I take that picture everytime I eat there and text it to my friends that already know how great the place is. It’s my own way of torturing them – hey, what are friends for?

Windshield pictures are silly. Like taking pictures of mountains or the ocean, they can never truly portray the feeling they invoke. But being Day One there are FAR less bugs on the windshield, we have that going for us.

Going Astray – the First Time, Minhas

 

We discovered Monroe completely by accident on a road trip last year to New Glarus for some Spotted Cow beer. We stumbled upon the Minhas Craft Brewery, which is the old Huber Brewing Company, and fell in love with the story of the new owners and the history of the brewery itself. They brew a wide variety of beers, some I love, some not so much, but the experience is always worth the trip. We were just up there for our fourth trip and will be returning shortly with our 21 year old daughter so she can share the experience as well.There is a lot to be said about Minhas, both the brewery and the distillery but they are better left as a story for another day. Let’s just say we stop in often to restock. As we are drawing near Monroe on this trip, we quickly make the decision to stop. After picking up some of their world class vodka, along with their excellent versions of Rumchata and Baileys. We are back on the road, smiling in the knowledge that regardless of what happens there will be Baileys in our coffee tomorrow.

Planned Stop – Spurgeon Winery

Restocked and feeling accomplished, with Lisa behind the wheel, we got back onto that proverbial “backroad” and headed toward our first, planned, destination of Spurgeon Vineyards and Winery.

Tucked in among the rolling hills of southwest Wisconsin, Spurgeon Vineyards and Winery is family owned and operated. They have a delightful tasting room and offers a wide selection of wines ranging from dry to sweet. Lisa and my tastes lean toward the drier wines and we were not disappointed. We were greeted by Robin. An absolutely charming woman who told us about the area, the winery and property, and most importantly about the wines and grapes. I have been to Napa Valley a couple of times in years past so I know a little about the grapes grown there and what to expect from them in terms of taste and texture but Wisconsin wineries are foreign to me so meeting a knowledgeable person on our first stop was a huge bonus. Robin took the time to tell us about the St. Pepin, La Crescent, La Crosse and Marechal Foch grapes all of which can be grown successfully in the cold climate of Wisconsin. This base knowledge was invaluable as we began our tour of Wisconsin wineries, helping us to pick a starting point at further tastings by knowing what to generally expect. Now some wines may start with a certain varietal of grape but that’s where their similarities will stop. The magic is in how each of the wineries produce their wines – the blending and mixing of different grapes, the aging techniques, etc., that separates the true “hits” from the “misses”. Spurgeon Vineyards has FAR more hits than misses.

We started out with the drier wines and worked our way toward the sweet ones.  I’m just going to mention some of the highlights on the ones we tasted.

St Pepin – Very pleasant, slightly dry

Marechal Foch – Starts sweet, finishes light. We found out at other tastings that isn’t always the case with this grape. It was due to that “magic” I spoke of earlier and Spurgeon’s version of this wine was magical.

Honeycrisp Apple Wine – Nice Apple flavor, this one can be a troublemaker! Every once in awhile you find a wine that is so drinkable it scares you a little. You can see yourself not wanting to share it with someone for fear you’ll run out. This is one of those. Again, we are not generally lovers of the sweet, syrupy  “fruit” wines, the cherry, blueberry, raspberry, etc, but this Apple wine was an exception. Apple wines tend to be less syrupy than typical fruit wines and a little tart which can sometimes come across as a “dryness” all which play towards our tastes. It had wonderful Apple flavor from the first chilled glassful to the last not so chilled one. As the temperature changed so did the nuances of the flavors – it was really quite cool.

Harvest Red – Half Marechal Foch, Half La Crescent. Quite drinkable but I really liked the Marechal Foch by itself.

Harvest Blush – Pinot Grigio, La Crosse and La Crescent. This is the year of the Blush for me, I don’t why, I can’t explain it and don’t even want to try. There is just something about how it feels to me. Maybe it’s the memories of the Vin de Porch from Cakebread many years ago and the happy times I had with that. Or maybe it’s my aging, or should I say maturing taste buds looking for that slightly sweet feeling I get with a blush. I say “feel” because that’s really what it is, a feeling rather than a taste. Taste doesn’t sufficiently describe the full mouth feeling you get from some wines. I love it when that happens. I liked this blush and a bottle came home with us

“The Loreley” White – Liebfraumilch-like with Peach overtones.

Mead – Honey based wine made from honey made from apple blossoms. Interesting but not my cup of tea. Try it, it might be yours.

Ruby Lady – Full Concorde flavor, very good, sweet

This is just a very short sampling of the wines they have to offer. They were all quite drinkable. The memory of some of them make me want for a glassful right now,

Exiting Spurgeon Vineyards was as lovely as entering.

We blasted down a series of beautiful twists and turns that are the charm of Wisconsin – really it’s quite something. At one point, Lisa says “what does that sign mean?” It’s a picture of a truck pointing downhill with something about a grade, seconds later we drove off what seemed like a cliff, a la Thelma and Louise (I must be Louise because I’m older and Lisa is far better looking and I’ve always had something for Geena Davis which excludes me from me being Thelma, sorry I digress). The definition of a cliff, when you look out over the hood and don’t see the road. Oh there is road but about a mile away, on the other side of “the cliff”. It was a blast. It could have been a rollercoaster at Six Flags. After the hoot and the holler, we laughed for miles saying we need to come back again just for that. I love the little things in life.  Next time, we will stop laughing long enough to take a picture.

Unplanned Stop – Morel Mushroom Festival, Muscoda Wisconsin

Right along our planned route appeared some of the spontaneous magic that we were hoping for. We happened upon the Morel Mushroom festival, celebrating its 34th year, There was an Arts and Crafts fair, Mushroom Headquarters serving Mushroom Brats and fried mushrooms, a Tasting room featuring wines, coffee, cheese ,maple syrup and beer. There was a very nice cross section of things to do. With limited time, we strolled the arts fair…

Shared a Mushroom Brat at the Mushroom Headquarter. Tasty…

We spotted people walking around with bags of Morel mushrooms. After flagging someone down, Lisa said I nearly accosted this person, I say pshaw,  they were happy to tell us where they got them – a little place called Vicki’s Cozy Cafe. It’s a pleasant neighborhood dinner packed to capacity with people gobbling the mushrooms. Morels are special memory for Lisa, a story I’ll leave for her to tell, but, to me, they have kind of a spongy texture and are a little weird. The people here are gaga for them. I thoroughly enjoyed the festival, we’ll leave it at that.

And the road trip continues…

Planned Stop – Weggy Winery

Located just outside of Muscoda proper, Weggy has beautiful grounds and hosts a variety of things to do. Our trip was just before season so check out their nice website for dates and times and pictures, www.weggywinery.com. The morning of Day 1, I popped my back and by this point in the day I was wobbling around from chair to chair and completely forgot about taking some pictures. Even though they are not setup with chairs, they were wonderful enough to find me one so I could enjoy their wines.

They boast “The Largest Wine Tasting Selection in the Midwest” and wow is it ever. On this day, their wine tasting menu listed 35 different wines. From a 2 year old Port, to Dry Reds, Whites, Semi-Sweet & Sweet, Fruit Wines and a separate category of just Apple wines, everyone can find something to like at Weggy’s.

I tasted 11, yes 11, wines and here is a brief summary of my notes.

Port – Frontenac Grapes. Grown from grapes on their estate, this port has a nice oaky flavor. Not overly sweet which can be a problem with less expensive, young ports, this port had a very smooth finish.

UPDATE – Cracked the bottle of Port at home. At first whiff it was SHARP. I gave it 10 minutes and the nose was knocked down to a typical young port. There is NO age in this Port but a very pleasant grape flavor. An hour later, it tastes fruity and thick. Not great but nice enough to recommend.

Autumn Crisp. As their tasting notes stated, “White Grapes blend into fruit mouthfeel with clean, crisp, dry finish.” I believe it says it all. We enjoyed a bottle of this at the end of our first day of travels. It wasn’t as cold as served at the tasting which brought out more fruit taste up front, almost to the point of syrupy but finished crisp and sweet. We loved it both chilled and not so chilled. Either way – excellent!

Weggy White. Semi-dry with vanilla oak finish. Very nice mouth feel. Too much vanilla for me.

Truly Traminette. Single word – Tart.

Marlys Blush – Red Foch Grapes. Fruity but not to the syrup point. A pleasant overall experience. Good to share but not one you can drink too much of at one time.

Apple Breeze. Full apple flavor in this DRY wine with a finish that’s a touch sweet.

Apple Cherry. A nice combination of the fruits. I like it better than just the apple alone.

Vignole WI. Just like they say fruit front, dry finish.

Weggy Reserve – Frontenac & St. Croix Grapes. This is an example of why I always say try things twice in case you were simply off the first time. This is Double Gold Medal winner and I found it too oaky to the point where it was too dry. I couldn’t find the flavor. Try it yourself let me know what you think.

Marechal Foch. Again too much oak for me which is unusual for me to say. I like me some oak. It didn’t have the upfront sweet of wines of this varietal.

Frontenac Gris. A lovely sweet white. Pleasant throughout not too sweet but maybe a little too much for me. I can list five friends that would love – it’s a keeper.

We were assisted by Marlys, owner, and Denise. Both were knowledgeable and attentive. We had a wonderful experience and went home with more wine than we planned because of it.

Planned Stop – Karen’s Supper Club, Richland Center, WI

This is where a simple Google search pointed us to this gem of a place.

The outside is not much to talk about and for that matter neither is the inside but the food and service was superb. This explains why it has 4.5 stars out of 5. We would definitely stop if we were in this neck of the woods again.

Planned Stop – Ramada, Richland Center WI

We have basic guidelines we like to stick to when picking out hotels. Lisa steadfast rule is no Super 8s, although we did stay in one in Red Wing MN, and she wasn’t happy. Don’t ask why, I don’t know what it is, it just is. Another guideline is there should be a bar in or connected to the hotel. We likes us a nightcap and like to meet people. There is nothing like a hotel bar to meet some colorful characters. This place was no exception. With the Morel Mushroom Festival going on down the road, there was a nice crowd of Mushroom Hunters. Yep, I said Mushroom Hunters. These are people that travel all over the country searching for mushrooms to pick and sell. I was surprised at some of the prices that wild grown mushrooms can draw. And they had tons of stories about mushroom hunting. Who stole pick sites from whom, missing out of major picks by hours, that kind of stuff. I am a connoisseur of strangely interesting and this was strangely interesting.

A couple of drinks and off to the room to plan, or not plan, for tomorrow’s activities.