Winos!!

Wine tastings are a joy!!!  I love discovering new wines to bring home!  We LOVE hitting the Michigan Wine Trail!  We have visited most every winery in the south/southwest of Michigan, plus all of the ones in the Traverse City/Mission Peninsula/Leelanau Peninsula up north.  Michigan, especially in the Fall, is some gorgeous country! 

We have also had the pleasure of visiting many Indiana wineries...as well as sampling (& buying) wines from Indiana wineries which we haven't visited by attending the annual Story Inn Wine Festival twice.   

This past Saturday, we headed an hour-ish north for some wine & music at Round Barn Winery & Vineyard in Baroda, Michigan.

We headed up on this particular weekend for 2 reasons: the weather was to be simply perfect and there was an event scheduled:

We have had the pleasure of tasting Round Barn wine (& vodka) at one of their tasting rooms a few years back, but this was our first trip to the actual winery and vineyard.  It did not disappoint!  We hit the sampling room straight away, of course!  For $8 you can sample 5 wines/spirits and keep your glass (you also get a $5 chip toward a discount on 3 bottles of wine, 2 6-packs of beer or a growler from the Round Bar).  We are primarily sweet wine drinkers, so we stick with what we like.  We are already fans of the Cranberry wine.

so we didn't use up a sample chip on this one; however, we did use it for a Crantini (3 parts Round Barn Cranberry wine and 1 part Round Barn DiVine vodka), which is delightful and I will recreate myself!  Chris was daring and tried all 3 spirits (DiVine vodka, rum and bourbon) ~ whoa, mama!!!  They are strong!!!  I stuck with the wines and really like the Redel Doux.

 It reminds me of an old favorite of ours from a now-closed winery in Porter, Indiana, called Dune Ridge Winery.  They had a Lakeshore Red which is probably my favorite (even over Oliver Winery's Soft Red).  When we found out Dune Ridge was closing, we rushed over to buy a case of wines, more than half of which were the Lakeshore Red!!

After sampling, we headed out to the green to listen to the live band.  We hit the Round Bar, where Chris tried the hard cider, which was a bit too tart for our liking, and the sangria, which was pretty good.  I decided to try one of Round Barn's beers.

The Summer Wheat is similar to Blue Moon, but not as tasty, I hate to say.  Too bad they didn't have a hefeweizen as that is my favorite style of beer. 

We went to the top deck of the Round Bar to enjoy our beverages while listening to the band, who were quite good!!!

When the band took a break, we had finished our drinks, so we decided to walk around the grounds a bit before heading off to New Buffalo for dinner.

We tried the El Rancho Grande....and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.  The margaritas were small & not potent, while the food prices were high and the portions small.  Not to mention, it was just before 5 when we got there and Chris asked if we could sit outside.  The crazy server lady didn't hear him and she started to seat us in the general dining area, so Chris asked again.  To which she replied that no, not until 6.  Well, I wasn't about to sit in the no-atmosphere, surrounded by families with kids dining area, so we followed her back to the front and asked to be seated in the bar.  We were there maybe 20 minutes, when lo & behold, another server (quite possibly the owner) sat 3 tables in the outside seating  .... it was ten minutes after 5!!!!  Needless to say, we were none too happy about that turn of events!  We won't be back to El Rancho Mal!

We didn't let that spoil our day, tho.  When we went to the downtown of New Buffalo, we discovered a tasting room for another of our favorite Michigan wineries, Warner Vineyards, in Paw Paw.  Looking forward to heading up there to purchase some of their Holiberry!!!