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- Indiana and Kentucky Wineries
I recently visited two wineries on a trip through Kentucky and into Indiana. Over the weekend my wife and I stayed at a nice B and B in the Ohio River Valley in Southern Indiana. We stayed at the Leavenworth Inn which is on a bluff overlooking a horseshoe bend in the Ohio River. This is a very nicely restored Inn originally built in the 1850's. I could not resist visiting some wineries along the way.
The first winery we visited was in Starlight Indiana. My grandmother was originally from Starlight and so I could not resist visiting the Huber Orchard Winery. We went to the tasting room and found quite a diversity of wines. I tasted the so called dry wines while my wife went for the semi-sweet menu. After tasting 12 different wines, I found two that I really enjoyed. The first wine that I thought was good was their Chardonel. I had never had Chardonel wine before and very much enjoyed it. It is a blend with Chardonnay grapes and Seyval Blanc grapes. It is kind of a Chardonnay light.
The other wine I liked was their 2005 Family Reserve. This wine is a blend of reds. I failed to ask about the makeup of the blend. Upon returning home, I did not find this wine on their website.
After visiting Starlight, we stopped at a small winery in New Castle, Kentucky, the Smith Berry Vineyard and Winery (http://www.smithberrywinery.net) This winery attracted us due to the fact that one of the owners of the winery is Mary Berry, the daughter of the renowned novelist Wendell Berry. We originally thought that it might actually have been owned by Wendell Berry. Wendell Berry's writings are earthy and address Kentucky rural life. I think it very appropriate that his daughter is involved in agriculture. I found two wines that I liked. The first was a semi-dry white wine called Vidal Blanc The second was a red called Smith-Berry Burley. It is a blend of wine which include Munson, Norton and Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a very smooth red wine.
Well, I know I am probably boring most of you. Not all of us can afford to travel to France and Italy, I guess Starlight IN and New Castle KY will have to do for now. I found the wines to be in general better than I expected. Between the two wineries we brought home a full case of wine.
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1137 - Reply by dmcker, Aug 15.
Sounds like you had a very pleasant trip with some interesting stops. Would be good to hear how the wines are when you drink them later, back at home.
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1738 - Reply by Gregory Dal Piaz, Aug 17.
Awesome rundown!
Thanks for sharing your impressions on some out of the way wineries.
It's always great to find out about these sorts of place that we tend to overlook or forget about.
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3 - Reply by rhodies, Sep 9.
Enjoyed your review. Now onward to finding more Norton wines (I warn you, it takes only a few trips finding Norton wines and you will easily be classified as a Norton cultist). In Ohio you have two Nortons: Henke Winery in Cincinnati and Lakeside Vineyard in Felicity, OH. Run back down to Kentucky and you will find: Chrisman Mill Vineyards in Nicholasville, Ky, Elk Creek Vineyards in Owenton, KY, Lovers Leap Vineyard & Winery in Lawrenceburg, Ky, Smith-Berry Winery in New Castle, KY, Wildside Vines Winery in Versailles, KY and
Wight-Meyer Winery in Shepherdsville, KY. Friend is coming in tonight from Kentucky and promises us she picked up one of these Norton wines. Looking forward to this. Have been to 27 Missouri Norton vineyards, nine Virginia N. vineayrds, 1 in Penn, and 2 in Georgia so far. My database has a 167 Norton wineries on it. So many places and so little wine time in this life time.
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3 - Reply by rhodies, Sep 9.
Ooops, just noted that you have a Norton vineyard in Indiana also: French Lick Winery in West Baden Springs, IN
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48 - Reply by D9sus4, Sep 10.
rhodies, So which Norton wineries do you like the best? I live a 1/2 hour from the Missouri wine growing region and have tried most of the Norton wines produced there and have a group of them in my wine cellar starting with 1994.
rhill2990, thanks for the info on Indiana & Kentucky wineries. Haven't tried them yet but I was at a winery in Tenn. just south of Nashville Labor Day weekend and it was pretty mediocre so I won't mention the name. However, they are not bottling any 100% Estate wines yet, so it's mostly wine made from juice from other places. I'll give them a few years before checking them out again.
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41 - Reply by schellbe, Sep 13.
1'd love to visit some of these wineries on our bike trip east next summer: Planned route: Boonville, MO to St Genevieve (skipping the wineries west of St. Louis), Carbondale, IL, on into KY following the southern route through VA to Norfolk. Maybe we should try to hit some of these wineries.
The heartland is a very tough place to grow vinifera, because of the extreme winter cold. But there is fair amount of heat, so red varieties like Norton do quite well. This is one of the few hybrids I like. Little of the foxy flavors of the naive American grapes, and generally better ripening (and less coarseness) than the reds from New York State. These are definitely worth collecting.
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- Reply by D9sus4, Sep 13.
schellbe, If you're planning a bike trip through the wine country of Missouri, then you should reconsider the wineries west of St.Louis as these, IMHO, produce most of the best Norton wines you'll find in the Midwest. Also, there is a wonderful bike trail (I bike it regularly) that takes you right by these wineries called the Katy Trail - http://www.bikekatytrail.com/katytrailwineries.asp
I'd be happy to share opinions of my favorite Nortons and wineries in the area with you if you PM me privately as I feel like we've already highjacked the original point of this forum posting.
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1137
- Reply by dmcker, Sep 13.
Why not continue with your insights and discussion in this thread, D9sus4? I, for one, am interested in hearing more about Nortons, since I know next to nothing about them. Or, you could start a new thread on Nortons, too, if you're so inclined...
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- Reply by D9sus4, Sep 14.
dmcker, OK. I'll give it a whirl. New thread about Nortons starting Tuesday 9/15/09.
Just an FYI, I had never heard of Norton wine before moving to Missouri in 1994. I moved here from Sonoma County California, so it was an interesting learning experience.
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- Reply by rhodies, Sep 22.
After visiting 40+ Norton vineyards, D9sus4 asked which have turned out to be our favorites. That's a chore to answer, but I will state the Norton wineries we particularly enjoyed:
Virginia - Cooper's Winery tops all that we have visited in that state so far. Have put away a case of 2008 Barrel Oak Winery Norton with anticipation opening in 2013 or later. Visited four Norton wineries in Georgia this past weekend with only Three Sisters producing a nice Norton which we'll put up for a few more years. Was fortunate enough to have the owner let us try a Norton directly from a barrel at this location which will be released in another year, and it seemngly is going to be simply grand. As for Missouri, we have put away Norton wines from Chandler Hill & Blumenhof. To enjoy now, we prefer Montelle and Robller Norton wines. To respond to a good Snooth article mentioning "oaking" of wines, try River Ridge in Commerce, MO. A Norton offering that is unique in that you get to contrast two barreled Norton wines. The same grapes from the same location, but one called Norton (aged in American Oak) and the other named Cynthiana (aged in French Oak).
