Our Visit To Orchard Country Winery In Door County
By Dorrie Ruplinger, Mon Dec 26th

There are so many things to do and places to go in Door Countythat it is hard to pick what to do. There never seems to beenough time to do everything. There's boating, golfing, a naturecenter, several parks, biking, hiking, shopping, eating (one ofmy favorite things to do!), and a host of other things to do andsee in Door County. Because I enjoy Door County so much I wantedto share some of my activities and experiences there. One ofthose was a visit to Lautenbach's Orchard Country Winery andMarket.

If you like wine, a really fun thing to do is to visit severalof the wineries in Door County (Door Peninsula Winery is anotherpopular Door County Winery). Orchard Winery, located on Hwy 42,just south of Fish Creek, Wisconsin was one of our stops duringa fall trip to Door County.

In addition to a winery and fresh Door County cherries (when inseason), the main market building on the grounds offers manydifferent specialty food items as well as fresh baked pies. Alsooffered are scenic trolley tours of the area and tours of thewinery. Other seasonal activities at the orchard include horsedrawn sleigh rides, haunted hayrides, and a winter fest.

When my husband, my oldest grown son, and I stopped at thewinery it was later in the afternoon in the middle of the week.The last winery tour for the day had already ended. We weredisappointed to have missed out on the tour, but instead weheaded to the tasting bar in the main building. At thetasting bar we were given a list of all the wines offered by thewinery. There are over 30. Complimentary tasting of up to 8wines is offered to all patrons over 21 years of age.

After mulling over the choices for a few minutes we startedsipping wines. The winery specializes in fruit wines,particularly cherry, because of the great cherry growing climatein Door County. They also offer one homegrown grape madewith red grapes grown on the winery grounds, a named AudreyGrace. It is a dry wine, a new offering from the winery. Thegrapevines were planted just a few years ago to see how theywould perform in the cool, short growing season of Door County.

Although the winery specializes in fruit wines, they have otherofferings

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made with various grapes, but those wines are not madeon the premises because those fruits are not native to the area.Some of the other wines are made on the premises but with juicebought just for that purpose. For instance, our hostess at thewine bar told us the juice for their semi dry calledSwedish Lingonberry is imported from Sweden.

Other wines that we tasted and really enjoyed were the AutumnHarvest wine, a cranberry apple wine; Sweet Cherry wine, anicely sweet made with Door County cherries; StrawberryLyte, not a diet but a delicious lighter-tasting wine;Blackberry Blend, a very good that tasted like sweetblackberries; and Red Raspberry Lyte, another lighter-tastingwine that's a combination of white grapes and raspberries.

We were told the top selling at the winery is theBlackberry Blend. The number two seller is the Red RaspberryLyte. The winery's best-selling cherry is their CherryBlossom wine.

After tasting several wines we headed over to the bottled winesection of the store and stocked up on our favorites. Back home,we'll be able to enjoy the and reminisce about our trip toDoor County.

About the author:Dorrie Ruplinger is a featured writer for http://www.doorcountycountry.com. Visit the web site for more information on DoorCounty Wisconsin including places to eat and places tostay.