Indiana Wine Fair

Yesterday, JM and I went down to Nashville for the Indiana Wine Fair. We were looking forward to the outing, but did not expect to have as much fun as we did! If you click on the title of this blog it will take you to the website for the Fair. There were about 21 wineries from the Indiana area and they had tasting for many of their wines. $20 got you admission and a wine glass from Story Inn. There were a few big, white tents and all the wineries were stationed underneath them. You would just take your wine glass and go up to a winery and start naming off ones you wanted to try! Obviously, there were A LOT of drunk people there! We tried to be good...about halfway through we went and bought cheese, bread, water and cheddar popcorn.

The location of Story Inn was pretty cool as well. As their slogan reads, it's a VERY inconvienent location, but a beautiful drive! We thought it was in Nashville (like the website says), so we just drove down to Nashville then used the Garmin. It's actually in Columbus, so we ended up taking the scenic route. Turns out, it was the perfect day for that! We got to enjoy the sunroof on the crave and take all the windy roads through parts of Indiana we'd never seen.

The wine was amazing. I feel Indiana has great sweet wines, and since the day was hot, sweet wines sounded the most refreshing. JM tried a couple of drier wines, but I stuck to the sweets. I'll have to remember for next year to take a pen because I forget a lot of what we tried and liked. We did buy one bottle (yep, just one! We were proud of ourselves!!!) of wine from Carousel Winery. We discovered them at the Home Show last winter and JM really likes them. They don't hold events or sell their wine at other locations so we haven't gotten to enjoy them much. We bought a bottle of Pomegrante Wine there. It was towards the end of the wine tasting, but I seem to recall it being delish!

Wines that stick out in my mind were:
Madison Vineyard ~
Black Dog -- sweet red blend
Mystique -- sweet white blend

Buck Creek's Cranberry Apple (tasted just like juice!)

Most of the Simmons wines, especially the Harvests, were great. We enjoyed so many we're going to try to catch a few events there to remember which ones we want!

Ferrin's (which is in Carmel!) had a Caramel Apple that was dangerously good...tasted just like a caramel apple! It wasn't as sweet as some of the others and had just the right blend.

Easley's Winery was a great surprise. I had known there was a winery in downtown Indy but hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to it. It had "Reggae" wines that were very flavorful. They also had a Cayuga White that had won some awards and I was in love with it! They also have a lot of events planned for this summer that I'm excited to attend!

I was pleasantly surprised with Mallow Run as well. I had only heard of it a couple of times before the Fair. Their Rougeon won the gold for the sweet red at the Fair, giving them the first booth when you entered. I didn't think this seemed like such a great prize, but considering I wasn't tipsy when I tried it and I can remember it, maybe it was a great prize! The Rougeon deserved the sweet red win!!! They also have "Pizza and Wine" nights in the summer. Bazbeaux pizza, wine, and sitting outside...perfect sounding evening!

The winery I am probably most excited about is Chateau Thomas. It not only had great wine, but it has TONS of events planned this summer and it's so close to us!

I know this wasn't an indepth review of the wines, but there was a LOT of wine and I'm lucky I remember this much! If you're interested in events this summer, definitely check out the Indiana Wine Trails. JM will be out of town for the first event I'm going to try, but it's the Indy Wine Trail's "Race Into Wineries". It's $20 and on Saturday and Sunday you can go to as many of the Indy Wine Trails' wineries as you want and get free tastings as well as track food! The Indy Wine Trails include Buck Creek, Grape Inspirations, Chateau Thomas, Mallow Run, Easley, Simmons and Ferrins. That Sunday is Mothers Day so I'm hoping that's what Mom wants to spend her day doing!