5274. Go to Von Stiehl winery in Algoma

 When my cousins initially said they were coming to Door County, I realized the only day that worked to meet up would be on their way back to Missouri. I suggested we meet in Algoma at Von Stiehl and go wine tasting. When my vacation plans changed, they still wanted to meet in Algoma and go wine tasting.

Von Stiehl Winery is located just off of downtown in Algoma. They are open daily from 10-5. There is a small parking lot or you can park on the street. I choose the street afraid I would hit something trying to back out. It is not a very wide parking lot either. 

I had an advantage over the girls as Menasha Library had a wine tasting earlier this year and the general manager from Von Stiehl was the presenter which meant of course we had Von Stiehl wines to try. It let me know that I did not like their Cabernet Sauvignon. It was too dry for me.

Von Stiehl's tasting menu has 3 price points. The Favorite menu is 6 samples for $6 but contains only 8 wines to pick from. The Select menu is the most expansive with about 30 wines to choose 6 from. That one is $9. The Premier menu is $12 and includes a dozen wines to choose from. You can include mix and match from other menus but your pricing will the most expensive menu with at least one wine. I split my 6 between the Select and Favorites menu so I paid $9. 

Oktoberfest -- A semi-sweet white that was a perfect fall wine. The bottle was gorgeous too. I picked up a bottle of this for our wine tasting next month.

Cherry Moscato -- Moscatos are very hit or miss in my book. This one was definitely a hit. It was a sweet but not too sweet cherry wine. This one also came home with me.

Apple Icing -- An apple ice wine. It was definitely on the sweet side. almost sickly sweet like ice wine can get. I was not a huge fan.

Riesling -- I sampled this one at the library and wanted to try it again. It was still good. With hints of apple. 

Naughty Girl -- This one I picked based on the name. I should have known better. It smelled like feet. It wasn't too bad but it was drier than I liked.

Moscato -- Like the cherry Moscato this one was also very tasty. Von Stiehl can definitely do Moscato well. Again it was sweet but not overly sweet with the right hints of citrus and apricots. 

The girls tended to go with more drier reds which I am not a fan of so we did not do a lot of swapping of samples. They each bought a couple of bottles to bring back.

I would love to have tried the cider bar but I knew after 6 samples and no food that would not have been a wise move. The cider bar will just have to go on the bucket list for another day.

It was definitely a good stop first thing in the morning. We still had lunch and another winery to go for the day. Good thing Von Stiehl wines are available in some stores around here otherwise Algoma is just about an hour away so it wouldn't be too difficult to make another wine run if need be. It is definitely worth making the detour to on the way to (or home from) Door County.

Wine Tasting at the Library

While playing Book Bingo the other month, I noticed Menasha Library was having an introduction to wine regions and wine tasting. I was like sign me up. Janis and Danielle even agreed to go.

The program, Wine Regions of the World, was presented by Anthony Bilwin from Von Stiehl Winery. He is the general manager of the winery. He put together a wonderful presentation of the wine regions complete with a hand out. We also were able to sample 4 different wines.

There are two wine styles -- New World and Old World. They dictate how the wine is produced. Old World wine is literally just grapes and is pretty much the original wine producers of the world -- France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal. New World Wine is from everywhere else and can include fruit -- essentially they are fruit forward wines. I am definitely a New World Wine drinker.

Anthony went over the different regions within each country. It was quite interesting and he could talk for hours. I did learn a wealth of information that I will not bore you with.

Anthony decided to have a taste a white and a red from the Old World and New World regions. We tasted a Riesling and a Cabernet Sauvignon. 

The first Riesling was from Loosen Bros and was Old World wine from Germany. It wasn't bad for a Riesling. Then we sampled Von Stiehl's Riesling and it was amazing. Since they get their white wine grapes from Washington, it had an apple flavor to it. I may have to pick up a bottle in August. 

The Cabs.. not a fan. The first Cabernet we tried was the Von Stiel Cabernet and Janis wish she had a picture of my face. It was very dry. I did not even finish it. Janis drank the rest of mine. The Old World Cab was from Ste Chateau Michelle and was at least drinkable. It was a still dry but at least tolerable.

It was an educationally fun evening at the library.  I like when they have programs like these where I can learn something and get some wine. Hopefully they do it again. There is plenty of wine categories to explore.