Make the 1-mile drive between French Lick Springs Hotel and
West Baden Springs Hotel, and you’ll pass right by French Lick Winery, which
shares something in common with its hotel neighbors — a historic structure with
something pretty special inside.
Formerly a Kimball Piano factory that produced
world-renowned instruments, this place is now hitting the right notes with wine
drinkers. Within French Lick Winery you’ll find more locally produced wines,
tasty menu items and gift shop items than we can even begin to mention here.
Just stop in and have a taste for yourself, as well as take a peek through the
picture window to see the production area where all the vino magic happens.
Here’s 7 good things to know about everything that French
Lick Winery offers:
Wine Tastings
They’re offered through the winery’s regular hours, 11
a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Take
a tasting sheet, and one of their wine servers will guide you their list of
more than 30 wines, starting with dry and finishing with sweet. Each tasting
includes your choice of eight wines for $6 — and you can actually try 10 wines
in a tasting since their two monthly features are free. (If you make it in by
the end of May, blueberry and Heaven’s View Vidal are the two featured
freebies.)
Eat & Sip
The Vintage Café is housed within the winery and boasts a
full menu of options. Go for the cheese, salami, crackers and grapes appetizer
and eat outdoors with a bottle of wine. Or stay inside and try the spinach and
artichoke ravioli with Alfredo paired with the Pinot Gris. Beyond the pasta,
their range of Italian cuisine also includes 10 different types of pizza with
their signature sourdough crust. Their marinara sauce comes from an old family
recipe, and the Alfredo sauce is made one pan at a time.
To blend the best of both worlds, order food first and then
go up to the tasting bar to do a wine tasting while you wait for your food.
Taste the State Grape
Bet you probably didn’t know Indiana has a state grape. It’s
true, and it’s called the Traminette. It’s a hybrid white grape that’s able to
thrive in harsher climates. Though all you really need to know is that French
Lick’s Traminette wine was awarded as Indiana’s best Traminette a few years
ago, and its slightly sweet and mineraly character makes it a great pairing
with turkey and other white meat.
Locally Grown
Speaking of grapes, you’ll notice there are no vineyards to
be found on the property. Those are located about 20 miles to the west on the family
farm of Kim and John Doty, who own the winery along with their two sons. Their
8-acre Heaven’s View Vineyard is part of a Hoosier Homestead Farm — a designation
given to farms that have stayed in the same family for 100, 150 or 200 years.
The Dotys’ farm is around 130 years old and is unique as it’s been passed down
from mothers to daughters for four generations. Eleven different grape
varietals come from this farm.
Any of the French Lick wines you see that say “Heaven’s View”
on the label — including the Steuben, Catawba and Chambourcin — mean that it’s
100 percent farm to glass, grown pressed and bottled right here in southern
Indiana.
What Else To Try
Besides the Traminette, the Norton is another signature
taste of our region. Heaven’s View Vineyard was the first planting of the
Norton grape in Indiana, and it reveals a finish of black currants, sweet
berries and toasty oak.
The cherry wine has garnered the most awards among any
French Lick variety, and it’s sweet, tart and smooth without being overbearing.
Crafted from Montmorency cherries (the bright red, mouth-puckering type), this
wine is often called “cherry pie in a glass” and goes well with dessert — or it
can suffice as dessert on its own.
Try the Chambourcin, a dry red hybrid, slightly chilled if
you’re looking for a wine that goes with anything. Its cousin, the Chambourcin
Rosé, is French Lick’s newest wine that was unveiled last summer.
And of course, their two best-sellers — the regular French
Lick Red and French Lick White table wines —are two of the wines that you can
have shipped
right to your front door.
Part of the Trail
Indiana may not strike you as wine country, but this part of
the state is within the Indiana Uplands which is a federally recognized
grape-growing region known as an American Viticultural Area. That’s a fancy way
of saying this region has the proper blend of geography, soil and climate that
gives its wine defining character. French Lick is in the middle of it all, as
the Indiana Uplands Wine Trail
includes eight other wineries to the north and south of us. It’s easy to make
the winery rounds and check out another winery (or two … or three…) in the same
day.
More Than Just Wine
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| The Pecan Old Fashioned is one of about 20 different craft cocktails offered on their rotating menu. |
If the spirits move you, try one of the selections from
their rotating menu of craft cocktails. Everything’s made with fresh
ingredients as the cocktail lineup is updated every few weeks to feature
seasonal specialties — for example, right now the Pineapple Fizz and Ginny
Black (made with fresh blackberries) are in season, while you can sip on a Hot
Buttered Rum closer to the holidays.
They’re also getting set to add a new cocktail seating area
for folks to swing in for a quick afternoon appetizer and cocktail or glass of
wine.
Find out more at frenchlickwinery.com,
and if you’re not a wine person, you’ve got options. Spirits of French Lick
Distillery is housed within the same facility, too, and they’ll take their turn
being spotlighted in one of our blogs next week.