Winery Weekend
When it comes to alcohol, I prefer wine and mixed drinks. And yes, I am over 21 years of age, and as a disclaimer, please drink responsibly! In late 2018, I was itching to travel, but I did not have much vacation time built up at work, so my boyfriend at the time (now husband!) and I decided to take a weekend trip that wasn’t too far from where we lived. I looked around at our options, and we decided to make our own wine tour!
We were based in Indianapolis, Indiana at the time, so I found a bunch of wineries to the south of us. Also, I didn’t think I had ever been to the Indiana University campus in Bloomington before, so we decided to check it out! On a weekend in December, we ventured south on a Saturday afternoon stopping first at Mallow Run Winery in Bargersville, Indiana. I remember liking some of their picnic wines.
Afterwards, we drove to Cedar Creek in Martinsville, Indiana. It has a winery, brewery, and a distillery! I do not remember trying their beer, but I do remember trying their wine and hard liquor. I am almost positive that this was the only winery that we did not buy any bottles from the entire weekend. However, I really liked the atmosphere there, and the building had a nice façade with pretty landscaping.
We then drove to Bloomington, Indiana to eat dinner at Homie Hot Pot and Sushi. Unfortunately, they had a problem with their ventilation system, so we could not heat up our food in hot pots on our table ourselves. The waiter heated up our food for us in the kitchen and then brought it out. The food was incredibly delicious! We stuffed ourselves with seafood, vegetables, sushi, sausage, and quail eggs!
We stayed at a hotel in Bloomington, and the next day, we walked around the Indiana University campus. We saw the iconic Sample Gates which provide the entrance to the campus. There is a lot of limestone buildings on campus, which is fitting since the limestone came from Indiana quarries. It was quite a beautiful campus, but I have to say it is not as pretty as Purdue’s campus! If you are not aware, there is quite a large college rivalry in Indiana. There are two major state universities who are always competing against each other: Indiana University in Bloomington and Purdue University in West Lafayette. Even though I earned my Master’s degree from Indiana University South Bend, I root for Purdue University, since I proudly work there!
After walking around in the cold to see the IU campus making sure to not wear any Purdue gear, we made our way to Butler Winery and Vineyards. I remember the roads leading to this winery were incredibly curvy, and another car almost ran straight into us! It was also in the forest, so we would have either hit a car or hit a tree! Thankfully, we got to the winery in one piece!
Later, we drove to Oliver Winery where we had a tasting and took a tour of their facility. It was quite interesting to learn more about their history and how wine is made! It is also incredible that wine can be made in Indiana! I had always thought that in the United States, wine was only made in California. However, I have since learned that there are wineries and vineyards all over the country!
When we got back home from our winery weekend, we put all of the wine bottles we purchased on our dining room table to take a photo. If I remember correctly, we had purchased around 12 bottles! They certainly lasted us a long time!
