There are so many things to do and places to go in Door County that it is hard to pick what to do. There never seems to be enough time to do everything. There's boating, golfing, a nature center, several parks, biking, hiking, shopping, eating (one of my favorite things to do!), and a host of other things to do and see in Door County. Because I enjoy Door County so much I wanted to share some of my activities and experiences there. One of those was a visit to Lautenbach's Orchard Country Winery and Market.

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

In addition to a winery and fresh Door County cherries (when in season), the main market building on the grounds offers many different specialty food items as well as fresh baked pies. Also offered are scenic trolley tours of the area and tours of the winery. Other seasonal activities at the orchard include horse drawn sleigh rides, haunted hayrides, and a winter wine fest.

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

After mulling over the choices for a few minutes we started sipping wines. The winery specializes in fruit wines, particularly cherry, because of the great cherry growing climate in Door County. They also offer one homegrown grape wine made with red grapes grown on the winery grounds, a wine named Audrey Grace. It is a dry wine, a new offering from the winery. The grapevines were planted just a few years ago to see how they would perform in the cool, short growing season of Door County.

Although the winery specializes in fruit wines, they have other offerings made with various grapes, but those wines are not made on the premises because those fruits are not native to the area. Some of the other wines are made on the premises but with juice bought just for that purpose. For instance, our hostess at the wine bar told us the juice for their semi dry wine called Swedish Lingonberry is imported from Sweden.

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

We were told the top selling wine at the winery is the Blackberry Blend. The number two seller is the Red Raspberry Lyte. The winery's best-selling cherry wine is their Cherry Blossom wine.

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