Carlos Creek Winery — Attraction in Alexandria

I attended the 2018 grape stomping festival. The value. The door charge was $10. The tasting flights were $9 for 8 very small sips of your choice of varietal/blend or flavor, for lack of a better word. You would need to purchase several of these if you were small, female, on intensifying medication and still wanted to feel the effects of the wine (consider this a thought experiment). Assuming your Wonder Woman lunchbox is in the dishwasher from too much action at last night"s pit fight, you'll find yourself buying lunch at $15. And this is because you are a light eater in this model with real numerical data.

Did you think you might go on Sunday thinking that you will save on discounted wine bottles? Those which I purchased were $15 at 2018's festival, an apparent deal according to the employees who reported that the wine is normally sold at $18 at the winery. I believe them. But I later discovered that liquor stores sell the same bottles for... $15. So if you like their wine, don't buy your bottles here under most circumstances. More over, if you think you might stock up on wine, you might make the mistake of planning to pay with a credit card because only sensible people don't take wads of cash into a large crowd. This winery will not are your card at a festival so plan to get taken with an outrageous $5 ATM charge.

So far, I'm up to $39 and I haven't even purchased my bottles of wine, which as it turns out, were no deal at all. So I can sum this part of my review here: visiting this winery for a festival is too expensive. And who wants a single wine glass that doesn't match any other wine glass in their collection? (In my own case, this includes the last glass I received at Carlos Creek, which was wholly different from the festival glass.) I'm just going to throw in here that 98% of the couple hundred wineries that I've visited had free tasting. Will Minnesotans not just buy the bottles?

The experience. The announcer in the grape stomping tent must find the volume adjustment on his microphone. He was hurting our ears in the last row. There were vendors everywhere. This is interesting but it has nothing to do with grapes. It's just another source of income for the winery during the festival. There was a silent auction for a local charity which was generous. Curiously, some of the staff pouring drinks (in the man cave, for instance) were unpaid and not trained. Against our wishes, they opened the bottles we bought and wanted to take home and then insisted we drink them there. (Too many bottles for this! We were only two people and it was just silly.) Things started getting dicey and for a moment, I wished I had that fore mentioned lunchbox. But... why isn't this winery paying their staff when they are clearly charging hundreds and hundreds of guests a good $50 each or more this weekend? (Of course I include the lunch even though it is provided by vendors because the winery is getting money from all the vendors.) We have already seen the owner mention in these reviews that the staff sometimes works two jobs and other guests have complained in the past that some employees are occasionally rude. Happy employees are not rude. There may be a connection to all of this that the owner may wish to explore. That said, I have visited this winery in the past and enjoyed the tasting. Alexandria doesn't have a lot to do and if you can get a tour there with your tasting, it's worth a visit. Avoid Saturday.

The wine. There were 14 to taste. Don't be too impressed with the awards. That goes for all wines. The only thing that matters is your own taste in wine and whether you like it. Most Americans will like their wine. I personally don't care for an uncomplicated wine but even here I found at least one that I love, the Wobagon White and another that I just wasn't going to leave without, the Minnescato. The labels on my bottles are delightfully campy, a funny added bonus since I'll take some to the family at Christmas. To find your own fav, visit the winery(off festival) with a pal to share a set of...

Carlos Creek Winery Weddings is not only the best of Minnesota – it is simply the best – period! I cannot express enough how exceptional the entire experience was – and everyone who came to the wedding said the same thing. If you are still reading this review – pause – and call/email them now to see if your wedding date is available – you will be so glad you did.

Now – about our experience. As a same sex couple getting married in Central Minnesota – we had some reservations as to what venues would actually welcome us. But the staff at Carlos Creek didn’t just welcome us with open arms, they gave us the best day of our lives.

First of all, the staff is SUPERB!! Paige Meier, who was our personal wedding manger, is one of the most experienced, detail oriented, and hands-on-managers you could hope to work with. She and her staff are simply the best people we could’ve asked for to help plan and then execute our wedding. From start to finish, Paige and her team was there to advise, guide and provide solutions for our many requests.

Since the team does over 60 weddings a year, they have it down. Nothing was missed and they gave us many great ideas for things we didn’t even think about. And … they are SO SO nice and always in communication with you! They wanted our day to be as amazing as we did and they exceeded our expectations.

Now the venue! It is beyond beautiful. We had guests coming from New York City and around the world and they all raved about how stunning the entire place was – the outdoor wedding location, the entire grounds, the sophisticated reception hall. Even if you choose to get married inside, the outstanding fireplace location is amazing. We went with all greenery and no flowers and the staff did an outstanding job. Even the food was great and of course the wine is chic and fun! They also work with so many vendors – they have tons of suggestions if you are ever in a pinch or have a unique request! We cannot recommend Carlos Creek Winery enough for your wedding – you (and your guests) will be so...

We arrived around 7:30 pm on a Monday night looking for a meal and a glass of wine. We learned that the kitchen and winery stopped serving at 8 pm. We had walked into the winery, which was busy serving people who were regulars who had their own wines chilling as well as wine bottles they were storing. We were confused and harried for time. Finally, I managed to order on glass of Merlot and another glass of Pinot. While I was paying for this part of dinner, my wife had to go off to another building called Stoke, to order pizzas for our dinner. By the time we each finished our transactions, we found small tables for two on a concrete patio outside and had a nice dinner.

The pizza had a nice blackened crust, with a light tomato sauce and some tangy goat cheese: it was very tasty. I was told that the winery imported the grapes for our wines from Lodi in California, and that the wines were pressed and barreled in Carlos Creek. That seemed to be some unconventional business thinkingm but I realized that we were in a multifaceted place. The owners bought a property of almost 200 acres, with buildings, paths and parking lots all over.

One should come, with family, with time to spend, unlike what we did. Carlos Creek is clearly built to hold destination weddings, as we saw a good size cupola downhill from where we were sitting. Someone told me that they could handle bridal events for just under 200 people.

The Stoke Hand Crafted Pizza building also had a Sizzle Food Truck just outside, but it was closed when we came. There is a place to enjoy local microbrews called 22 Northman Craft Brewing, but we had no time to explore. There was also what seemed to be a BBQ place called Jack's.

The winery grows some grapes like Marquette, a MN hardy graped developed by the U of M for red and rose wines. Vines and trellises were visible too.

There are music events during the week and a Grape Stomping Event also. I'm sure I missed a lot, but if you're in Alexandria, it's definitely worth...