Weddings and Wine Are Served at Dancing Dragonfly Winery

Wineries are a great place for a romantic moment. Whether it is a wine tasting, a moonlight meal, or a wedding – wineries set the mood perfectly.

Let us tell you about Dancing Dragonfly Winery.  Located in St. Croix Falls in Wisconsin, Dancing Dragonfly sits on 60 acres that yield award-winning cold-climate-grown wines of many varietals.

How did the winery come about? Caroline Stephens, the Marketing Coordinator at Dancing Dragonfly Winery explained that it was “essentially the retirement plan of our owner, Bill Bluhm. He’s doing a really terrible job at retiring, as we know how that goes. He started out discussing with a friend how it would be fun to do an acre of grapes to kind of start his whole hobby process going on. And one thing led to another and we’re almost to 60 acres of vineyard here, so it has grown and grown. Dancing Dragonfly Winery opened just shortly after Bill retired from his profession as an actuary.”

As for the name, Stephens explained that “there was a time in Bill’s life where he needed to seek out clarity and he went on a trip to the Boundary Waters. There was a big storm that rolled in and Bill needed to find shelter and a place to camp, and he was lucky enough to find one open campsite. So when he woke up and the storm had cleared, there was a single dragonfly that approached his campsite and within a few minutes he said there were thousands of dragonflies surrounding his campsite. So, hence the reason why we have Dancing Dragonfly, because it was as if they were dancing along the waters.”

As whimsical as the winery’s name, Dancing Dragonfly offers a wide variety of wines to try – and take home. Stephens stated that the winery “released two new wines this May, our Super Danza and our Pineau des Dragonflies.”

“The Super Danza is based off of the traditional Tuscan wine out of Italy, traditionally a drier wine,” Stephens explained. “We use Merlot grapes in this one to create that extremely dry flavor and it is so great. It’s a favorite of most of our staff here. Our Pineau des Dragonflies is a white port wine, it is an aperitif, which is the first one that we’ve had on the menu. So that’s a wine traditionally meant to be drunk before your meal rather than after. This is based off of the traditional Pineau des Charentes and we are learning that it is a great mix in and a wonderful alternative to wine cocktails. It’s a much sweeter and stronger alcohol.”

With every winery, there is a process that Dancing Dragonfly follows to ensure that you take home an award-winning varietal. “We do everything here from grape growing to bottling and processing and warehousing our wines,” explained Stephens. “Essentially our vineyard crew is basically on constant rollout. They are continually checking the plants, ensuring they’re growing properly. Once the grapes start growing, they’re checking for bud break, they’re checking for signs of fruit. Once the proper amount of sugars, pH, and acidity are approached in the fruit, they are able to discuss when to harvest the grapes. There are different processes for each wine that we make.”

For example, as Stephens explained, “our wonderful wine maker, Mark Wedge, he does a great job ensuring that the proper process is taken and we follow a lot of rigorous standards, some of the traditional things that we do with the wine making process for our sparkling wine, Christine’s Twist, Mark follows the traditional Méthode Champenoise – the traditional way that they do it in Champagne, France; we follow those standards here as well.”

In all, there are 27 wines and three sparkling wines available from Dancing Dragonfly. Most of them are named after dances.

However, you want to know about Dancing Dragonfly as a romantic destination. Firstly, the winery serves as a wedding venue. “We have a 4,000 square foot facility that can seat up to 300,” said Jori Nye, the head of Events and Marketing at Dancing Dragonfly Winery. “It’s a really nice adaptable space for any size wedding. We have a couple of beautiful outdoor locations, vineyard adjacent if you will, that are just picturesque backdrops for weddings. So, we can do everything. We do a ton of rehearsal dinners, whether they’re getting married here or not. We do beautiful ceremonies. We do reception. We do have a separate catering kitchen, so we work with a lot of wonderful caterers and obviously the wine tasting part, no engaged couple is too mad about.”

If you just want a romantic dinner, or want to make a full day with wine tasting, you should try out their kitchen. Stephens explained that the winery has “a full-service kitchen along with our deli. We serve lots of local and high end or high-quality ingredients in our kitchen.”

“Our team of managers are skilled in pairing wines with the food that we have on the menu,” Stephens further explained. “Not only does every single item on our menu have a recommended wine pairing, but we do also offer paired tasting flights. You get a flight of five wines and we have paired each one of those wines with a little morsel of food that you get.”

“The kitchen does have a traditional wood fire pizza oven and the pizzas are delicious that come out of that oven,” continued Stephens. “We have panini sandwiches, flatbreads and dips, desserts, Charcuterie plates – all sorts of lovely things. So, not just the winery and event experience, but basically a full-service restaurant.”

One thing to know about Dancing Dragonfly is that it is a destination unto itself. You can spend the day at Dancing Dragonfly or rent an AirB&B nearby if you want to make it a romantic weekend – or to stage a wedding out at the winery.

Dancing Dragonfly Winery
2013 120^th Ave., St Croix Falls, WI
(715) 483-9463
www.dancingdragonflywinery.com

HOURS: Monday-Wednesday 11:00 AM-7:00 PM, Thursday 10:00 AM-8:00 PM Friday-Saturday 10:00 AM-9:00 PM, Sunday 12:00 PM-6:00 PM