Fall is just around the corner and with it comes a variety of pumpkin themed items.
For 20 years, Three Lakes Winery has been making a wine made from pumpkin pie pumpkins and a few months ago, the rest of the country noticed.
Three Lakes Winery co-owner Mark McCain says the story of their pumpkin wine went viral over the summer.
"Well, something happened on the internet, and we're still not exactly sure how it got started," says McCain. "It went viral – as they say. Somebody wrote a very nice article about the winery and the wine. It got picked up – as things often do on the internet – by others and we ended up selling thousands of bottles over the summer to people all over the country."
McCain says the wine is currently sold out, but they expect a new batch to be ready in a few weeks and they are taking pre-orders now.
Pumpkin wine was originally made for Pumpkin Fest – which takes place on the second Saturday of October in Three Lakes every year – but the wine became so popular, they made it available year round.
Before pumpkin lovers get too excited, though, McCain says this wine isn’t the same as other pumpkin themed beverages you may find around that time of year. It tastes more like a glass of Chardonnay than a Pumpkin Spice Latte.
"One thing that a lot of them will do is spice the pumpkins, we don't do that with our wine," says McCain. "We tend to be kind of purists when it comes to making our fruit wines and we use just the pure fruit so we don't add any color, any flavor, any spices to the pumpkin."
McCain says they’re considering making a spiced pumpkin wine in the future. More information on their pumpkin wine can be found online here: https://www.tlwinery.com/products/pumpkin-wine?variant=14174886662
Three Lakes Winery is a family owned company that has been in Three Lakes since 1972. It’s the oldest continuously owned and operated winery in Wisconsin.
They specialize in fruit wines. Cranberry wine is their most popular, but they also make wines like elderberry wine and rhubarb wine.
Their tasting room is located in downtown Three Lakes and they are open seven days a week, year-round.
