New Glarus Primrose Winery

If you’re cruising through downtown New Glarus, Primrose winery is a great place to stop. It’s a tiny little mom & pop place, actually, it’s a father and son that run it. The son was there, on my visit, so he’s the one who served me and told me about their wines. Most of their wines are gonna be on the sweet side. For that reason, I didn’t find any that I really loved. A few even taste like grape jelly because they’re made from concord grapes. That’s not really my preference, in wine, but I did enjoy the winery. The son is a former military man, who did several tours in Iraq. Now he’s in the wine-​making business with his dad. For $ 5, you can sample all of their wines. Not a bad deal, but I wish there would’ve been a little more variety than the sweet wines they offer.

Nice place to buy an affordable gift or stop for a glass of wine. This winery (due to the midwest weather) grows concord grapes so their wines tend to run MUCH sweeter overall. The helpful shop owner informed me of this fact. I found two bottles with interesting descriptions and she gave me samples of both to see if I liked them– I tried to find the most mild of the sweet wines– and both were pretty good, but I’m off my sweet kick of wine, so I’ll definitely be drinking them slower. It’s good you can try before you buy! in retrospect… why didn’t I try more?! The prices were between $ 11 and $ 12 per bottle which I thought was more than reasonable so I got both bottles, one for me and one for a gift. Thankfully, this shop is open a little later too, than all the others (6pm, I think!), so stop in!

First off, I am no wine expert and have only recently started exploring the various wines of our world. I am a sweet-​wine fan, so Primrose Winery was right up my alley. When my mom and I first stepped in, the one worker there seemed a bit unwelcoming, but he seemed to warm up slightly when more people came in. For never having been to a winery, this was a good place to start. It is in a cute, little building in the center of town, so it’s not hard to find. And the wines are sweet. Get their Summer wine.

Hardcore wine enthusiasts probably won’t like the sweeter, more grape/​jam style of the wines here; if you’re typically a cabernet sauvignon or Pinot Noir drinker, these are unlikely to sit well on your palette.
That said, this is Wisconsin, and the grapes come from Wisconsin and/​or Michigan. Those varietals lend toward a sweeter, lower acidity product, so it all makes sense. Even more so, when you take into account that they don’t age the wines at all — you won’t find any oak barrels on site.
Store is rather spartan; a few high-​top tables near the windows, and a long wooden bar area to stand at while sampling. We were here on a quiet Wednesday afternoon and were the only ones in the shop the entire time.
+ Free samples of anything you’d like to try
+ They provide a tasting card to track your thoughts/​preferences
— The samples are minuscule; quite literally 4 – 5 drops
— No rinsing of glasses between samples
— Store owner’s son was helping us; he seemed very rushed and hurried. Talked a-​mile-​a-​minute and wasn’t very fluid/​smooth. He was a nice guy, but just seemed to be late for something or like he had to get us out of there quickly. Also tried to upsell quite a bit… We bought a few bottles and he was proudly pointing out that we could save $ 0.25/bottle if we upped the quantity…
I like supporting local businesses; the wines were ok. Not sure if I’d buy more in the future unless I was in the area.

If you have time after checking out the brewery, the local shops and restaurants in town… then check out the winery. It’s definitely not a must-​see, but it’s decent for offering free DROPS OF THEIR WINE. That’s right, the number of drops that dribble out of the bottle into your glass can hardly be described as a tasting.
In addition to being stingy with her pours, the server seemed kinda grumpy. Maybe she was just having a bad day. Based on the very limited taste of each wine, I can say they do have a couple good types of wine: Wedding, New Glarus Red and Primrose Red were all decent.
Come here if you’ve got some down time and are looking for something else to do in town.

Interesting and unconventional selection of wines. I was most impressed by the wide variety (maybe 10 of their own wines?). They offered a free tasting on Saturday, and a big group took up all the spots. The staff was nice enough to offer us our own little tasting when the big group had gone. They stayed open late for us to do the tasting. The staff member who provided the tasting was new and could not vouch for the wines nor did she have any expertise, but she was nice. We ended up buying two bottles.

Wisconsin is not really known for wine, but if you are planning a day in or near New Glarus, stop in and check it out. The server/​owner was very friendly and knowledgeable. She readily handed out samples of all of the wines we asked about. I highly recommend the cranberry holiday wine, it’s sweet and tastes like cranberry juice and would be an excellent compliment to a holiday dessert.

I may not know wine but I know what I like! Harharhar. Anyway, I’m not a big wine drinker since I get massive headaches from most wines. That being said, I liked most of what I sampled here. The lady who was working was the daughter of the owners. She was really friendly and excited to let us sample all of the wines that they had to offer. By far our favorite was the American Red (we went home with 3 bottles!). We also really like the holiday wine that was made with cranberries and the wedding wine (we brought those back too!). We were told that the wedding wine was made by the lady’s parents as a special gift to her for her wedding day. Awwwww how cute!!! Since everyone loved it so much they decided to continue making it and sell it year round. We were told that if you want it to be your wedding day wine they will make up a personalized label and ship it to you to serve on your special day. Awww super cute! If you find yourself in the area and you don’t feel like having another Spotted Cow, check out Primrose for their excellent wines!

Visited the winery in downtown New Glarus. Nothing special on the inside. Not exactly the romantic stop I had anticipated. It was more like visiting a craft fair booth. The server/​owner was nice enough, however when tasting wine, each sip was about an eyedropper full and hard to really feel the body and flavor of each wine. The wine was alright, but I have definitely tasted better for the price. If you do visit New Glarus and want to try it, I suggest the Holiday cranberry wine.

I ended up ordering 3 more bottles of holiday cranberry wine over the holidays and they were shipped quickly and in suberb packaging! I don’t care how much I had to pay for shipping (it was prob. around 25 bucks or so if I remember), it was SO worth it! I have one bottle left that I am saving for a special occasion — I wish we had wine this tasty in Chicago :(