Delivery
No
Payment
Credit Cards Accepted
Parking
Parking Lot
Good for Kids
No
Attire
Casual
Alcohol
Beer and Wine
Reservations
Yes
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05/03/2024 - Elana N.
Posh
07/28/2009 - Audrey Fessler and Jeff Vahlbusch
The first time we visited Vino in the Valley, on June 8, the weather was windy, overcast and cold. As we parked the car, our dashboard thermometer slid below 55 degrees.
Not the best conditions, we thought, for dining in an outdoor restaurant.
But we were wrong.
About a minute after we were seated, our table was surrounded by enthusiastic bustle: one server poured water; another offered olive oil and steaming ciabatta bread from the New French Bakery in Minneapolis; a third presented menus.
Then Vino owner Larry Brenner appeared out of nowhere, wheeling up a towering patio heater that radiated blessed warmth. And restaurant manager Julie Karlstad, Larry's sister, brought big, soft fleece blankets and helped wrap us up in them.
When they left to fetch our drink order, we agreed: we'd never felt so coddled or so cozy in a restaurant, anywhere.
The wine we drank that night was Vino in the Valley's house wine, not fermented from grapes grown here, not yet - Brenner's vines won't be ready for that until fall 2010 - but made of some of the same cold-hardy grapes now planted in the Vino vineyard and currently supplied by other nearby grape-growers.
Northern Vineyards Winery in Stillwater is the vintner.
Vino's Rush River Red is a light-bodied red wine of 100 percent Sabrevois grapes, with mild peppery tannins and restrained fruit.
Midnight Whisper, Vino's white wine, is made of La Crescent grapes. It's medium-bodied and clean, with persistant vibrant tartness and notes of ripe pineapple and cantaloupe in both taste and aroma.
Lost Creek Sunset, Vino's "blush," is a blend of La Crescent, Frontenac and Edelweiss grapes. It's a refreshing, perfectly balanced summer wine with a lilt of sweetness that is a pleasure to drink on its own.
Vino in the Valley's focused menu offers mostly familiar American-Italian dishes: salads, pizzas and pasta entrees.
The best true appetizer - by which we mean a dish to spark your appetite, not kill it - is the antipasto salad: fresh baby spinach tossed with olives, pepperoncini, salami cubes, mild pizza pepperoni, roasted red peppers, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, provolone and Italian dressing, $13. Share with two to three people.
The popular Italian nachos should be shared by three to four people: thickish tri-color tortilla chips are heaped over a pool of Alfredo sauce; bestrewn with chopped olives, green peppers, tomatoes, marinated banana peppers and superb Italian sausage from Sailer's Meats in Elmwood; then mounded with mozzarella and baked in the gas-fired pizza oven until the cheese is toasty-brown, $9.
It's like lasagna you get to eat with your hands.
Avoid the cheese and meat sampler, which any supermarket deli counter could prepare. It's just decent Wisconsin summer sausage with six sorts of undistinguished mild cheese, $11.
Pizzas here are made from frozen dough, alas, but are topped with fresh ingredients and baked until the crust, rolled out fairly thick and dusted with much yellow cornmeal, acquires monumental crunch. We especially enjoyed the Whey Good, which has mushrooms, onions, spinach and chicken breast chunks over a sauce of cream, garlic and excellent Eau Galle Parmesan cheese; 14-inch for $25.
Main courses at Vino are well-prepared hearty pasta dishes. There's Garlic Shrimp Linguine, $21 - vegetables and plump shrimp sauteed in garlic, butter and white wine - and Chicken Mushroom Marsala, $19: pan-browned chicken breast and fettucine in a mushroomy cream sauce with a splash of sweet Marsala.
Chicken Fettucine with fresh asparagus has a wonderfully light Parmesan-cream sauce, $19.
Tastiest of all are the spaghetti and meatballs, $18, with fennel-powered house-made meatballs in a brash basil-and-tomato sauce; and the Rustica Penne, $18, a jumble of bacon and ground beef, celery, onions, fresh tomatoes, herbs and cayenne.
The good desserts, included with each entree, are made by Ana's Russian Bakery in Durand: Chocolate Mousse Tart, with Grand Marnier, or Tiramisu Black Bottom Tart, with brandy and espresso.
During two subsequent visits on gorgeous, warm summer evenings, we noted other things that make Vino in the Valley special.
Getting there from anyplace means a mini-vacation: a trip over beckoning, roller-coastery back roads down into the beautiful Rush River valley.
Vino's dining pavilion is elegant: a sit-down restaurant with cathedral ceilings of honey-colored pine and three open walls that frame lovely views of the vineyard and the steep surrounding wooded hills beyond.
The mood here is festive and celebratory, always. Everywhere you look, you'll see groups large and small enjoying themselves - at the bar, at a table, around several campfire circles, tossing bean bags, listening to the fine live music, playing lasso golf, or just strolling.
After eating, make sure you walk along the vineyard to the unspoiled Rush River, which marks one edge of Brenner's magnificent property.
As we approached the riverbank near dusk that first night, hand in hand, a huge great blue heron levitated suddenly not 10 feet in front of us, wheeled with slow grace over our astonished, happy heads, then glided off downriver.
Main Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.
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