Arvin’s Acres Winery, Carroll County, IN

Arvin’s Acres Winery, Carroll County, IN

Visiting Carol County, Indiana for a family birthday celebration dinner, following the Spectacular Italian Dining in Rural Indiana featured in this blogpost, we visited Arvin’s Acres Winery enroute on our return home.

Todd and Anita Hoshaw founded Arvin’s Acres Winery and Meadery in 2018 when they purchased Anita’s Grandparents’, Bill and Alice Arvin's, 100-year-old farmhouse and property, to pursue their dream of building and operating a winery. Anita had the feeling, "You only live once and sometimes that can pass you by before you get to enjoy it." Three months later, they sold their house in Lebanon, IN and relocated to build and pursue their dreams in their childhood hometown of Delphi, IN.

Shortly after getting married in 2002 they discovered a common interest in wine and visiting the Indiana Wine Trails. They loved the camaraderie inherent in the wine business. They expanded their wine travels to other states, and over the course of the next 16 years, that feeling of fellowship and a love of wine left them dreaming of opening our own winery. 

Todd serves as Wine & Mead Maker and Beekeeper. Arvin's Acres produce a broad portfolio of quality wines, meads, ciders, and seltzers. Their non-grape fruit wine is produced from fruits grown by local farmers and their meads are produced from a combination of our honey and honey purchased locally.

They provide full winery experience in their hospitality center tasting room and a patio pavilion outdoors.

Arvin’s Acres produce a dozen wine labels from dry white and red wines, to semi sweet fruit wines and a sweet dessert wine. Their tasting room offers wine tasting flights of four different wines, wines by the glass, and of course wines are available for purchase by the bottle. They also ship wines. 

We sampled a flight of their dry wines, a couple of their sweet fruit wines, and their unique “Toasted”, a sweet Niagara grape varietal white wine infused with Thai Chili flakes for a bit of added kick. 

Todd suggested their ‘flagship’ might be the Limited Edition ‘Washington Reserve’, a blackberry fruit wine. 

Our view was the most complex and sophisticated wine was the “Trilogy Rouge”, a dry red blend of traditional Bordeaux varietals of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. 

They source their grapes from throughout the Midwest including Indiana, Michigan and also the Finger Lakes region of New York. Todd has three blocks of berry plantings on the property as well as his bee hives.

Weekends they offer live music entertainment on weekends and every second Saturday from June through October they host line dancing. On this day, performing was the talented and entertaining singer songwriter Adrienne Frailery from Milford, IN. She entertained the house playing guitar and the electric piano, singing a mix of soft rock, ballads, and country. 

I wrote about the Indiana Wine industry, the Indiana AVA’s and Wine Trails in more detail in this earlier blogpost - Carpenter Creek Cellars - Indiana Produced Wines.

A fun outing for an afternoon or evening, a taste of Indiana.

Spectacular Italian Dining in Rural Indiana

Spectacular Italian Dining in Rural Indiana

On Sunday, we traveled to Delphi, Indiana, 25 miles northeast of Lafayette, to wife Linda’s hometown, for a birthday celebration dinner for brother Stan, with sister Dr, Pat. 

We dined at Paretta’s Italian Ristorante on the courthouse square, city center Delphi, adjacent the Delphi Opera House, immediately opposition the Carrol County Courthouse - “La Tavola Where Everyone is Family”. 

In their words, “We carry on our heritage of immigrants who ventured to the United States in the late 19th century, seeking a fresh start and carrying with them the rich culinary traditions of Italy. At Paretta’s, we believe in doing things the hard way because it’s worth it. That means hand-rolling fresh pasta, creating mouthwatering dishes from scratch, and taking no shortcuts in our quest to serve you the finest Italian cuisine.”

What an incredible culinary discovery of this dine site -  quant, rustic, unpretentious, the food was outstanding, rivaling our favorite Italian dine sites at home, in Chicago, even New York City. 

The siblings, Linda, Stan and Pat

We could not have imagined such a delightful dinner, in a rustic Tuscan Mediterranean setting, with such extraordinary imaginative and thoughtfully prepared dishes. 

From the “Start the Table” appetizers we ordered the Bruschetta Board - Crostini Bread with Three Flavors - Margherita, Ricatta Honey and Pesto - three different preparations of bread and toppings - all were delicious,  and the Fried Ravioli with Marinera, Alfredo and Pesto Sausage - both were artfully presented and delicious, albeit the portions were small, suitable for two or three, but a stretch for four. 

For Main Course entrees we ordered the Baked Pasta - from the menu - choice of two types of pasta, penne or spaghetti, and choice of five preparations Marinara, Vodka, Alfreda, Bolognese or Pesto, and choice of addition of one of four meats, steak, meatballs, Shrimp or chicken. 

Linda ordered the Penne, Pesto and Steak, while Stan and I both ordered the Spaghetti, Bolognese and Meatballs. Both selections were extraordinary, artfully presented, delicious and ample proportions. 

Spaghetti, Bolognese and Meatballs 

Penne, Pesto and Steak 

Pat ordered the “Brunch Plates” the Calabrian Heat - Eggs, Calabirna Peppers, Pepperoni, Potatoes and Ricatta. 

For a finishing dessert course we had the home-made Tiramisu, which was delectatble. 

A surprising delightful and memorable outing, worthy of the journey. 

Our server Liz was great. 

Afterwards, on our way home, we drove seven miles north of town into the country to visit Arvin’s Acres Winery for a tasting flight of locally crafted wines. I wrote about that in a follow on blogpost - Arvin’s Acres Winery, Carroll County, Indiana.