A Forgotten Wine Cave?

Last spring, on a bright early spring day across the river from Prairie du Sac Wisconsin I stopped in for a visit to a place that really does not fit the Forgotten Brewery cave template well at all.  I mean, it is a cave.  But its history has been well preserved.  And it appears to have been used primarily for wine production.  Welcome to the Wollersheim Winery.

The cave is on the grounds of the winery and evidently it is a place you can just stroll into when Covid restrictions are not in force.  Or you can take a tour of the entire estate and visit the cave that way.  I suspect there'd be a glass or two of wine involved.  I think it is also available as a private rental in less constrained times.

I had to content myself with outside pictures on this occasion, but there are plenty of inside photos around.

There is an outer portion dug into the hillside in the classic tunnel and arched roof fashion.

This leads back to a smaller cave cut directly into the bedrock.  Assorted winery memorabilia is parked here as décor.

The history of the cave is said to be as follows. 

The vineyard was established in the 1840's - pretty darn early for anything in Wisconsin - by a Hungarian nobleman named Agoston Haraszthy.  Agoston was a restless soul and lit out for the California gold fields in '49.  The establishment was taken over by a German immigrant named Peter Kehl.  A couple of generations made wine and brandy on the site until the turn of the 20th century.  When Prohibition came along in 1919 the last of the stock was sold off and the barrels mostly burned for firewood.

In 1972 a couple named Wollersheim purchased the property from Kehl's great grandson and with considerable effort put it back into operation as a winery.  

The existing stone buildings were built in stages by the Kehl family from the late 1850s into the post Civil war era.  Dates for the cave are a bit harder to nail down.  Supposedly Haraszthy dug some of it before he went west.  More definitively the Kehl family lived in an expanded section they excavated circa 1850 while their house was being constructed.  The cave was reopened to considerable fanfare in 2013.

I know of no other historic wine caves in my part of the world.  Given the specific conditions needed to grow decent grapes, the long term investment needed to do so, and the preponderance of thirsty Germans in the market place it is not a venture that many would attempt.  If I get around to a visit that involves passing the locked gate it would be interesting to see how it differs from a classic brewery cave.  Wine benefits from constant temperatures and I think I am seeing a couple of vents that would help with that.  But it should not need ice, so drainage channels and elaborate ante chambers to keep things cold  are probably not necessary.