A Visitor's Guide to Cedar Creek Winery, Cedarburg

Cedar Creek Winery makes its wine inside a restored 1860s woolen mill in the heart of Cedarburg, aging some of it in the building's original limestone cellars. It's a working winery you can tour and taste at seven days a week, and it anchors the Cedar Creek Settlement — the cluster of shops and cafes in the same stone complex. This guide walks through the tastings and tours, the history that makes the building worth a look on its own, the wines people come back for, and how to fold a visit into a day in Cedarburg. For live hours and booking, the winery listing has the current details.

The story: from woolen mill to award-winning winery

The building came first. Constructed in 1864, the stone complex on Bridge Road ran as a woolen mill until 1969, when synthetic fabrics put it out of business. It sat empty until 1972, when a local home winemaker named Jim Pape bought it and turned it into a winery — first the Newberry, then the Stone Mill Winery, known in the '70s for cherry wines sold in distinctive clay bottles and aged in traditional oversized casks.

In 1990 the Wollersheim family — the winemakers behind Wollersheim Winery in Prairie du Sac — bought the operation and renamed it Cedar Creek Winery. They shifted the focus toward traditional grape wines and put the mill's cool limestone cellars back to work aging wine in oak barrels. Today the winery shares a winemaker with its sister operation: Philippe Coquard, a 13th-generation winemaker who came from France to Wisconsin and has built both wineries into regular winners at national and international competitions. That lineage is a big part of why a small-town Wisconsin winery keeps punching above its weight, and it's the thread that ties the tasting room to the cellars you can tour downstairs.

Tastings, flights, and tours

You've got three ways to taste, and none of them require much planning for a casual visit:

Wine flight

A flight runs $10, is available daily, and needs no reservation. This is the walk-in option — the easiest way to sample the range if you're already downtown, and the one most first-time visitors start with. You'll work through a lineup that spans dry to sweet across reds, whites, and the winery's signature blushes.

Reservable tasting

A seated, guided tasting runs $25 and is offered on Saturdays by reservation. It's worth booking if you want the more structured, sit-down experience with someone walking you through each pour, or if you're bringing a group and want a table held.

Guided tour

The $18 guided tour runs on select days and takes you down into the limestone cellars where the barrel-aging happens — the part of the building most visitors don't otherwise see. It lasts roughly 45 minutes; reserve ahead, since day-of spots depend on availability and the tours fill on busy weekends.

Hours and booking shift with the season, so check the winery listing for current times and to reserve a tour or tasting before you go. Curbside pickup is available too if you just want to grab bottles.

The wines to know

Cedar Creek pours a full range of dry-to-sweet reds, whites, and blush wines, but the ones people search out are the seasonal bottles. Strawberry Blush is the summer favorite and ties neatly to Cedarburg's Strawberry Festival; Cedarburg Spice and Christmas Blush carry the cooler months. These sweeter, fruit-forward blushes are the winery's calling cards and the bottles most visitors take home — and if you're visiting during a festival, the winery runs festival wine pickup so you can order ahead and skip the line. Alongside the crowd-pleasers, the traditional grape wines aging in the cellars reward anyone who wants to taste something drier and more serious.

Visiting: what to expect

The winery sits at N70 W6340 Bridge Road, inside the Settlement complex. Tastings happen on the main floor alongside the shop; the cellars come into play on the tour. It's an easy, low-key visit — free to walk in and browse the shop, with the paid flights and tours if you want to taste. It works for a quick stop or a longer sit, and larger parties should call ahead for the reservable tasting. Because it's inside the historic mill, the setting does a lot of the work: stone walls, the old mill bones, and the creek just outside.

Cedar Creek Settlement and beyond

The winery is one tenant in the larger Cedar Creek Settlement, so you're steps from a cluster of shops and places to eat when you're done tasting. It's the natural way to extend a visit into a full afternoon.

For food right there in the mill, Cream & Crepe Cafe is the easy answer — sweet and savory crepes a short walk from the tasting room.

Other Cedarburg wineries, breweries, and distilleries

If tasting is the point of your trip, Cedar Creek isn't the only stop. Chiselled Grape Winery gives you a second winery within the same walkable downtown, with tastings tailored to your preferences.

For a broader crawl, The Fermentorium and Rebellion Brewing cover the beer side, and Handen Distillery rounds it out with spirits. Our breweries, wineries and distilleries guide maps the full crawl, our where to eat and drink in Cedarburg guide covers the food, and if you're timing a visit around the Wine & Harvest Festival, the winery is central to it.