Carousel Winery

I’ve been here several times throughout the years, and each time it’s a gamble on whether or not I’m going to have a good time or leave feeling disappointed. I believe that I have finally figured out what makes it fun. when it’s empty. When there are other groups of people there — even just a few — the folks running the show seem to get flustered and overwhelmed. The previous reviewer hit the nail on the head with that one.
Carousel was one of the charter members of the Indiana Uplands Wine Trail, but after a series of unfortunate events, I’ve noticed they aren’t listed on the website anymore. Hopefully they’ll be back on the trail soon though.
The wines tend to be a bit on the sweet side, although from time to time you get a dry one thrown in. The ports are pretty good too, as long as you like extremely sweet ones. Shadow Dog port is especially good in the chocolate shot glasses.
The times I’ve stopped by with a group, I’ve felt like we were bothering them, especially if we don’t walk out with cases of wine, which here, we never do. The bad thing about being on a wine trail: if you want the prize at the end, you have to hit all of them.
My summary: if there are a lot of cars stopped, skip it. If it’s close to closing time, skip it (I’ve been lectured about their hours before). If it’s the middle of the day and you’re driving by and the parking lot’s empty. stop.

Be warned: Carousel is hard to find. Like, our GPS did not like where we were at all and the location was not well marked. It’s, for lack of a better term, kind of a trailer alongside the road, with a picnic table or two. When we finally got there, the owners seemed overwhelmed with a group that was there. Once things calmed down, however, we got great service. After asking what we liked, we were directed to a Primitivo — a heavy red that ended up being oh so delicious.
This wine trail is kind of out of the way — we weren’t able to complete it because, geographically, it was so far flung, even to tackle over the course of a year. But Carousel was a stand out in terms of quality, for sure.