My phone pinged, and I looked to see who messaged. Niki, my daughter, had texted, “I’ll be driving into Marshfield this afternoon with a trailer to get woodchips for my flowerbeds.” A second message from her followed. “I have an errand to do in Marshfield, so I will stop by at your place on my way there to drop something off for you.”

Tammie, my youngest daughter, was home visiting for the weekend. She saw her sister’s message and quickly texted back, “It you are getting woodchips from Resource Recovery, we should meet there to sample some wine. Have you ever gone into their gift store or event barn?”

Texting back immediately, Niki answered, “No, I’ve only ever stopped there to buy soil or woodchips. I’d love to join you to check out the place.”

Resource Recovery LLC is a family business started in 2002 by Bernie and Jen Wenzel, who are from the Stratford area. They sell a variety of woodchips made from recycled wood and topsoil. The business is located between Stratford and Marshfield along highway 97 in a farmyard once owned by the Hoefs family.

I like supporting local businesses, and this enterprise is more local to me than the average area business. I grew up less than three miles from this farmyard and now still live only four miles from it. Members of my family and the Wenzel’s have been friendly acquaintances In Stratford for more than one hundred years. In fact, family stories recount how our families emigrated from Germany around the same time to central Wisconsin.

When my grandmother Franziska came over from Germany in the 1890’s. Grandpa August had arrived in America one year earlier. I once asked Mom, “Wasn’t grandma scared, taking her toddler and infant all by herself to spend two weeks crossing the Atlantic Ocean on a ship?”

Mom told me, “Ma wasn’t alone, she came over with several neighbors who lived near her in Eisenstein. Most of these families settled on farms near our farm.” One of the family names Mom mentioned was Wenzel, Bernie’s family.

Bernie’s family business is growing. After tearing down the old farmhouse, he built a small building in its place to serve as a gift shop which they named, ‘This & That Wisconsin Store.’ It offers a variety of Wisconsin wines, cheeses, sausage, and pizza. In 2020, major remodeling work began on the barn across from the gift shop, whereby it slowly transformed into an event building called Stratford Heritage Barn. It is now a lovely, historical venue for weddings, reunions, craft shows, or music events. For more information, please follow this link… http://stratfordheritagebarn.com/about-us/

After finishing her errands, Niki met Tammie and me at Bernie and Jen Wenzel’s Stratford Heritage Barn. We discovered that the gift shop was now found in a room next to the event hall.  A long bar top stretches along one side of the event hall which was filled with rustic wooden tables. Between events visitors can buy flights of wine for taste testing, or whole bottles of their favorite wine and hot pizzas to enjoy at the tables inside the building or out on one of its covered porches.

Bernie was behind the bar that afternoon. Curious, I asked, “What plans do you have for the building the store originally occupied?”

His answer made so much sense, “It’s being turned into a kitchen. We have a caterer who will use it for making food for events held here and elsewhere.”

When told we wanted to taste wine, Bernie narrowed down our tastes by asking, “Are you interested in dry wines or sweet?” Giving each of us wine glasses perfectly designed to help us savor the samples, he began telling us about each wine he offered. All are from Wisconsin wineries.

Tasting wine always makes me feel sentimental. My brother Casper made wine in our farmhouse basement for over 40 years. He was a very good winemaker, and a visit to the Altmann farm always included a taste of his latest batch or a glass of my favorite. Bernie knew both my brothers, Billy and Casper. He confirmed, “Casper’s wine was very good.” Locating a bottle of dandelion wine, he offered, “This wine reminds me of your brother’s wines.”

I liked that wine, but commented, “My brother made wine out of any flower or fruit he could lay his hands on, but he seldom used dandelions. I heard he once climbed a basswood tree to make wine from its blossoms. But, overall, he preferred making fruit wines.”

Tammie added, “A person wouldn’t think caraway wine would taste good, but Casper’s kimmel wine was delicious!”

Chuckling, I reminisced, “Mom told Casper that Tony Stueber once made a good beet wine, so Casper decided to make some. He cleaned the beets well, but never pealed them. When the wine was ready, Mom sampled it and complained, ‘It tastes of dirt and angleworms!”

All the wines we were sampling were good, and I knew I’d be buying some to take home to enjoy. The final sample Bernie provided was a raspberry wine. Its scent and flavor were reminiscent of raspberries picked in the warm sunshine of summer. It went down easy.

 I commented, “Casper won top honors at wine contests, but the judges didn’t seem to think berry wines had as long of a shelf life compared to grape wines. That didn’t stop him making them. He liked going to local wooded areas to pick wild blue berries and raspberries. One time when he had a pail filled with blueberries and was headed back to where his truck was parked, he came face-to-face with a bear.” Laughing, I explained how my brother attempted to scare off the bear by barking like a dog. “The big goof! Luckily, the bear backed away and ambled off.”

I enjoyed reminiscing about Casper with someone who knew him. Our conversation meandered and touched on local history and notable people. It turns out that Bernie attended high school with my niece, and one year they were the homecoming king and queen.

We live in a small world. When Mom and Dad were married, their wedding dance was held in the Wenzel farm granary. Mom told me that a couple members of the Wenzel family had instruments, so they provided music. This small bit of family history tickles me, because that means in 1934, the Wenzel family was already providing event space for local weddings!