This Baraboo couple got an early start on their retirement dream of owning a winery

Matt and Kristin Boegner spent years traveling across the country for their work. Seven years ago, they landed in the Wisconsin Dells area and fell in love with it.

When moving again for work became a real possibility, their first thought was, no.

Instead, they got an early start on their retirement dream of owning a winery. In 2019, the couple launched Balanced Rock Winery, planting their own vineyard of cold-hardy grapes. Leaning into their backgrounds in food and beverage, today the boutique winery and tasting room with its 6,000-square-foot space is open year-round. They feature a small menu that has increased based on customer requests. There’s a golf driving range on site next to the vineyard (tokens at the bar), and the dog-friendly patio features a firepit and a regular schedule of entertainment. Their summer concert series runs weekends through September.

This year they’ll harvest their first big crop of red grapes from their site, and they’re planting more vines on additional acreage across town. Currently the winery produces wines made with Brianna, St. Pepin and Frontenac Gris grapes grown in Wisconsin. Grapes are also sourced from Michigan and the Finger Lakes region of New York for fan favorites like their Seyval and Sunspot. Syrah, merlot and cabernet sauvignon grapes are sourced from Washington.

Sweet wines and fruit wines remain popular with customers. Rhuberry, a blend of rhubarb and raspberry, has been the “weird” seller this summer. Boegner also takes feedback into account, and worked to create a drier rosé this year.

The winery’s Rock Wine Club has grown to include three releases of four wines per year. Bottles range from $16 to $23. Flight options at the winery include four 3-ounce pours for $15. Currently, wines are available at the winery, online for shipping to select areas, and distributed in the Madison area. Plans are in the works to move into Milwaukee within the year.

Matt Boegner recently talked about their business and how they got started.

What brought them to Baraboo and Balanced Rock

My wife is from Michigan. I'm from Maryland. We met at Michigan State. I used to work for Hyatt Hotels in food and beverage management for about 12 years. I was traveling all over the world, working as a beverage director, banquets and events. We went from Maryland to California to Ohio to Chicago to Maryland again. Then we moved to Wisconsin Dells where I was the food and beverage director for Great Wolf (Lodge). We fell in love with the area, and we decided to stay here. If we want to stay in the industry you have to keep moving. We have kids, they're 9 and 7.

Why they chose wine

Kristin’s family is actually from the west coast of Michigan where the winery scene has exploded. Traverse City has a huge wine movement. We thought this would maybe be a retirement thing for us. Then when I was working for Great Wolf Lodge I wanted to be more family focused. The Dells location is the oldest one; it is a small company. After about three years they were purchased by an equity firm, and their goal was, we are going to put one in every market. … My background with Hyatt and having moved so much I was an attractive candidate to go open the hotels. I don't want to keep moving. OK, then we need to do something else.

We started thinking. What do we enjoy doing? My background in food, bars and restaurants and event management, I knew the pitfalls. It is a lot of late nights, a hard industry. Our goal was to shift into a winery at some point. Why not now?

Why they believe in Wisconsin wine

We are in a great area. The industry in the Midwest, right now it is still like the Wild West. It is not as stuffy as California, where they're very set on the varietals, and this is how we grow, and this is how we handle it. …

Here in the Midwest, there are new hybrids probably coming out every year, and they’re planting them here. That's the fun of it! I go to wineries all the time, try something, and I say, "oh, this is good," but I have never heard of it.

Wisconsin Dells has more than waterparks

For many, Door County is the wine place to go, even though now we have more wineries I think in the Dells area. We’re working on spreading the word.

I think there is a shift with younger people getting into it, too. I think there is some young blood that has gotten into the industry in the last five years. That bodes well, that this is not a retirement gig or just a hobby. This is the intent of life’s work and the industry moving forward.

A failed industrial park becomes a vineyard and winery

It was really a partnership with the city of Baraboo for the spot we're in. We’re actually in the city, while most wineries are in a township way outside of town. This was platted out to be an industrial park and never took off. It is interesting in the sense they had this blocked for industrial. They had two buildings and then everyone moved to the “new” Highway 12. The original developer turned the land back over to the city. It sat here for 20 years. They didn’t know what to do with it. It wasn't conducive to a lot of projects. We were looking at a different parcel, they said we have this land, nobody’s been able to do anything with it, maybe you can. That's how we ended up in this spot, and we couldn't be happier.

Sips inspired by a state park

We actually came up with Balanced Rock Winery as an homage to Devil's Lake (state park), somewhere we spend a lot of time. ... We were out walking. If you've walked the Balanced Rock trail, when you look at it from the outside it is chaos, boulders everywhere. But then you get to the top and there is this pillar in perfect balance with the world around it. That is where we wanted to be. We send people there all the time. It is a gem of a state park, for sure.

Wine and food served year-round

The food has taken on a life of its own. I think a lot of that has to do with our location in general. We're on this strip that goes to Devil's Lake. ... People would look for places to eat, and we were the only one. We were just going to do a charcuterie board and snacks. People were like, “Is this all you have?” Being a food and beverage guy by trade my response was no, we can do more.

The way the industry is going, not just wineries, but breweries and distilleries, people want a one-stop shop. First you have to make great wine, then the ancillary stuff underneath: a great venue, entertainment, food.

Growing their own grapes in a cold climate

This year will be the first year we'll get somewhat of a harvest. We won’t get a full harvest for another year or so. We have 500 Petite Pearl in the ground, another 500 of Frontenac — those won't be online for a year or so. We should get a ton of the Petite Pearl, but that depends on the remaining growing season. We were lucky we missed the frost issues, it went up to 80 degrees and it snowed three days later. Petite Pearl bud breaks later, so we were lucky. We (also) have 16 acres on the other side of Baraboo.

Where they source grapes they don’t grow

We are pretty lucky, we have a couple growers in the Finger Lakes region. ... The ones that got hit the worst (by weather this year) are the varietals we’re not using. We do use Frontenac, it is in one of our bestselling wines, our Sunspot, our sweet red. We do have a grower in Port Washington, Havlik vineyards, and we'll be buying more from him than we ever have. We also work with Danzinger Vineyards in Alma. We were also planning to bring Marquette (grapes) from another area, but I think that one did get hit.

We are on the opposite trend of most wineries who do the vineyard first. We did the winery first, bought the grapes from other wineries, and our stuff comes in later. In a way that helps us, because we have those supply lines set up.

Wisconsin wines available at State Fair

Our Seyval (dry white) was the bestseller last year at Wisconsin State Fair. It got selected again to be featured. If you go and go to the wine garden, I think there are 20 wines (from the state). Just come taste all of our awesome stuff. Most of these grapes will be new for most people.

The difficulties of drinks and distribution

You need a lot of wineries in a small area to drive tourism forward. It is starting to grow in this area. I think there are two new wineries opening in this area, and we’re hoping the Dells can market that wine trail and get more traffic through here.

We're also trying to get (Balanced Rock wines) into the Milwaukee area a little bit more. Someone made a comment, you’re trying to cut into (Wollersheim Winery owner) Philippe’s business? No. I’m not trying to cut into Philippe (Coquard), he is my neighbor and has been nothing but helpful. I’m trying to cut into big operations like Mondavi. We're competing as Wisconsin wineries against everyone else.

Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email clewis@journalsentinel.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Balanced Rock Winery was an early retirement dream for Baraboo couple