When you think of fall in New Jersey, pumpkin picking, apple cider donuts and harvest festivals come to mind. And we’re here to tell you: So should wine! There’s a farm in North Jersey that’s bringing not only the fall classics but its own fruit wines and ciders that are made from crops on the farm.
Stony Hill Farms in Chester unveiled a new tasting room this summer, adding Rebel Sheep Wine Co. as a way to cut down on food waste there. It’s Morris County’s first farm winery. “We take our excess fruit and sometimes even vegetables (we are working on a rhubarb wine) and ferment them into alcoholic beverages that we then serve in our new tasting room in Chester,” says Dana Davis, one of the family members who currently runs the Farm Market location and manages the Maze and School Tour operations.
Fruit wine options include Bohemian Raspberry, Blue Collar Berry (100 percent blueberries), Peachy Green, Dirt Road (strawberries + apple cider), Bog Romance (apples and cranberries), and Apple Sauced (apple wine aged in a whiskey barrel). Hard cider flavors include Dead Flowers (lavender and apples), Sanguine (apples), Bloody Knuckles (honeycrisp apples with blood orange), and Wild Child (apples and ginger).
The tasting room is open from Thursdays to Sundays, where you can try wine, cider or sangria by the glass, or order a flight. You can pair it with snacks like a hummus board, curds & crackers, donuts or ice cream. Bottles can be ordered to take home, too.
Stony Hill Gardens opened in 1988 with an emphasis on cut orchid flowers. The Davis family later got involved and purchased 40 acres of the gardens, expanding to approximately 500 acres with 20 acres of orchards that have peach, pear, apricot, plum, pluot and apple trees.
From PYO strawberries in June to flowers in the summer to apples and pumpkins every fall, there are lots of fresh crops grown on the grounds. Its weekend Sunflower Festivals in the summer highlight 2.5 acres of 50,000 beautiful sunflowers, plus live music, wagon rides, trike rides, a tile maze, barnyard games and a Noah’s Ark Playground. And their 10-acre Maze Quest Corn Maze keeps kids entertained. The farm market sells some of the best apple cider donuts in the state.
You can also come to one of their specialty wine events, like Paint & Sip, Wine & Music Night, bingo or trivia.
Stony Hill Farms is located at 8 Route 24 (Route 513), with the Rebel Sheep Winery Co. tasting room at 15 North Rd., both in Chester. For more information, call 908-879-2908.
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