At the Guggisberg Swiss Inn in Charm, near Millersburg, you can experience an old-fashioned Victorian sleigh ride. It’s nothing short of spectacular, but you have to get there soon or wait until the snow falls next year. You won’t get cold, and afterwards, you can drink hot chocolate, or wine.
Imagine navigating off Ohio 39 in Amish country onto dirt roads winding past saw mills and lumber yards, through rolling farmland and intersections that pop up out of nowhere, where people wave from snowmobiles and Amish buggies sit alongside neat farmhouses.
Everything is dusk-dark until a brightly-lit building emerges from the gloom, glowing in the snow-covered valley where tall pine trees stand sentinel high in the hills to guard the quiet land spread out before them. You have arrived at the Guggisberg Inn spread out in a snow-covered valley, tall pine trees dusted white high on the hills, the rolling farmland quiet under its winter blanket.
Inside, a tall fireplace and warm wooden banistered stairway brace the two-story room warmed by the fire. A group gathers in the sitting area, sipping wine, and a graceful woman breaks from the group to meet you. Julia Guggisberg asks if she can help us. We (my husband and I) just want to try some wine. We say this as we gaze around the room, somewhat mesmerized by its charm.
At the tasting table, Julia indicates the wines, mostly sweet, but there are some European-style drier wines in the mix. Not far into the tasting, she finds out I’m researching my book Ohio’s Canal Country Wineries, and begins to tell the stories from the labels of their bottles, which, when put together, tell the story of the Guggisberg Swiss Inn. One wine is named after their horse Misty and their Laughing Blush seems to cause everyone to laugh.
Eric and Julia Guggisberg opened their Swiss inn in 1993. The family has made cheese for over fifty years and is originally from Bern (which means “bear”), Switzerland. An Amish vintner makes their wine. The estate wines at Guggisberg range from a sweet raspberry to a drier Pinot Noir. The winery also offers Catawba, Blush, and Gewurztraminer, a traditional German wine, which fits right in with the Amish heritage in Holmes County.
The Guggisberg Doughty Glen Winery began as a farm. It has expanded to include a winery, the inn with views of the countryside from its windowed dining room. Guggisberg’s award-winning cheeses pair well with their wines, and the setting is breathtaking. In the winter, the inn and winery offers horse-drawn carriage rides; in the spring, the antics of newly-hatched ducks can be seen by the pond; and in the summer, horseback riding is a great pastime. Most of this remained unseen on a snowy winter night, until Julia asked us a question: “Would you like to go on a sleigh ride?”
We’d heard the sleigh bells and watched one couple come back, cherry-cheeked, from a ride. They were waiting for another.
“John has a break right now,” she explained. And there was John with his long gray beard and old-fashioned warm clothing, looking like a gnome, standing at our service in the doorway. “Go on, enjoy a sleigh ride. Go as you are.”
It didn’t take much prodding. John helped us up into the sleigh, covered us with a warm furry blanket, and we sat behind a young man (maybe John’s grandson?) who took the reins, John by his side. Then we felt the ground slide away under the blades just as the reins were lifted and snapped.
The quiet was breathtaking. The horses, although supposedly old, were huge. We heard their breath as we slid along down a hill and then up through a break in the trees and out into the open overlooking miles of beautiful land covered by snow and under a white sky lit by an almost-full moon. When we were at the top of the hill, we stopped, and we could hear the breeze in the trees, and nothing else. John whispered, “I wanted you to hear the silence.” We were in awe. It was a fantastic moment. And then we were off again, speeding downhill, bumping over limbs, around the pond and back to the inviting inn.
Julia was waiting for us. “How did you like your ride?” We told her we would definitely come back. We want to explore the cheese factory, the Amish goods in the shops, eat some homestyle Amish food, and escape the city. Earlier in the day we’d been at French Ridge Winery in Killbuck, and we really liked Scott and Kathy Buente, who have been harvesting huge crops of grapes at their secluded vineyards since 2001. North toward Wooster, Troutman Vineyards, sister winery to The Winery at Wolf Creek, is waiting for its wines to be explored. But the home base would be the Guggisberg Swiss Inn.
The Guggisberg Swiss Inn offers a hot breakfast, and sleigh rides are offered when snow covers the ground. The Inn is located between Millersburg and Berlin off State Route 557.
Claudia Taller is the author of Ohio’s Lake Erie Wineries. Her book Ohio’s Canal Country Wineries will hit the stores at the end of July 2015.
Millersburg, OH 44654
Millersburg, OH 44654