• 3 Hour Cooking Class Experience Hosted at Local Winery
• A Tasting Flight Featuring Four Locally Made Wines
• Private Access to Winehaven Winery’s Event Space
• Engaging and Interactive Gnocchi Making Cooking Class
• Welcome Charcuterie Appetizer
• Make and Enjoy a 3-Course Dinner (Menu Below)
• All Ingredients Needed for your Cooking Class Experience
• Access to all Needed Equipment and Materials
• Take-home Recipe Cards
• Local GetKnit Gurus to Guide You

Get whisked away this spring on our next installment of our “Cooking at…” series – ‘Cooking at the Winery: A Rustic Italian Experience’ back at Winehaven Winery and Vineyard. During this outing, you’ll learn the art of creating handmade gnocchi, how to create a rich, creamy wine and mushroom sauce with a Italian sausage in an engaging cooking class designed for cooking enthusiasts of all skill levels. And better yet, it all takes place in the beautiful and unique setting of a local winery!

To begin this event, our GetKnit Gurus will be ready to welcome you at Winehaven Winery and Vineyard in Chisago City – Minnesota’s very own slice of wine country. After getting checked in, you’ll be invited to take a seat in Winehaven’s tasting room in our private event space for the evening and enjoy a wine tasting flight featuring four 3 ounce locally made wines (which is the equivalent of two glasses of wine). Perfectly paired with our wine tastings, we will be invited to enjoy a beautifully curated charcuterie appetizer to help kick off the culinary experience for our evening together.

Once we’ve all arrived, we will meet our partners from Way Cool Cooking School, who’ve been bringing people together in the kitchen through food experiences since 2004. The experience will begin with a chef-led demonstration of a seasonal salad tossed in a bright lemon parmesan dressing topped with toasted Italian breadcrumbs. The Way Cool chefs will share tips for balancing acidity, seasoning, and flavor — simple techniques that elevate everyday cooking.

The heart of the experience centers around crafting handmade gnocchi completely from scratch. Participants will mix, roll, cut, and shape their own pillowy gnocchi while learning the essential techniques that make this Italian classic light, tender, and full of flavor. Using organic dehydrated potatoes to achieve a lighter, more refined gnocchi allowing for greater hydration control, creating airy, cloud-like gnocchi. Our chefs guide guests step-by-step — from understanding proper dough consistency to shaping and cooking methods — ensuring everyone leaves confident in their new skills.

While the gnocchi are being cooked by the chef team, participants will collaborate to prepare a rich, creamy wine and mushroom sauce with Italian sausage right at the table. Together, we’ll cook our Italian sausage, then sauté mushrooms, build layers of flavor, deglaze with a featured Winehaven wine, and finish the sauce to a silky, restaurant-quality texture.

As our sauce simmers and its intoxicating aromas fill the air – we’ll be invited to begin eating the fruits of our labor and enjoy our first course, our Lemon Parmesan salad with toasted Italian breadcrumbs. After we’ve enjoyed our salad course, the culinary team will serve up bowls of our gnocchi, cooked to perfection by the ‘Way Cool’ team and we’ll be invited to serve up our handmade sauce and Italian sausage from our tabletop burners.

To conclude the evening on a sweet note, we’ll relax and savor individually prepared chocolate cakes crafted by the Way Cool chefs, topped with whipped chocolate buttercream and finished with vibrant raspberry coulis featuring Winehaven’s own Raspberry Wine. It’s a decadent finale that allows everyone to unwind, connect, and celebrate their time together. A full overview of our “Rustic Italian Experience” menu is as follows:

• Course 1: Chef Demonstrated Salad: Spring Salad with Lemon Parmesan Dressing topped with toasted Italian Breadcrumbs
• Course 2: Hands-On Fresh Homemade Gnocchi and Creamy Wine and Mushroom Sauce with Italian sausage : Handmade Gnocchi with Italian Sausage simmered in a rich and creamy wine and mushroom sauce featuring WineHaven’s wine, mushrooms, and cream. This comforting dish is perfectly balanced and offers a taste of rustic Italian cuisine.
• Course 3: Chef-Prepared Chocolate Cakes: Individual chocolate cakes with whipped chocolate buttercream and raspberry coulis made with Winehaven’s own Raspberry Wine. Baked in advance by our chefs and served to close the evening on a sweet, elegant note.

Surrounded by vineyard views and the charm of Winehaven, this experience is more than a cooking class — it’s a shared dinner party in wine country. This event blends connection, culinary creativity, and indulgence in a setting that feels both refined and inviting.

With bellies as full as our hearts, new skills learned and new friends made – we will head home with recipe cards featuring all of the items on our menu, so we can recreate this meal in the comfort of our own homes and revisit the “rustic Italian countryside” anytime we please.

Raise a glass, gather at the table, and savor an evening where food, wine, and community come together beautifully.