If you want to get on Santa's good side with Christmas fast approaching, the folks in Santa Claus, Ind., have a deal for you.
 

Santa needs elves — badly — this year.

Their award-winning wines are produced on site. Visitors can observe the production facility via observation windows located in the tasting room.

Owner and vintner, John Doty, takes great pride in the wines made with the expert assistance of Kim Doty, owner and cellarmaster. French Lick wines have received over 250 medals in state, national and international competitions.

The Heaven's View Vineyard, planted in the spring of 1998, is located approximately 20 miles west of the winery on Kim's family's Hoosier Homestead Farm in Martin County overlooking the White River valley. The vineyard's 3 1/2 acres is comprised of the first planting of Norton grapes in Indiana, as well as Chambourcin, Traminette, Vidal, and Vincent varietals.

Customers can sample wines in the wine tasting room, enjoy a glass of wine on the patio or take a cold bottle with them for a picnic or party. Wines may be purchased by the glass, bottle or case. Wine purchases of six or more bottles receive a quantity discount. The French Lick Winery sales staff will be happy to assist with your purchases. Call toll free 1-888-494-6380.

By Las Vegas standards, Indiana’s French Lick Resort casino is small at 51,000 square feet. Gamblers who care about nothing but whether the dice are hot just stick to the huge gaming rooms of The Strip.

But most of us who visit Vegas spend as much time gawking as gaming, taking in the architectural wonders of Chihuly glass sculptures across the ceiling of the Bellagio, the giant Egyptian statues and pyramid design of the Luxor, the faux Colosseum at Caesars Palace.

The gawking is grand at French Lick for those who like elegant, historic surroundings that are perhaps even more beautiful than when the French Lick Springs and West Baden Springs hotels were “new” at the turn of the 20th century. The resort has undergone a $500 million renovation that restored the hotels to their splendor and added modern amenities, including the casino – but the gambling is not the main draw for guests.

Now in its fifth year, the trail is made up of eight unique wineries and named for the remnants of an unglaciated plateau in south-central Indiana.

For wine aficionados, this translates into grape-loving limestone soil, winding roads that uncurl like a ribbon through burgs and farmlands and a rolling landscape bursting with as much color as the wines have flavor.

Begin at Huber Winery in Starlight, 30 minutes northwest of Louisville, timing your arrival for a tasty pizza lunch at the Starlight Cafe. Afterward, tour the grounds of this 550-acre farm complex: Loft Tasting Bar, the Cheese Factory and Ice Cream Shoppe, bakery, a children's farm adventure park with its jumping pillow, mountain slides and rope maze, and orchard for you-pick apples and pumpkins, fall gourds and squash.

From the south, to continue your journey through Indiana's Uplands Wine Trial, next head to historic Corydon.

There you can visit Turtle Run, named for the abundance of turtles in the area, for a quaff of its Traminette -- the Tram, as it's known -- a robust white that's lavishly fruity and lightly spiced. In Bristow, in Perry County, visit Dan and Donna Adams' winery, Winzerwald ("vintner of the forest") for its limited edition Heirloom wine. (Family lore holds that its "mystery" grapes were brought to the U.S. from Germany by the vintner's ancestors.)

Wind down at French Lick Winery and its Heaven's View Vineyards and Vintage Cafe, near the magnificently restored French Lick Resort Casino and West Baden Springs Hotel. It's the halfway point of the trail. Linger over sips of John and Kim Doty's award-winning wines, which have taken more than 250 medals in state, national and international competitions. Add a side of red wine-soaked cake.

Overnight at either posh palace in French Lick or try an area cabin or bed and breakfast: the Blue Prairie Bed & Breakfast in its prairie woodland setting; the 150-year-old Little Log Cabin in the Woods (and on a hilltop); the century-old Beechwood Country Inn; or the Wilstem Guest Ranch. The former is elegance in a pillared manse with vintage wraps; the latter, with a much more laid-back attitude, offers rustic cabins, outdoor pool, horseback riding, horseshoes and more.

Like the wineries on the trail, the accommodations are surrounded by rolling countryside and the peace of Hoosier National Forest.

Charley Pride, whose country music success has netted him more than 30 No. 1 hits and a place in the Grand Ole Opry, will perform Saturday night at the French Lick Resort & Casino.

Pride, who turned 70 this year, is best known for his 1971 smash hit "Kiss an Angel Good Morning." The song spent five weeks in the top spot on the Billboard country charts.

Pride has sold more than 70 million records.

The concert begins at 7 p.m. EDT, and tickets cost $35. For more information, visit www.frenchlick.com or call 936-9300.

Fall is all about hunting — for a favorite sweater or hooded sweatshirt ... for leaves bursting into a bonfire of red, orange and gold ... for scenic drives past orchards, vineyards and roadside cafes that rake in the dollars.

Mother Nature and gas prices will determine if we get a bumper crop of leaf peepers this year (that's you), but here are some of our favorite road trips, just in case: