Here's your chance to taste some of the best wines from Leelanau County. What a great reason for a road trip up north! The Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association's first ever Premium Pour wine trail event takes place June 7, 2008. This inaugural year features a pour of rare, library and estate wines from each of nine Leelanau wineries. Tickets are available online at $25 each. Learn more about the featured wines at Absolute Michigan.
Check out this video on the 2008 Northern Michigan Wine Summit, held April 28 at the Park Place Hotel in Traverse City, Michigan.
In another summit follow-up, Cari Noga writes on her blog Michigan Grapevine today about No.Mi.Wi., which organized the summit for sponsors the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association and the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula. No.Mi.Wi. is now looking to become a permanent organization to market both the Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas' wines with a unified voice, and better yet, the region as a destination.
Congratulations to winemaker Shawn Walters and Forty-Five North, Michigan's newest winery, for snagging three "Double Gold - Best of Class" medals and a "Best of Show" distinction at last week's 2008 Pacific Rim International Wine Competition in California.
Check out Cari Noga's coverage of this week's Michigan Wine Summit in Wines & Vines, where she notes that "Michigan wineries could be ideally positioned to capitalize on the locavore trend--but they might have to be a little sneaky about it at first. That paradox emerged at the second annual Northern Michigan Wine Summit."
Also see Bill O'Brien's article in the Record-Eagle, where he writes that "One national wine author said a key to growing the region's wine market is to highlight the spectacular views and venues for wineries on the Old Mission Peninsula and Leelanau County, surroundings that other wine-making regions find hard to match."
Buy a vowel and some vino! A six-night stay at Black Star Farms will be one of the prizes on Friday's episode of Wheel of Fortune.
"After being named one of bedandbreakfast.com's Top Ten Eco-Friendly Inns, we were invited to provide a prize for Wheel of Fortune's Green Week," states an entry posted today on Black Star Farm's web site. "We're told that the show will air on April 11th and that a contestant did win the prize. We're waiting to see who won, and ready to make their visit spectacular...just like we do for all our guests."
Congratulations to Cari Noga, whose Michigan GrapeVine blog will now appear monthly in Crain's Detroit Business. Based in Traverse City, Michigan, Noga has covered the state's grape and wine industry since 1999.
Sandra Silfven writes in the Detroit News about 2 Lads Winery, set to open May 3 on the Old Mission Peninsula. The winery is "edgy in everything from architecture to wines, where the emphasis will be on reds and bubblies," she writes. The "two lads" are Chris Baldyga and winemaker Cornel Olivier, who are joined by Baldyga's father-in-law, Dick Quartel, as partners in the venture.
And on the Leelanau Peninsula, Circa Estate Winery is slated to open this summer. Owners David and Margaret Bell moved to Leland Township from the Chicago area 16 years ago to pursue their dream of opening a winery. See Silfven's write-up in the Detroit News.
The Michigan wine industry is featured on this special live edition of WNMC's Radio Anyway. Host Rebecca Davis talks with Bryan Ulbrich, winemaker and owner of Left Foot Charley, and journalist Cari Noga, who writes about the wine industry. April is Michigan Wine Month, so celebrate the industry and explore what local wineries have to offer!
Longview Winery and Vineyard recently announced that their 2007 Rustic White is bottled and ready for you to drink. You can order online, but might want to act fast. The last vintage of this wine sold out in only 3 months. Visit their tasting room and find out why.
Be sure to check out Appellation America's feature and interview with Black Star Farms' operating partner Don Coe and winemaker Lee Lutes titled Black Star Farms: Wine Agritourism Grows Up by Eleanor & Ray Heald.
Looking for a way to spend a saturday afternoon? Check out the Black Star Experience. You'll board a bus at the Village of Grand Traverse Commons to take a four-hour tour of northern Michigan wine country, with wine and food samples along the way. The first two dates are February 2 and March 1. Cost per individual is $75 and per couple $125 and includes all day transportation, wine and food samples, and a souvenir glass.
Check out this video, narrated by Black Star Farms winemaker Lee Lutes about the 2007 ice wine harvest. After two hours of pressing, the grapes must be removed by hammer, pickax and chisel. Talk about a labor of love!
Winemaking is known to be an expensive game of chance. No matter how much control we can develop in the winery, we are still at the mercy of weather. Among the things that we cannot control are how fast the fruit will ripen, how much precipitation, and how cold or hot the air temperature outside will be. This final variable of temperature is the name of the ice wine game.
It is truly a gamble, because you leave your beautiful crop out to the elements in the vain hope that it might get better. So there it sits for months, it was ripe and could have been picked to make a fine wine on its own, but now we have decided to see how much abuse it can survive and avoid, should the weather comply.
Black Star Farms and Chateau Chantal each saved a few acres of grapes this harvest, hoping conditions would be right for ice wine, a sweet wine made from grapes that have frozen while still on the vine. The gamble paid off last week for Black Star when they harvested about 8,000 pounds of grapes.
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Farmers' markets aren't just for the warm months any more. This winter, some Up North markets are taking it inside on Saturdays!
