For too many years, Chicagoans have taken short vacations to Michigan knowing that if they liked good wine, they had to bring it along. For unless you grew up loving the Welch’s flavor of the local squeeze, pickings were slim.
That has changed, as a small group of winemakers has begun to prove with a generation of hard work. These folks aren’t looking to challenge Californians economically, only to show them that there’s more to wine than alcohol and wood.
As of 1994, Michigan had 12,300 acres of vines, but 95 percent of its production turns into grape juice, not wine. So although the state is the fourth-largest producer of grapes in the country, it ranks 12th in wine production.
Even so, Michigan has a more diverse population of wine grapes than does California. Ninety-eight percent of California vineyards grow European species known collectively as vinifera: Cabernet is vinifera, so is merlot and chardonnay and every other familiar varietal. Michigan, like much of the Midwest, branches out into three types of grapes: vinifera, native American grapes and hybrids. Native grapes either existed wild here before Europeans arrived, or sprang from haphazard cross-fertilizations with European vines that were planted in the centuries after Columbus.
Concord, the most widely planted red grape in America, is the most famous. (In 1964 it accounted for nearly 95 percent of all of Michigan’s vineyards; today, it’s less than 80 percent.) Niagara, Catawba and Delaware are others. Most are picked and crushed for juice or eaten as fresh fruit; a small amount is still used for winemaking for that dwindling portion of the market that prefers the native taste.
Vinifera was scarce in Michigan until the last generation or so, and then only for such cold-hardy grapes as chardonnay, gewurztraminer and riesling. But vinifera, from an albeit small base, is the fastest-growing vine type. In the 1994 survey, the state had only 310 acres of vinifera; today the northwest region alone has that much vinifera, according to a survey done by Mark Johnson of Chateau Chantal in the Old Mission Peninsula. In the last few years, winegrowers there and in the south along Lake Michigan have had more or less success with other vinifera such as pinot gris, pinot noir, merlot, the cabernets and gamay.
Hybrid grapes are intentional crosses of vinifera with native American varieties. The goal was to combine the cold- and moisture-resistant characteristics of native grapes with what was considered the more desirable flavor of viniferas. The result are seyval blanc, vidal blanc, vignoles, baco noir, Foch, Chancellor and others that account for 4.5 percent of Michigan’s acreage. Most goes into table wine and, increasingly for the whites, sparkling wine.
This diversity is due to Michigan’s climate. California’s is Mediterranean, and growers can plant and ripen any kind of grape they like; Michigan, summer beach-lounging notwithstanding, is hunky-dory for most native and many hybrid varieties but hard on the vinifera grape. They easily rot and spoil in the moisture or die during the intensely cold winters. Only in the rarest sites protected from arctic winds can vinifera survive, if not flourish.
But it is precisely the winter winds common to the Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas in the north that allow the production of increasingly fine wines. Before the cold northwest winds hit the vineyards, they cross Lake Michigan and the bays, which retain some of their summer warmth. That brings snow: 200 inches per year on average. This snow cover protects the vines: The difference in the air temperature above the snow and the ground temperature can be 40 degrees.
Now before you get ideas of planting that syrah or grenache at your summer home up north, forget it. It’s still too far north for most grapes to survive the short growing season. Only a few–those that have cold, short seasons built into their DNA–can handle it. The climate also mandates lower sugar levels when picked; hence, a Michigan chardonnay will be relatively delicate, more lean and tart than a Californian. But on a warm summer day, it just might be preferable to that 13.5 percent-alcohol, oak-driven chardonnay from the Golden State. Also, 1995 happened to be an unusual year for reds. The merlots and cabernet francs did wonderfully well for folks like Chateau Grand Traverse, St. Julian, Chateau Chantal and Peninsula Cellars. Want a bottle? So little was made that you’ll have to make a trek to a winery for one.
Not so for a growing number of others. For a long time the more interesting wines of Michigan weren’t available in the Chicago retail market, but a small collection is now available.
After a midsummer’s journey across the state, I can make some recommendations, typed while sipping a glass of Tabor Hill’s Grand Mark Champagne.
In a winery-by-winery rundown:
1995 Peninsula Cellars Reserve Chardonnay or 1996 Dry Johannisberg Riesling
1995 Chateau Grand Traverse Dry Riesling and Barrel-Fermented Chardonnay plus the 1996 Select Late-Harvest Riesling
Good Harbor makes a fine off-dry white called Trillium as well as a dry wine called Coastal Red. Its Cherry Wine is delicious and tart.
Chateau Chantal’s Pinot Gris is amazingly softer than most Italian versions but its Brut Champagne is quite good and crisp.
The more interesting wines of St. Julian and Fenn Valley are not on this market but can be had by a short drive east. Ask for Fenn Valley’s Chambourcin (dry, red) and its Semi-Dry Riesling. St. Julian’s Chancellor (dry red) has been a secret for years; but check out the new Barrel-Fermented Vignoles (dry white) and the off-dry Riesling as well as the very complex Catherman’s Port.
The very well-made bubblies and other wines of L. Mawby in Leelanau are so far only available in Michigan: I bought a bottle of his delicious blanc de blancs at The Wine Sellers in Union Pier.
If you cannot find any of these, contact the local wholesaler, Metro Beverage Service (630-529-1991), which distributes several of the wines to Sam’s, Armanetti’s and Potash Brothers.
