Michigan Grapevine

Planting of a one-acre trial plot of about 18 grape varieties is set for May 27-28 at MSU’s Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station in Leelanau County.

The trial, and a parallel one at MSU’s southwest research station in Berrien County being planted this week are being overseen by Paolo Sabbatini, the new head of viticulture at Michigan State. His task is to help growers identify the grape varieties best suited to Michigan’s cool climate and short growing season.

Grapes are the vital raw material for the growing wine industry, and the R&D will be key to its future. Michigan’s 50-plus wineries squeeze virtually every grape grown in the state—and want a lot more. The Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council, the promotional division of the state department of agriculture, wants 10,000 acres planted by 2024.

That’s an ambitious aim, given that less than 20 percent of that is in the ground now. What’s even more daunting is that the best spots for vineyards—sloping terrain close to Lake Michigan—are already taken. The trial, the first for grapes at the northwest station in more than a decade, aims to find both red and white varieties, many new to Michigan, which will thrive here.

Among the contenders: Albarino, a Spanish white, and two Italian reds, Barbera and Dolcetto (in the southwest, where more varieties will be attempted) and Chardonnay musque.

Read more on the grape trial and the potential of the research in my story in Michigan Blue magazine.

At last week’s second annual Northern Michigan Wine Summit, particpants got nametags with a “No.Mi.Wi.” letterhead, featuring the logos of both sponsors, the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association and the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula. All the advance PR went out on the same letterhead, and the electronic PR was linked to this blog where you can check it out yourself.

The coordination got me wondering if No.Mi.Wi. is another new wine organization in the offing, and it looks like it may be. Liz Berger of Chateau Chantal and WOMP said at the event that she plans to argue to both WOMP and the LPVA that No.Mi.Wi. should exist on a permanent, limited basis to market both peninsula’s wines, and, more importantly, the region as a destination.

“We’re stronger when we speak with a single message,” Berger said. “None of us should go into the Chicago market unless we are united.”

That link between the place and the wine in the key to industry success, said summit speaker, Richard Leahy, East Coast editor of Vineyard and Winery Management.

“The way to sell Michigan wine is as part of the experience of Michigan wine country,” Leahy said.

If a joint organization occurred, Berger said the industry would be less likely to miss opportunities like this: Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau writer Mike Norton has an article in the May-June issue of SkyWest magazine, an inflight that’s distributed to more than 3 million passengers on airlines including United Express, the commuter arm of United, which has a run between Traverse City and Chicago.

The TCCVB tried to round up some local ads to run in the issue, Berger said. She wanted to place a one-page map ad showing all the LPVA and WOMP member wineries.

“We didn’t have it in the can, ready to go, so it didn’t happen,” she said. WOMP did place an ad in the magazine, but the LPVA did not.

LPVA spokesman Andy McFarlane said the organization didn’t have the budget for it at the time.

“You want to try and do everything. There’s always more that we want to do than we can afford,” he said.

McFarlane said the LPVA is interested in a permanent version of No.Mi.Wi., and will in fact consider joining forces with WOMP in a permanent organization at its meeting May 13.

“What we’re looking to do is kind of formalize a relationship around us,” he said. “We’re a whole lot better together than we are separate.”

McFarlane said he hoped the new organization would have a budget, in order to put on events like the summit. Participating wineries contributed individually to that, as did the two wine trail groups.

“If we were to go to Detroit or do a tour of cities in Michigan, certainly there would be costs associated with that,” he said.

Michigan’s small-production wineries often lament that it’s difficult to get a distributor to give them the time of day. As of this month, however, two will be wooing them directly.

Eddie Baur, pictured far right, the founding partner of Mitten Wine Logistics, a Traverse City-based distributor specializing in Michigan wines, left his own company April 30 to join Plymouth-based Leone Imports and build a Michigan wine division there.

Meanwhile, his former partner, Scott Fochtman, pictured at left above, intends to keep forging ahead with Mitten.

Read the whole story in my column in Crain’s Detroit Business.

Read the post on Baur’s resignation here.

Read a feature story on Mitten’s origins here.