In the days and weeks to come I will be writing blog entries covering the wineries that we visited in the Northwest corner of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. This wine region clusters along two smaller peninsulas that surround the Traverse Bay, which eventually joins with Lake Michigan. These wineries cluster about the 45th Parallel and this fact came up over and over during our tour.
The 45th Parallel and the climate of this region impact everything about the wineries that we visited. This region of Michigan has an arguably cooler climate than the one we’re used to in the Southwest corner of Michigan. Because of this, many of the wineries established a curious excuse syndrome surrounding their Red cultivars. This region is utterly dominated by the Riesling grape and as such, there are countless wineries that just sling Riesling and very little else.
I have a problem with this arrangement and it peeves me. I feel like many wineries cheat by delivering some of the dullest wines on Earth. First its whites, so the nose and taste are already dominated by scents and tastes of pear, peach, and apple. Adding insult to injury, people were told that white wines were best served chilled so many of these wineries damage an already wimpy wine with a blast of ice. They keep their wines between 40 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s convenient because you can hide a truly wretched wine by simply serving it too cold. It doesn’t matter if it smells like feet and tastes like sludge if it’s cold, nobody will know the difference. The cavalcade of damage doesn’t just stop at the excuse for whites only, or serving temperatures that are way too cold, but it’s all exacerbated by what ends up to be the dullest drink in creation. A sweet ice-cold Riesling. At that point why not just switch to water and save yourself the waste of money. Drop a Splenda packet in there, maybe a thimblefull of vodka and you’re good to go.
Amongst all the wineries we sampled there was the gamut, from excellent to putrid. So many things that people assume are good indicators of wine quality just don’t pan out. The size of the winery, the popularity, things like that – they just don’t matter. It comes down to a core combination of factors that make wine tourists stop to taste and stay to buy. Those factors are:
- Good Grapes – Grow the right grape for the region. If you can’t start with good grapes no matter what else you do, nobody will care.
- Good Winemaking – The right fermentation, the right yeast, the right time, the right parts. All of this goes into making very good wine. As a hint, the more industrial the wine production, the worse the wine. One of the reviews gets dinged lethally for this. It’s all I can do to not call them out for a righteous beating and a good throw down a long flight of stairs.
- Sociability – Be active! Be involved! Get to know the people who come in to taste your wines. There aren’t any tests, we won’t expect you to remember us but please do us the honor of being interested in us as we are interested in you! The worst winery was as socially engaged as a wet dishrag. The best winery (in my humble opinion) asked questions and were exceptionally friendly and incredibly social. Above all else, if you are a troll, and you know it, find someone to put a human face on your winery. If you don’t like people, don’t make wine. If you find yourself compelled to make wine, find someone who does like people and hide behind them!
So, on to the reviews. To be fair I will say that my experience is purely based on my palate and each and every person should explore wine in their own way and they will likely not like what I have to say because my palate is not yours. It does bear on these reviews to explain my palate: I am fond of complex wines with at least one note on the nose (the more the better, of course) and wines that surprise me as they progress along my palate get my love and respect. I divide my palate into three sectors, pre-palate, mid-palate, and post-palate. Wines that I taste get good points for having something in all three sectors. I taste wine visually at first, and then when I taste them that visual metaphor continues forward. When I first taste wine I swirl the sample vigorously, then sample the nose. I then appreciate the color, and then the legs. Legs in wine are the oily-strands that separate out after a vigorous swirl. The quality of the legs means nothing, but it is a nice thing to see. I then taste the wine and add a lot of oxygen through bubbles and quiet slurping, trying to expose as much of my sensory hardware as I have. Really good wines please me at first, challenge me on the mid-palate, and then surprise me in the post-palate. Wines that have no nose are dinged heavily, dull noses get dinged hard too. Wines that are one note and hot are worthless to me. By hot I mean full of alcohol. Yes, alcohol is important to the entire process but if all you pour smells like a dead fish and when you taste it you get one central taste of plums and then the rest is burn, well, that’s sludge wine. Vintners that pour sludge knowingly deserve to be beaten.
Most people will agree with me in general about what makes a good wine. I have some unique preferences that bear covering immediately just so people aren’t surprised when I declare a good wine that they wouldn’t like. I enjoy oakiness in many wines, I also like acidic wines and I am very fond of tannins. Many of these qualities lead to popularly uncomfortable tastings but I value them. Now, that being said, wines that are too much of a certain thing aren’t very good, it’s the complexity of these notes that I value.
A great wine, for me, is one that unfolds across the entire palate and leads me along a path of sweet, oaky, acid, tannic, and spiciness. If a wine has a palate evolution, where oakiness goes to acid, then tannic, then back to oakiness that wine gets a huge response from me. There are a few wines that I have tasted that have these qualities and I recognize those wineries for having truly exceptional wines.
So all that being covered, on with the reviews. You can follow the entire series with the category of Wine. One note to the wineries that read these reviews, nothing that I say is meant literally. If I say that I want to beat you to unconsciousness and throw you down a long flight of stairs I’m simply being metaphorical and highly illustrative. When a winery has impressed me, it’ll be obvious.
