24A | SUNDAY, JANUARY 24, 2021 | DETROIT FREE PRESS

COVER STORY

Consultant Dave Bos of Bos Wine, left, and Sean O’Keefe, a winemaker at Mari Vineyards on the Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City, tastes wine in the Mari wine caves. MANDI WRIGHT/DFP

hort of progressive winemakers bringing sales-wise, with demand for its wines and ci- its book. Wine fresh energy and restorative vineyard man- ders outpacing supply and visits to the o"- “I feel like there’s a lot of people from agement to a young region that — thanks in the-path tasting room up, too. who live elsewhere who will be Continued from Page 1A part to calamities mostly elsewhere — is be- That phenomenon was common among really interested in these wines, as well as coming a fertile alternative to more presti- wineries in 2020. people who aren’t from Michigan,” said Jen- laissez-faire attitude,” said Hearin, 37, a na- gious growing areas in the eyes of some in- “Michigan’s wine industry has actually ny & Francois National Sales Manager Daniel tive of the Crescent City. dustry insiders. been doing pretty well this year, even despite Sutton, a South!eld native who has lived in New Orleans is also where he met his wife, While wild!res plague the West Coast and COVID,” said Jenelle Jagmin, director of the New York for 15 years. “We don’t just bring Betsy, while the two were schoolteachers. Trump-era tari"s hang over Europe, Michi- Michigan Craft Beverage Council, a state ad- wines in to bring them in. If we didn’t feel like Disenchanted with the American public gan’s wine industry may stand to bene!t visory group for its brewers, winemakers and these wines would be a !t, they wouldn’t be education system and long interested in the from a warming climate, observers say, al- distillers. “We’re seeing consumer support in here just because I’m from Michigan.” back-to-the-land movement of their par- though extreme climate events like polar like no other time before right now.” The proverbial cherry on top: a 2020 har- ents’ generation, the Hearins eventually quit vortexes have had an adverse e"ect on fruit There are other signs of increasing mo- vest that, by many accounts, provided for their teaching jobs to become urban farmers, in recent years. mentum, too. fruit of exceptional quality, even if yields raising chickens and vegetables on a small Either way, growth in the Renowned cool-climate winemaker were slightly o". plot in the Lower 9th Ward. industry exploded over the last two decades, Thomas Houseman moved to the Old Mis- “There’s a sense with all farmers and busi- But when the time came to start a family, with the number of wineries in the state now sion Peninsula in August, taking over the ness owners and winemakers up here that a the couple looked north — way north — to the topping 200, according to state data, up from reins at 2 Lads Winery following a 13-year- rising tide lifts all boats,” Hearin said. area near Betsy’s hometown of Traverse City, just two dozen that called the Mitten home in run at the prestigious Anne Amie Vineyards “There’s just an unslakable thirst for wine up eventually landing on 10 acres of scrappy 2000. in Oregon. here. If a winery opened up in the !eld next hillside, vineyards and apple orchards And that number is only projected to “People just don’t understand that there to our tasting room, we would be thrilled.” tucked into a valley near the northern tip of grow. are really great wines being made here,” the . “We came into this profession and this Houseman said when asked of his decision A young region matures They worked the land for the previous lifestyle as a way to promote the land and to move to a place like northern Michigan. owner for two years before buying it in 2018 promote country living,” Hearin said. “A win- “They have this idea that we’re doing fruit The origins of wine begin some 8,000 and rebranding as Green Bird. ery is a place where that’s easy to do.” wines. But I think that if people just take the years ago in the Republic of Georgia, where “Buying land in rural southern Louisiana That lifestyle just so happens to be all the time to actually taste the wines, they’ll un- today grapes are still fermented in buried is unwise, given the impending climate di- more attractive in the midst of a pandemic derstand. They’re stunning wines, you just clay urns called qvevri, largely the same way saster,” Hearin said of their decision. “And that spreads most fervently indoors and in have to let go of the idea of, ‘Oh. Michigan.’ ” wine’s been made there for millenia. northern Michigan and this area of the Great close quarters. That’s also the thinking behind a new dis- The French, with their oak barrels and no- Lakes, there’s a reason why a huge percent- Despite the logistical challenges and re- tribution deal between Jenny & Francois, a tions of terroir, have been making wine for age of the Native inhabitants of this conti- lentless heartbreak of 2020, Hearin said it cult importer of natural wines that recently less than a third of that time. nent chose to live here: the abundance of was the best year Green Bird has ever seen added its !rst Michigan label, Neu Cellars, to And it took until 1976 and the famous fresh water, the moderate climate despite Judgment of Paris for California cabernet to being so far north. That is what drew us here. land on the tongues of serious oenophiles. Northern Michigan is a perfect place to farm, The blind tasting saw Californian wines de- to protect and to live.” cisively triumph over Bordeaux and Burgun- The Hearins de!ne themselves as farmers dies of similar , despite the prevailing !rst and refer to their practices as “beyond wisdom and pro-European sentiments of the organic,” allowing sheep and chickens to time. graze between their vines and orchards. The By comparison, Michigan’s wine industry animals eat pests while mowing the grass is an infant. Though it traces its lineage back and fertilizing the soil. a century to the founding of the 100-year-old “Just not spraying universally recognized St. Julian Winery, close observers say that cancerous products is not enough for us,” the industry has made its most exponential Hearin said. “We’re trying to heal the land.” strides only in the last two decades. An in-demand byproduct of that healing “I think the stars are aligning in a way is less than 1,000 cases a year of bone-dry where we’ve had enough decent , , gewurztraminer and unoaked char- we’re past that hump from 2014 and 2015 donnay, as well as wines made from the cool- where (because of the weather) we couldn’t climate hybrid grapes and vig- make any wine basically,” said Kristy Mc- noles, plus estate and forti!ed ciders and a Clellan. few other experiments. Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Mc- Though Hearin still uses commercial Clellan was the director of operations at yeast for fermentation, he is working to get Bowers Harbor Vineyards on the Old Mission away from all additives. Minimal interven- Peninsula, where she said she saw tenfold tion is the driving ethos at Green Bird. growth over the last decade. “Our philosophy is: The best wine is made After her position was eliminated in April, in the !eld,” Hearin said. “If your grapes are McClellan launched a wine consulting agen- healthy and robust and ripe and your vines cy with a partner and now also manages a are strong you can use very little intervention private tasting room at Left Foot Charley in and chemistry to make wine.” Neu Cellars winemaker John Keller, left, picks grapes during the 2020 with his The Hearins are emblematic of a new co- brother, Sam Keller, and father, Bill Keller. PROVIDED BY SETH ARNOLD See WINE, Page 25A FREEP.COM | SUNDAY, JANUARY 24, 2021 | 25A

COVER STORY

Wine

Continued from Page 24A

Traverse City. “We’re building the portfolio,” McClellan said, speaking generally of Michigan wines. “I think because of what some of the players in the industry have done with trying to be more dedicated to saving and cellaring wine, other wineries are learning from that and also doing the same thing.” Though St. Julian Winery moved to Paw Paw in 1936, it took until 1981 for Michigan’s !rst American Area (AVA) to be established — in nearby Fennville. At the time, it was only the third AVA established by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bu- reau in the entire country. The Leelenau AVA followed in 1981, 12 years after Bernie Rink planted the peninsu- la’s !rst hybrid vineyards and founded Boskydel Vineyard (three years before Mich- igan sparkling wine pioneer Larry Mawby planted his !rst grapes there). Next came the Shore AVA, the state’s largest and most productive. And, in 1987, Old Mission Peninsula received its own designation. A !fth AVA, the Tip of the Mitt, was added as recently as 2016. While the southwestern portion of the state claims the longest wine-growing histo- ry and highest volume of grape production, a small majority of the state’s 3,000-plus acres of used for winemaking is grown on the neighboring peninsulas of . Dormant grape vines at 2 Lads Winery on Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City earlier this month. The Michigan wine industry has exploded A long-standing but mostly friendly com- over the last two decades, with the number of wineries now topping 200, up from just two dozen in 2000. PHOTOS BY MANDI WRIGHT/DFP petition between the peninsula’s wineries, as well as the moderating e"ects of Lake Michigan, sandy soil and a plum location on thing. We’re going to have one or two years fornia, New Zealand, and Oregon’s Willam- ery with a commercial license on a shoe- the 45th parallel make this the epicenter of out of 10 where we have no crops, and we ette Valley. string. The experiment didn’t last, but it gave Michigan wine prestige, if there is such a have to put that into our pricing. We have to “The big thing for me is not having a refer- Keller the learning experience and inspira- thing. (The 45th parallel is a line of latitude be better and actually justify that through ence point,” he said of the transition to work- tion he needed to try again with a little more synonymous with world-class winemaking, more edgy wines and better practices.” ing on the Old Mission Peninsula. “Every- focus. straddled by the likes of Bordeaux in France, To help achieve that goal, Mari recently thing for me is new. But it’s probably the best While John was growing up, the Keller Piedmont in Italy and Oregon’s Willamette hired consultant Dave Bos, a biodynamic sparkling base I’ve ever made. And if I were family owned a summer cottage near Sleep- Valley.) farming expert, winemaker and former vine- to talk about the thing that excites me the ing Bear Dunes and frequently visited north- yard manager at Grgich Hills Estate, one of most here, it’s sparkling wine. I think that ern Michigan. He remembered hearing about Pioneers, then and now Napa’s best-known wineries. In addition to the more people that we can get making some local wineries in the area and decided helping Mari convert a large portion of its sparkling wine in northern Michigan, the to poke around, eventually !nding a grower For decades, a small handful of visionar- vineyards to organic, in 2017 the Michigan better. I’ve never tasted sparkling base wine using organic practices on a small plot on Old ies like Rink, Mawby and the late Ed O’Keefe native and his wife, Jackie, purchased a farm that tasted this good this early on and I’ve Mission. Keller did a test run in 2018 with the of , northern Michi- with ample property 20 minutes north of been making it now for a decade.” fruit and the resulting wine provided the jolt gan’s !rst commercial winery, laid the foun- Traverse City with the hopes of converting That potential is exactly what drew Ohian he’d been seeking. dation for the burgeoning Michigan wine in- the farmhouse into a tasting room for their John Keller to northern Michigan wine coun- “That wine was exactly what I was looking dustry. label, Bos Wine. try when he set out to create Neu Cellars. for: 10.5%-11% and built for sparkling,” he O’Keefe, who died on New Year’s Day at “We bought our place on the side of town “I don’t know if my original intent was to said. “I was like, ‘I am falling in love with this 89, was the !rst person to plant vitis vinifera where there’s only one other vineyard,” Bos target Michigan for bubbles,” he said. “Here’s region.’ ” in northern Michigan in 1974 despite every- said. “But in my head I go, ‘I’m sure this is the thing you see in the Midwest and it’s ex- Keller describes the following two years as one, including his contemporaries and the how Carneros felt in the ‘80s.’ If you want to actly what I don’t want to do: You try to make a whirlwind. horticulture department of Michigan State be in an up-and-coming area, you have to a product that !ts consumer wants, what In the spring of 2019, he took a few of his University, telling him it couldn’t be done. want to take risks and want to be a pioneer. I their perception of wine is nationally, when bottled experiments to the Third Coast “O’Keefe’s Folly,” as the bold move was pe- lived here in ’04 and since then the wine- really the region dictates what wine it makes. Swap, a natural wine showcase in Chicago, joratively nicknamed in the early days, making has really taken o". Now if we can You’re handcu"ed, especially when making where he met Daniel Sutton of Jenny & Fran- proved fortuitious, and kicked o" Michigan’s get the vineyards on track as well, it’s going natural or low and no manipulation wine. cois. Sutton, a Michigander by birthright, wine industry in earnest, though it would to elevate everyone’s game. Now the good The region is going to force you to make spar- had found Neu Cellars on Instagram and was take more than a decade for Chateau Grand winemakers can make great wine and the kling wine. It’s easier to sell, too, and you can curious to learn more about this unheard of Traverse to turn a pro!t. decent winemakers can make good wine.” sell it for a little bit more.” Michigan natural wine with the eye-catching And it was the generation that followed, The COVID-19 pandemic and the rising While studying biochemistry at Ohio labels. including O’Keefe’s own sons, along with wi- construction costs it helped push even fur- State University, Keller took a few courses on “We went out in his car and sampled nemakers like Bryan Ulbrich of Left Foot ther upward have forced the Boses to pivot a wine and spirits that sparked the pursuit of them,” Sutton recalled. “And I thought, ‘Wow! Charley, that helped earn the region a new- bit. Rather than convert their farmhouse into winemaking as a potential career. But after This is really good and way di"erent than any found measure of respect. a tasting room as planned, they’ve recently landing his !rst internship at Ravenswood in Michigan wine I’ve ever had.’ ” “Our family, we are one of the largest ries- signed a commercial lease in downtown Elk Sonoma, he became disillusioned with the For Keller, being picked up by a trend-set- ling producers in the country at Chateau Rapids and hope to begin serving both their huge, mechanical process of making bulk ting importer like Jenny & Francois is a huge Grand Traverse,” Sean O’Keefe said. California- and Michigan-grown wines to wine. stamp of approval. That’s a big statement, considering ries- the public there this spring. “The romantic idea of winemaking just “If you can get that stamp on your label, ling is Michigan’s most ubiquitous wine “The Michigan wine industry since 1995 died while I was there, for obvious reasons,” people automatically give you some respect,” grape varietal. (It’s also the only state in the has grown like eightfold,” Bos said. “I’m sure he said. “You’re working in a massive facility he said. “And they also have the belief, just country that can claim that distinction.) it will taper o", but just in the last three years and you’re making a Coca-Cola product or like us, that they’re putting a bet toward that Sean O’Keefe left the family winery in that we’ve been here, seeing Thomas House- something similar. There’s zero art in it. It’s region. It’s not like we’ll pick up this random 2014 over what can be chalked up to creative man and all these younger people show up, it master manipulation.” guy in Michigan. If you’re getting picked up di"erences and, with his father’s blessing, does bring energy to it and does allow people Back to Ohio he went with de#ated by them, they’re putting their name behind decamped for Mari Vineyards down the road who have been doing great things here get to dreams, only to !nd them revived again after you, so they’re putting their name on the re- to become its head winemaker. the next level.” his !rst taste of natural wine, a trendy if ill- gion now, too.” Mari owner Marty Lagina, whose family de!ned class of wine made with minimal in- But both winemaker and importer believe traces their lineage to northern Italy, aimed to Sparkling for newcomers tervention, at a new bar in Cincinnati’s Over- the region still has a way to go. make it a powerhouse for Italian reds — an the-Rhine neighborhood. “The winemaking itself hasn’t quite found uncommon aspiration for northern Michigan. For his part, Houseman is a little embar- “That was the !rst time I tried natural the true identity of the terroir just yet,” reads One of the most impressive facilities on rassed about the hype over his arrival at 2 wine and it was just electric and alive,” he re- the description of Michigan wine on the Jen- Old Mission, Mari could be plopped among Lads. called. ny & Francois website. “Midwest universities Napa’s rambling estates with ease. The Ital- “I’m just making wine,” he deadpanned. And back in love with wine he fell. teach wine-growing similar to other agricul- ian-style villa is perched atop a hill and But Houseman’s bona !des come from a So he bought some grapes and began ex- tural crops where the use of synthetic chem- boasts a postcard view of East Grand Tra- two-decade-long career making wine in cool perimenting with making natural wine in his icals in the !elds and manipulation in the verse Bay. The winery’s cavernous under- climates such as the Anderson Valley in Cali- basement, eventually launching a tiny win- cellar is common. However, this is starting to ground cellar includes three tunnels that change with a group of younger growers set- meet under “The Oculus,” a huge, articulat- ting up shop.” ing eye in the ceiling designed to align with Changing those practices and combating the sunrise during summer solstice. Sean preconceived notions of what Michigan wine Sean O’Keefe’s !rst few years at Mari were O’Keefe, a can mean only motivate Keller more. Neu marked by two consecutive polar vortexes winemaker Cellars recently closed on 15 acres on the and disappointing harvests, highlighting the at Mari Leelanau Peninsula outside of Northport challenge of growing grapes — let alone red Vineyards with plans to plant its own vines this spring. Italian varietals — in a northern maritime cli- on Old “There’s going to be a lot of people who mate. Mission think Midwest wine and completely blow it “We’re in an era where terroir is often de- Peninsula in o",” Keller said. “There’s something about !ned by disaster,” O’Keefe said. “Look at the Traverse that that’s put a chip on my shoulder. I think !res out West, the hail in Burgundy, droughts City, uses a people should be excited for Michigan wine in Germany. We have our own set of that. I wine thief to as a whole. All these Midwest winemaking accept our cold winters as terroir. It’s our lim- extract a practices have fallen o" and you can see peo- iting factor.” sample of ple coming from the coasts with a little more But a limiting factor, O’Keefe contends, wine from a experience. It’s going to be an interesting only determines the outline of the canvas, barrel. next !ve, 10 years. We’ll see.” not the quality within its bounds. O’Keefe’s Send your dining tips to Free Press Restau- “The idea is live with what we can do family has rant Critic Mark Kurlyandchik at 313-222- here,” O’Keefe said. “And once you accept been in the 5026 or [email protected]. Follow that limit, let’s get really creative. Let’s plan wine him on Twitter @MKurlyandchik and Insta- for bad years. Let’s make wines that can age business in gram @curlyhandshake. Read more restau- well, that can take four or !ve years to get to a Michigan rant news and reviews and sign up for our good point so at least we always have some- since 1974. Food and Dining newsletter.