Skip to main content

A Quick and Easy Guide to Michigan Wine

Next time you’re looking to wow friends with a bizarre drinks-related factoid, tell them this: Michigan is the nation’s sixth-largest producer of wine. For a state more recognized for its contributions to music, the automobile industry, and for some massive lakes, it can be a bit of a head-scratcher.

Like a lot of Midwestern states, Michigan started out in sweet wine. In fact, it still makes quite a bit of the stuff, and it also continues to be a leader in fruit wine and fortified fruit wines, cherry especially. But in the last couple of decades, wine grapes have found a home here — to the extent that some locals are dubbing the state’s wine scene as the Napa of the Midwest.

detroit vineyards
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Presently the state is set up with five different appellations: Lake Michigan Shore, Fennville, Leelanau Peninsula, Old Mission Peninsula, and the wonderfully named Tip of the Mitt. By recent estimates, some 150 producers exist over this span, specializing in Cab Franc, Gewürztraminer, Merlot, Chardonnay, Syrah, and Riesling, as well as a few others.

Recommended Videos

The vast majority of the state’s grapes are grown within about 25 miles of Lake Michigan. The lake effect is real and vital, as the rest of the state routinely turns out conditions that are simply too harsh for most wine grapes. Traverse City is a big draw, a town of about 16,000 centrally located along the wine trail.

Like Virginia and Texas, it’ll be interesting to see how Michigan wine culture comes of age. At the moment, it’s a growing industry with a fair amount of potential—one that will only get wiser and better as future generations take to the task of winemaking.

Some stops of note, should you find yourself in The Great Lakes State:

Brys Estate

brys estate
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Set in Traverse City, Brys Estate rests on 91 acres including a tasting room, sprawling deck overlooking vineyards, garden, and guest lodging. The brand focuses on Riesling, makes an un-oaked Chardonnay and even takes a stab at finicky Pinot Noir. Rosé enthusiasts will find joy in Brys’ lush but dry version, made from Cab Franc, Merlot, and Pinot.

2 Lads

2 lads sunny
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Another Traverse City spot, 2 Lads is a pretty and modern slice of architecture. The tasting room gazes east at Grand Traverse Bay while the winemaking facility is a gravity-flow operation, which offers a lighter winemaking touch. The wines are soft and flavorful and include Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and some bubbles.

Chateau Fontaine

chateau fontaine
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Lake Leelanau’s Chateau Fontaine is very much a family-run project, responsible for some 15 varietals and a decidedly homespun label. The Matthies family attributes some of the resident grapes’ success to south-facing aspects and good pH levels. The wines that stand out most are the Rieslings (sweet and dry) and a bracing Pinot Blanc.

Detroit Vineyards

Detroit Vineyards Interior
Detroit Vineyards/Facebook

Regardless of what you think about urban wineries or what they’re capable of producing, this one touts a cool history. Detroit Vineyards, located in the heart of the Motor City, stems from one of the first vineyard plantings in the U.S., dating back to 1702. While the winery brings in a lot of the fruit from beyond city limits today, the production still takes place in-house and deals in interesting grapes like the hybrid Traminette and a Merlot Rosé. The brand also turns out some cider and mead. 

Dablon Vineyards

Dablon Vineyards - Our Story

Located in Baroda, Dablon Vineyards has turned the former fertile grounds for Concord grapes into rows of Burgundian varieties like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The tasting room is setup with a fireplace and patio and the vineyards continue to expand, with newer rows of grapes like Malbec, Tannat, Tempranillo and Nebbiolo joining the estate lineup.

Mark Stock
Mark Stock is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He fell into wine during the Recession and has been fixated on the stuff since…
Red vs. white wine: What really sets them apart?
A closer look at the apparent binary
Gris and grigio wine

If you're a wine enthusiast like me, you’ve probably heard all kinds of stuff about red wine vs. white wine -- only drink reds with red meat. Just pair whites with chicken and fish. Use a bowl glass for reds. Only serve whites cold. Here’s the real story: Like the people you love, all wine exists on a spectrum of wonderful.

I've enjoyed the palest of white wines and the darkest of reds, but also orange wines, rosé, delicate-as-a-flower reds, and big chonker whites. (Also, most of these distinctions are basically pointless: In a 2001 study, University of Bordeaux II Ph.D. candidate Frédéric Brochet dyed white wines red and let dozens of wine students taste them. Most of them described drinking red wine.) The first taste is, indeed, with the eye.

Read more
Bubbly? Full bodied and red? Zesty and white? Your favorite wine types, explained
All the primary types of wine (and everything you need to know about them)
Glasses of different kinds of wine

Trying to understand everything about wine all at once is impossible -- and that's the beauty of it. Like music or the person you love, there are always new things to discover. Not only that, but your taste in wine will expand and evolve as you mature. If you don't know that much about it right now, so what? Even the most prestigious wine experts in the world often find themselves at odds with the basics of different types of wine. And anyway, can you think of a ridiculously fun learning opportunity?
So, let's start with the basics. We'll learn that -- just as in life -- there are rules, then exceptions to those rules, then ultimately that there are no rules except be a good person and serve your higher purpose. (OK, maybe this is going a little beyond wine.) Let us open that gate to this particular garden of earthly delight and pop a cork while we're doing it.

Sparkling wine

Read more
You won’t find claret wine in the store, but you’ve probably already had some
A corrupted name with a cool history
Red wine being poured into a glass

Perhaps you’re into period English movies (like, say, anything by Jane Austen). If so, you’ve noticed that when it’s time to break out the good stuff (you know, the bottle from the cellar that needs to be decanted), it’s always a wine called "claret." While I do enjoy the occasional Jane Austen movie, I’ve been a more consistent fan of wine -- but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what this claret stuff was, why it was so beloved, and where I could get my hands on it. The short answer is that "claret" is basically British slang for red wines from Bordeaux. The long answer involves ancient Romans, Eleanor of Aquitaine, English corruption of the French language, the Hundred Years’ War, and a dry, brick-red rosé that might not yet be on your radar.

The Romans, great champions of the grape themselves, did bring viticulture to the Bordeaux region -- though, to be honest, they were much more interested in the trading potential of the huge natural harbor located in the Gironde River estuary. Once the empire collapsed, so did those trade routes from the Mediterranean to northern Europe. Ultimately, Bordeaux (along with the rest of southwest France) became part of the large, powerful, and independent duchy of Aquitaine. And this is where our claret wine story begins.
Bordeaux was English for centuries

Read more