Sabrosa Sangria
Date Visited: August 25, 2019
Stop: #60
Our Michigan Wines and Signs tour through Macomb County was scheduled to conclude with our visit to the Washington Street Wine House. Now it was time for our picnic lunch, and it could not have been a more perfect time, or day, for that. Kathy and I retrieved our lunches from the truck and walked a block to the Walter and Mary Burke Park, home of Michigan’s tallest flag pole (no lie!). Because it was such a beautiful day, the park was alive with kids and families, large gatherings, swimmers, kayakers – let’s just say there was a lot of activity. No one, however, was in the pavilion, situated just a few short feet from the shore of Anchor Bay, so that’s where Kathy and I took a seat and ate our lunch. A few minutes into our lunch, I noticed a couple that we knew from our church take a seat at the other end of the pavilion. So, when we finished, we decided to walk over and say “hello.” We ended up sitting down and enjoyed a nice visit for the next 30 minutes, listening to the guy’s adventures as a kid growing up in the New Baltimore area. It turned out to be a pleasant end to a wonderful day.
Or so we thought…
On our way home driving west along 23 Mile Road, Kathy
mentioned that we would be passing by a sangria tasting lounge that she had
been talking about for a few months now.
It was only 2:30 in the afternoon, so what the heck. Sometimes the best plans are those made
spontaneously. When we got to Van Dyke
Avenue, we turned right and headed north for 0.8 miles. On the righthand side, hidden from view
because it sits behind The Bakehouse Bakery, was our intended target – Sabrosa
Sangria. It was a strange location for a
place of business, but when we walked in, we were instantly loving the
place. It had a very quaint and homey
atmosphere, and it felt like a place where you could relax, engage in
conversation, and enjoy drinking some great wine. It turned out to be all of that and more.
There were only two other people in the place at the time,
and they left within ten minutes of our arrival. We sauntered up to the bar and took a seat,
and were immediately welcomed by the only staff member working that day, Lisa. As it turned out, she was one-half of the
husband/wife ownership team. Kathy and I
found ourselves in one of those situations that we have come to love about our
quest – drinking some great beverages while shooting the breeze with the owner
of the establishment.
The husband-and-wife team, Kevin and Lisa Kutskill, were
splitting duties on this day as Kevin was selling sangria from a booth at a
local festival while Lisa was holding down the fort at the winery. Lisa engaged us with so many interesting
tales about their winery. Sabrosa, which
means “tasty” in Spanish, specializes in small batch sangrias using 100% all-natural
fruit juices. Kevin is a practicing
pediatrician who concocted a sangria from an old family recipe for a dinner
party they threw back in 2006. The
sangria was a hit and the Kutskills soon found everyone they knew requesting
them to bring the sangria to events they were invited to. The blend that he concocted that fateful day
in 2006 is now bottled under the name Summergria.
Kevin continued to tweak and perfect their sangria recipes
for nearly 11 years, and finally decided to share their sangrias with a broader
audience. So, they did their research,
found their location, and opened up their winery in July, 2017. Since then, they have been named best winery
in 2018 and 2019 by the Detroit Metro Times – pretty nice recognition for a
winery that only opened up in 2017.
So, it was time for us to try these sangrias for
ourselves. Sabrosa features their Four
Seasons Series (Springria, Summergria, Autumngria, and Wintergria) and they
have 5 specialty sangrias (Beach Day, Peach Blossom, Mulled Harvest, Snow Day,
and Santagria). On this particular day,
they only had four sangrias available for tasting – Springria, Summergria,
Wintergria, and Beach Day – so choosing was very easy. Lisa set Kathy and I up with a sample of each
sangria. We were not disappointed. Each of the sangrias we sampled were very
good – each with a very distinct flavor that bursts in your mouth. Our favorites were the Springria and the
Summergria, so of course, we walked out with a bottle of each.
As we sampled the delicious sangrias, we continued our
conversation with Lisa. We found out
that Kevin is affiliated with the same company that Kathy works for, and that
the Kutskills have a daughter who works for the same company that I work
for. Again, it was one of those
experiences that draws us to this quest of ours, and something we sorely missed
at our last visit (Washington Street Winery).
Our only regret was that we did not try their featured slushie
sangria. But we did return a few weeks
later as Kathy had decided that Sabrosa sangrias would be the featured drink at
our daughter, Sarah’s, bridal shower in December 2019. If I recall, only one bottle made it back to
our house, so once again, the Sabrosa sangrias were a big hit!!!
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