Black Star Farms Suttons Bay
Date Visited: November 9, 2019
Stop: #70
We were about an hour and a half into our Toast the Season wine tour through the Leelanau Peninsula when we left Two K Farms Cidery and Winery and headed towards our next destination. We jumped back on SW Bay Shore Drive (M-22) and headed north. We drove 1.0 mile to East Revold Road, where we turned left and headed west for a short distance – about 318 feet, to be exact. Another left, and we turned into Black Star Farms. The narrow driveway winds through the north end of the vineyard, passing the beautiful Inn at Black Star Farms, which dominates the landscape. After about 0.3 miles, we came upon the Tasting Room, which is the last building on the right side as we traveled south on the driveway. The large parking lot was nearly full, which was not surprising seeing as Black Star Farms is one of the most popular stops on the Leelanau Peninsula wine trail. Braving the cold and the sloppy conditions, we made it to the front entrance and, alas, entered an extremely busy tasting room.
Now, this is not a small tasting room. In fact, it is probably one of the largest
tasting rooms we have ever been in. With
a large Bar-In-the-Round dominating the main room, there is also an extension
of the room on the south side with 3 or 4 portable bars available to accommodate
larger crowds. There is also a private
room on the west side of the main room.
Additionally, there is an outdoor bar on the east side of the tasting
room which they can close up with portable panels to protect customers from the
cold and other inclement weather. This
has become one of my very favorite wineries in Michigan, not only for the
atmosphere in the tasting room, but also for the enormous selection of
incredibly delicious wines. Add in the
assorted spirits made onsite at the distillery, and customers have a wide
breadth of selections to choose from. It
would be easy to spend several hours here.
But, we did not have several hours to spare, so we had to
get right down to business. First, was
to drink our complementary bubbly offered to us by the hostess as we entered
the room. Since the line for the food
and wine samples was fairly long, having something to sip on while standing in
line was a nice added touch. It’s this
attention to customers that solidifies Black Star Farms as one of my favorite
places. The Staff has always been
attentive to our needs whenever we have been there. They are friendly, informative,
knowledgeable, and very courteous. They
converse with us, they laugh with us, and advise us – no matter how busy they
are. They make us feel special every
time we visit.
We can only imagine this customer focused culture was
created by the owners, Kerm and Sallie Campbell. My experiences after 37 years in the business
world tells me that the culture of a business is borne from the personalities
and values of its owners. Kerm and
Sallie, along with founding partner Donald Coe, purchased and founded Black
Star Farms in 1998. The Campbell’s love
for wine evolved after living in Europe for several years, and when they
returned to the States, they purchased what was at the time an equestrian
estate. Today, the estate is 160 acres
with the Inn being the centerpiece. It
has 10 rooms, each named after a star in the northern sky. The estate also includes the vineyard, winery
and Tasting Room, a distillery, farm-to-table café, multiple wedding and
corporate venues, on-site catering, hiking trails, working farm, equestrian
facility with indoor and outdoor riding arena, Centennial event barn, and more. Today, Kerm is the sole proprietor of the
estate. It is truly an incredible place
to visit, and a stay at the Inn is high on my bucket list of things to do.
We finally made it to the front of the line and received
our pairing: a squash and apple pierogi
with Riesling poached apples, buttermilk crème, and chives paired with the 2018
Arcturos Gewürztraminer. It was a
perfect pairing, and we enjoyed it immensely.
Once we polished off our food and wine samples, the tricky task became
finding a spot at the bar. We had to
wait for a bit, but eventually we were able to carve out a space for two at one
end of the bar while Randy and Christie ended up at the other end. Black Star Farms was offering 5 additional
samples per person, one of the more generous offerings during this event. To make things easy, they had created 4
different pre-selected wine flights – a dry white flight, a dry red flight, a
Staff Favorites flight, and a sweet flight.
Each flight contained 5 different wines.
This certainly made selecting wines easy since Black Star Farms produces
45 different wines and spirits.
Selecting our flights was pretty easy, since Kathy and I
are not really dry wine fans. Kathy’s
palate is evolving to appreciate some dry wines, whereas mine has not quite
made that leap. So, Kathy chose the
Staff Favorites Flight, and I selected the Sweet Flight. Our bartender was Olivia, who was the manager
at that time at the Black Star Farm’s Mission Point winery. Since the Toast the Season event is extremely
popular, she was needed to help accommodate the large crowds. She was a perfect hostess for us. Very engaging and knowledgeable, she was a
pleasure to talk to. She told us about
each of the wines we were about to sample.
Kathy really wanted to try the Vintners Select wine, which was not a
choice in the Staff Favorites Flight, so Olivia told her she could substitute
one of the wines in her flight for the Vintners Select. Olivia truly made our visit a special
one.
Our final wine selections looked like this:
Kathy’s selection:
STAFF FAVORITES FLIGHT
- 2018 Arcturos Pinot Gris – Complex with melon and delicate notes.
- 2018 Arcturos Pinot Noir Rosé – Bright and fresh berry fruit notes.
- 2017 Arcturos Sur Lie Chardonnay – Vanilla and flinty aromas with rich tropical fruits.
- 2017 Arcturos Pinot Noir – Bright berry nose delicately touched with spicy oak.
- Vintners Select – Rich dark fruit flavors and a hint of cocoa and spice. (substituted for the Red House Red – Fruit driven with layered flavors and hints of oak).
John’s selections:
SWEET FLIGHT
- Black Star Farms Hard Apple Cherry Cider – Bubbly, with crisp apple and cherry.
- 2017 Arcturos Late Harvest Riesling – Rich apricot, pear, and honeysuckle notes.
- Delighted – Bubby with red berries flavors and a lush fruity finish.
- Black Star Farms Pear Wine – Made from 100% Bartlett Pears.
- Sirius Raspberry Dessert Wine – This dessert wine is the essence of fresh raspberries.
Kathy enjoyed the Chardonnay, which she thought was really
smooth but not overly buttery. Olivia
mentioned that that wine was aged in steel containers and not oak barrels. Kathy also thought my Delighted wine was fun,
and thought that the Pear Wine had a really good flavor – it tasted like a nice
ripe pear (which has not been our experience with other pear wines we have
tasted). I agreed with Kathy on the
Delighted wine and the Pear Wine, but I also really enjoyed their Late Harvest
Riesling. When it came to deciding what
we should buy, the choice was easy. We
ended up with one bottle each of the Pear Wine and the Late Harvest Riesling,
and 3 bottles of Delighted. We have
already drunk all five bottles, so it is time for us to make a return trip to
Black Star Farms.
