Say GoodBaia to Northport

Baia Estate Winery Tasting Room

Date Visited:  November 9, 2019

Stop:  #73

It was about 1:40 pm when we pulled out of the parking lot at Leelanau Wine Cellars.  So far, on the first day of Toast the Season 2019, we had visited 5 wineries, which put us on a very good pace (one winery every 30 minutes).  We hopped back onto M-22 and headed north for nearly 6 miles, entering the town of Northport, the location of our sixth winery.  This would be our northernmost stop for the weekend.  It would also be our very first visit to Baia Estate Winery.

At the time, the Baia (pronounced BYE-ah, the word is Italian for “bay”) Estate Winery Tasting Room was located in the New Bohemian Café located on South Waukazoo Street.  It was in a nicely restored building with a very quaint and homey interior.  In late 2021, the Tasting Room relocated to The Union, basically right across the street from its former location, on the corner of South Waukazoo Street and West Nagonaba Street.  All of our pictures below reflect the old location since we have yet to visit the new place.

I have found it difficult to put together any history on the Baia Estate Winery.  Their website does not include any historical information other than to state that the estate is 70 acres in size and that they specialize in Italian-style wines.  They currently grow Chardonnay, Riesling, Fruliano, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir grapes.  I was able to find a couple of articles on the web that helped fill in some of the blanks – an article in The Ticker written by Emily Tyra and published on Sept. 10, 2021, and an article in the TCBN written by Craig Manning for their February 2021 issue.  I could not find a date when the Baia Estate Winery was established, but I did find out that it is owned by Michael “Chet” Chetcuti and Kyle Evans.  It is part of a conglomerate of food and beverage businesses under the umbrella of Farm + Ferment.  Before this had all taken place, Chet was an engineer in the automotive industry selling parts globally.  By 2006, he and his partners bought a stake in the company – he is still co-owner to this day. 

Like so many stories we have heard in the past, Chet’s foray into food and beverages came as a result of his and his partners passion for food, wine, and beer.  They bought their first food and wine business in 1998 – the Cloverleaf Fine Wine in metro Detroit.  Today, under the Farm + Ferment brand, they have expanded and own a group of southeast Michigan Italian eateries called Bigalora Wood Fired Cucina, the Ypsilanti-based Arbor Brewing Company, the Michigan Hop Alliance, and Baia Estate Vineyards in Leelanau County.  Ironically, there is a Bigalora Wood Fired Cucina just two miles away from our home in a restaurant space that used to be one of our favorite hangouts a few short years ago.  Now we have a reason to visit and start up a new tradition and, hopefully, a new favorite place to hang out.

Purchasing the Baia Estate Vineyard was Chet’s and his partners’ first step into making their own wine.  Their success in this area emboldened them to get into the hops growing business so they could craft their own beers.  Today, the vineyard supplies all the wine to their Bigalora restaurants (5 locations in southeast Michigan).  The vineyard has matured to the point where they harvest enough grapes to make enough wine to sell to the general public.  Although I could not find out when they opened their tasting room in the New Bohemian Café, I was able to piece together that they entered into a relationship with Eric Allchin (of The Union and The Tribune) and his business partner, Chef Paul Carlson, to officially team together to offer wine tastings at The Union at the latter end of 2021.  Eric and his team run the tasting room.

Someday, we will get to visit their new location, but on this day, we were enjoying ourselves at the New Bohemian Café.  It was very crowded as we entered building.  The tasting bar was located along the north wall of the room.  There were tables scattered around and, if I recall, the New Bohemian Café operated on the south side of the room.  We were each given our food and wine samples – a cream puff drizzled with house-made dark chocolate ganache and a sample of their Sparkling Riesling.  Up to this point, it was my favorite pairing of the day.  After finishing our wine and cream puff, we found spots at the bar and scanned over the wine menu.  Baia Estates offered eight different wines, and we got to choose 2 tastings each.  One of the wines that stood out was their Lambo.  We have some very good friends that we actually met through our son, David.  His friend’s nickname is Lambo (a derivative of his last name).  His dad is affectionately called Coach Lambo.  So naturally, we HAD to try that wine.  Our server was kind enough to let us try a sample of the Lambo, which was a LIMITED RELEASE Lambrusco-inspired sparkling red with bold berry notes, rose petal, and sweet spices.  Our tasting selections ended up being the following:

Kathy’s selection:

• Pinot Grigio – clean, bright, apple and pear notes
• Rosé – Southern French style, dry and rich with melon, rose and hints of cherry

John’s selections:

• Riesling – Dry and fruit-forward with apple, apricot and spice notes
• Pinot Noir – Delicate cherry and pomegranate with accents of tea leaf

Although we enjoyed all of the wines, we decided not to buy anything at this time.  However, we did buy a bottle of the Lambo so we could give it to our friends as a gift.

We did enjoy our visit to Baia Estates.  It is good to know that we only have to go a couple of miles to have another taste of their wine.  A visit to Bigalora is in the cards.

Be sure to visit the Baia Estate Winery website for more information:     

https://www.baiaestate.com/

 

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Chilling on the Shores of Omena Bay

Leelanau Wine Cellars Tasting Room

Date Visited:  November 9, 2019

Stop:  #72

 Kathy, Randy, Christie, and I enjoyed our visit to Silver Leaf, where we experienced a more intimate atmosphere with a much smaller crowd milling about.  But that was about to change as we headed to our next destination – Leelanau Wine Cellars.  Located on the shores of Omena Bay in downtown Omena, Leelanau Wine Cellars is one of the more popular and commercial wineries in the state serving over 40,000 customers annually.  Bottles of their wine can be bought at many retail stores around the state, including the Kroger’s grocery store just down the street from us.  Every time we have been to this Tasting Room, there have been large crowds, and today would be no different. 

We parked in the lot along the shoreline and entered the tasting room from the rear entrance, scaling a flight of stairs.  The Tasting Room is in the shape of a large L, with a magnificent view of the bay.  The wine tasting bar runs the full length of the south wall.  The rest of the walls (not including the windowed walls) are loaded with racks of wine.  The food-and-wine pairing table was set up along the bank of windows, so we at least got to enjoy the view as we waited for our servings.

Leelanau Wine Cellars was founded in 1974 by the Jacobson family.  They originally set up shop in a cherry orchard.  Nearly 50 years later, the Jacobson family still owns and runs the winery, with Bob Jacobson being its current president.  Their website includes a couple of photos of their tasting room from their early years.

As mentioned earlier, the place was packed.  In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing it so busy.  We had to wait a significant amount of time to get our food and wine pairing, which consisted of a Smoked Salmon and Caper Hors d-Oeuvre paired with their 2016 Merlot.  It was a challenge as we jockeyed for standing room in order to enjoy our tasty treats.  After managing that, it was time to find a spot at the bar to get our complimentary tastings.  This was a challenge as well, as every opening quickly filled and you had to be quite agile and somewhat strategic to get a spot.  We finally managed to do so, although Kathy was really the only one at the bar as I was kind of standing a bit off to her side and behind her.  It took several more minutes before I could fully stand at the bar.

The selection at Leelanau Wine Cellars is huge.  On this day, there were 49 different wines to choose from.  We had been here in the past, so we already had the pleasure of trying many of their wines.  The tough part was remembering what we had already tasted so we could enjoy something new.  Here were our final choices:

 Kathy’s selection:

• 2017 Bubbly Rosé
• Tall Ship Bubbly Rosé
• Great Lakes Red Bubbly
• 2017 Vintage Port (an estate wine)

John’s selections:

• 2013 Late Harvest Vidal
• 2018 Vignoles
• Raspberry Dessert Wine
• 2016 Apricot Pear Dessert Wine

Of the 3 bubblies that Kathy tried, we both agreed that we enjoyed the Great Lakes Bubbly the best.  I really enjoyed all of my choices, but my favorite was the Late Harvest Vidal.  We also both liked the Vintage Port, so when it came to taking home some bottles, our choices were easy – we took home one of each of our favorites.

Over the years, Kathy and I have bought at least 19 bottles of Leelanau Wine Cellars wine – at least, 19 bottles that I have recorded in our wine inventory.  I surmise many more bottles never made it to the list since I did not start keeping a list until 2018 and we had visited Leelanau
Wine Cellars at least once in 2017.  This also does not include the countless bottles Kathy has bought for our nieces as Christmas presents and the ports we have bought for my Dad.  In fact, Kathy bought me a bottle of their Winter White Peach Chill wine for Christmas this year, my favorite amongst all their wines.  So, to say that we like Leelanau Wine Cellars wine would be a gross understatement.  We have visited here at least 5 times, with all of our visits being memorable for one reason or another.  We have been there for three Toast the Season events.  We visited Leelanau Wine Cellars in August of 2018 when my daughter, Sarah, and her then boyfriend (now fiancée) Martin stopped in for tastings while vacationing in the area.  It happened to be a very warm day, so we spent as much time on the shore, sitting in Adirondack chairs and wading into the shallow waters just off the shore as we did inside at the wine tasting bar.  But we have not returned since the onset of COVID.  Lucky for us, we can find bottles of their wine at our local retail stores, but we really hope we get the chance to visit again very soon.

Be sure to visit the Leelanau Wine Cellars website for more information:     

https://lwc.wine/

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Small but Great

Silver Leaf Vineyard & Winery

Date Visited:  November 9, 2019

Stop:  #71

After the largess and crowdedness at Black Star Farms, Kathy, Randy, Christie, and I decided it would be good to hit something a little smaller and out of the way in an attempt to avoid the large crowds we were encountering closer to Traverse City.  We knew of the perfect place.  With that in mind, we hopped back on SW Bay Shore Drive (M-22) and headed north, through Suttons Bay, for about 6.6 miles, until we reached North Stallman Road.  We turned left, heading northwest, with North Stallman Road turning into East McKeese Road about 0.15 miles from M-22.  We then made a right hand turn onto North Peshawbestown Road, about 1.0 mile from M-22, and headed north for another 0.4 miles where we turned left onto East Silver Leaf Farm Road.  This road is a narrow dirt road, and as we approached the entrance to the winery, we saw some cars parked along the side of the road, nearly making the road impassable.  We figured this was overflow from the parking area and took that as a sign that the winery was busier than we had hoped, but we soon found out otherwise.  The entrance to the parking area is a short drive up a very steep hill.  Under normal weather conditions, not a big deal, but with the ice and snow covering the road, it was a treacherous, and for some, impossible task to drive up the hill.  Thankfully, we were in a four-wheel drive pickup truck, but even with that advantage, we still slipped and slid our way up the hill.  I could only imagine what it would be like to go DOWN that hill.

Once we were safely in the parking lot, there were plenty of places to park, so there was still a chance that we had escaped the crowd.  The tasting room at Silver Leaf is very quaint.  They are a far cry from the larger, more commercial wineries that populate the Leelanau Peninsula, and they are quite content with that.  Silver Leaf prides itself for its smallness - handcraft wines, which are small-batch fermented, oak mellowed, hand-bottled, hand-corked, and hand-labeled. But all of this just adds to the charm and allure of the place. 

Silver Leaf Vineyard and Winery was founded in 2005 by Mark & Patti Carlson, who had moved to the area from the suburbs of Chicago.  Mark had spent many summers in Northport while growing up, so he was familiar with the area.   Before the sale, the land had been used as an asparagus farm and then for horse boarding and riding.  The Carlson’s renovated an old horse barn and turned it into the winery building, and they planted 3,000 grapevines.  Silver Leaf Vineyards and Winery was on its way.

Fast forward 10 years to 2015, Silver Leaf Vineyard and Winery was sold to Danielle and Mark Lienau, the current owners.  Mark left his career as an automotive engineer in the Detroit area to take on the challenge of running a vineyard and winery.  Mark runs everything at the estate, including working the tasting room and tending to the 30 acres of land that comprise the estate.  He grows Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes, and buys other varieties of grapes from other vineyards in the area.  He contracts out many of his wines to other winemakers, but still makes some of his own.  During busy times of the year, like this particular weekend, he calls on friends and family to help out.  I assumed that either his parents or his wife’s parents were greeting everyone as they came in the door on this day, but we did not ask to verify if that was the case.  Normally I would do that, but the hustle and bustle of the day had me out of my game.

In any event, we were warmly greeted when we entered the quaint tasting room.  There was a table set up just inside the door where we got our tickets punched, got our wine sample (2016 Pinot Gris), and our paired food sample (a pair of mini-quiches – bacon & cheese, and Florentine).  The wine bar runs nearly three quarters the length of the south wall, and the north wall is dominated by windows and French Doors that lead to the outside deck, where, in nicer weather, you can sit outside with a beautiful view overlooking the vineyard.  The inside walls feature many works of art created by local artists, all for sale.  Mark keeps rotating new works throughout the year.  A really cool practice that adds to the charm of the tasting room.

Silver Leaf was a perfect anecdote for the chaos we encountered at our first three stops.  It was still busy, but far less people than our previous stops, so our strategy worked.  We found a table to stand at while we consumed our food and wine samples, and then gathered at the bar to get our two additional wine samples.  The wine list at Silver Leaf is shorter than most wineries in the area, but that did not matter to us.  On this day, there were 10 wines to choose from.  Below were our selections.

Kathy’s selection:

• Passion – Our house red blended with our award-winning cherry wine.  Notes of blackberry, raspberry, black currant, and cherry.  If you are a timid red wine taster, this product will convert you.  Serve at room temperature with hearty Italian dishes such as lasagna or red sauce pasta, or chilled as Sangria. 
• Chafia Cherry – Our multi-award and Gold Medal winner is a true cherry wine with a bright mouth feel and a “not too sweet” taste.  We couldn’t help but name this wine after what we affectionately refer to the “Cherry Mafia” of Leelanau County.  Enjoy with appetizers, as an after-dinner drink, or with your favorite ice cream.  GREAT with chocolate!

John’s selections:

• ‘17 Leelanau Late Harvest Riesling – This is a very versatile wine that pairs perfectly with spicy sausage & pungent cheeses such as Blue or Raclette, your favorite sweet & savory dishes, or desserts such as Crème Brûlée, apricot and peach desserts, cheesecake, or apple pie.
• Purple Foot – A true table wine specifically blended for pairing with food.  Made exclusively from Leelanau grapes, this wine is in search of savory, spicy, and even sour (think of brats and kraut) flavors to challenge it at the table or patio.  Subtle plum and fruit notes will present themselves when allowed to aerate as you are preparing your perfect match (limited production).

The Chafia Cherry was by far our favorite wine of the samples we tasted, and we would probably rate it in the top five of all cherry wines we have tasted so far.  We were also very enamored with the Passion.  The other wines were very good as well, but the two cherry wines were definitely our favorite.  We were in agreement that we would buy a bottle of the Chafia Cherry, but again, a check of our wine inventory showed we still had a bottle left at home.  We decided to hold off on buying more at this point, but of course, 2 full years later, we regret that decision.  At that time, we never thought, in a million years, that a worldwide pandemic would break out a few short months later and we would not make the trip back to Traverse City since.  We finally did drink that last bottle of Chafia Cherry in November 2020 – ironically, around the time of year that Taste the Season would have taken place had COVID not canceled the event for 2020.  We hope we will be able to return to Silver Leaf sometime soon.

We left the tasting room quite satisfied.  I took a couple of extra pictures of the vineyard and the charming little cottage that sits at the edge of the vineyard.  The cottage is available for renters, and reviews indicate that it is quite an awesome place to spend a romantic weekend.  I might have to add that to our bucket list.  For now, we just concentrated on getting down the hill without sliding into a ditch.  Fortunately, we did not have any problems, but we did have to wait a bit for another vehicle trying to negotiate the slick conditions.

Be sure to visit the Silver Leaf Vineyards and Winery on their Facebook site to get the latest news and happenings.     

https://www.facebook.com/Silver-Leaf-Vineyard-and-Winery-937183859672826/

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Farewell, Fieldstone

Fieldstone Winery

Date Visited:  January 25, 2020

Stop:  #95

I’m going to pause our Toast the Season Tour, call an audible, and jump ahead a couple of months to talk about one of our favorite local wineries – Fieldstone – located in downtown Rochester, Michigan.  I want to do this because Fieldstone will be closing their doors for good on January 24, 2022 as owner, Pat Mulrenin, has decided to retire, and Ryan (Pat’s son), will be shifting all of his focus to 3 North Vines Winery in Lexington.  Although we are sad to see such a wonderful place like Fieldstone leave the Rochester community, we are very happy for Pat as he enters into a new and exciting chapter in his life.

It’s interesting how you can live most of your life in a community, yet not know many things about it.  For instance, until we had taken an interest in Michigan wines, we never knew Fieldstone existed even though we had been in downtown Rochester hundreds of times.  It was one of those unexpected surprises that made us wonder “How did we not KNOW about this place before now?”  We have visited Fieldstone many times since, most recently on Wednesday, January 5, 2022 when Kathy, my son, David, and I stopped in to wish Pat congratulations on his retirement and, of course, to drink some fantastic wine.  We have bought gift certificates on several occasions – in fact, my “official” first visit to Fieldstone was in the weeks leading up to Christmas 2019 when I purchased a gift certificate for my wife as a stocking stuffer for Christmas.  But our first visit to drink wine took place on February 7, 2020, just a couple of short weeks before the COVID pandemic exploded.  This was also the first of many visits we have made to a Michigan winery with David’s girlfriend, Rebecca. 

This was a big weekend for us as we were meeting Rebecca for the first time.  Since she had never been to the area before, it seemed like a Michigan Wines and Signs tour was appropriate.  We focused on the local area, mostly Rochester and Sterling Heights, so I had chosen a route that would cover 8 historical markers and 3 wineries.  Our visit to Fieldstone was our fourth stop on the route.

Fieldstone is located in downtown Rochester, on Main Street, between 2^nd Street and 3^rd Street on the west side of Main.  It is nestled between Rochester Bistro and Main Street Billiards.  The interior is very cozy and intimate.  The bar is at the rear of the store, and there are several tables for sitting in the area from the front windows back to the bar.  Wine racks line the north wall, and the south wall has shelves full of wine related paraphernalia.  The interior is dominated with dark wood, which adds to the homey atmosphere of the tasting room.  The winery was founded by Pat and his brother, Steve, in 2003, continuing a wine-making tradition started by their grandfather.  Steve and Pat learned how to make wine from their uncle and decided to share their craft with the public by opening Fieldstone.  Steve and Pat both had full-time jobs at the time, but eventually, Pat quit his job to focus all his attention on the winery.  From their website, you will learn that Pat’s sons, Ryan and Kevin, work at the winery.  You’ll also read that Kevin is a special-needs person, so quitting his job allowed Pat to focus more of his attention not only on the winery, but also on Kevin and his needs.  Ryan has become the chief cider maker.  Fieldstone Hard Cider Company is the first cidery in Rochester and Ryan creates many varieties of small batch ciders, from dry to sweet, using local apples from Macomb and Oakland Counties.

On this particular day, because it was a sloppy winter mess outside, there were no other customers in the place, so we started at the bar and moved to a nearby table once we decided on our tastings.  Fieldstone has a wide variety of wines – on this particular day, 30 different wines and 8 different hard ciders.  Over our many visits, we have probably tried every wine and cider on the list, but on this day, being our first visit, it was hard to narrow it down to 4 tastings (four 2-ounce tastings for $8.00).  Below is where we all landed:

Kathy’s selections:

• Michigan Apple – Michigan Apples, bright apple flavor, smooth acidic structure, refreshing.
• Hot Spiced Apple – Warm apple pie right in your glass
• Espresso Royale – semi-dry – coffee infused from Lexington coffee w/ 3 North Vines.
• Cinilla – semi-dry – cinnamon and vanilla

John’s selections:

• Riesling Semi-Dry – delicate yet complex, fresh, crisp, medium acidity, floral, peach, apricot.
• Chocolate Orange – chocolate & orange combine with a big ruby port.
• White Cranberry Pinot – white cranberries have a classic taste without the tartness, bright, sweet.
• Red Ice – cabernet franc, sweet, currants, strawberry, rhubarb, cranberry.

David’s selections:

• Pinot Noir – ruby colored, medium bodied, fruit forward, soft tannins, subtle oak.
• Red Ice – cabernet franc, sweet, currants, strawberry, rhubarb, cranberry.
• Motor City Red 2017 – fruity nose with hints of cherry, chocolate subtle oak.
• Merlot Zinfandel – medium to full body, blackberry, black currants, cherry.

Rebecca’s selections:  I did not get a copy of what Rebs ordered, but I do know they were all red wines.  One of the things we learned about Rebs on this trip was that she really loves her dry red wines.

We truly enjoyed all of our selections.  Kathy raved about the Cinilla hard cider.  We all agreed that the Red Ice was our favorite.  As far as dry reds are concerned, the Pinot Noir was excellent.  When it came to selecting bottles to buy, we settled on a bottle of Red Ice and a bottle of Chocolate Cherry Port (our server was kind enough to let us try a free sample).

As I mentioned previously, we have returned to Fieldstone many times.  We have made a couple of spontaneous drop-ins, and some planned visits, each time enjoying the atmosphere, the wine, the ciders, and the company.  Kathy and I visited just before Christmas, 2021 because we were out and about and just wanted to have some wine close to home.  We each did a flight, and then to top the visit off, had a glass of warm Tradition Red mulled wine.  On a cold winter day, this was a perfect choice.  On at least one occasion, we dropped by for some wine before our dinner reservations at Rochester Bistro.  Our latest visit, mentioned earlier in this blog, we enjoyed a flight, and an additional glass of wine, and walked out with seven bottles of wine – three bottles of Pinot Noir, a bottle each of Moscato, Viognier, Motor City Red, and Raspberry Peach Meritage.  It will probably be our final visit to Fieldstone, so it was bittersweet.  But, we did have the pleasure of enjoying a nice conversation with Pat.

We congratulated Pat on his pending retirement, but told him we were sad to see Fieldstone close.  He explained it was a tough decision, but that it was time.  He wants to spend more time with his son, Kevin.  Ryan has become very involved with 3 North Vines, especially since they opened a second tasting room location in downtown Lexington – the former Lexington Brewing Company and Wine House (Blog #36) in the historic Old Town Hall and Masonic Temple (Blog #37) building.  Pat told us that he actually had purchased that building when Blue Water Winery decided to close and that he is leasing it to 3 North Vines.  The plan is to renovate the rest of the building, which includes a second and third floor (not currently being used).  It was fun to see an Instagram post a couple days ago showing the old staircase leading to the second floor, which hadn’t been seen in years.  Ryan will continue to make his ciders and 3 North Vines will carry them under the Fieldstone name.  So, at least a part of the legacy of Pat and Steve will live on.  The conversation with Pat was the perfect ending to our visit.  Thank you, Pat, and the Fieldstone staff over the years, for being such an important part of the Rochester community.  You will be truly missed.

Please be sure to stop by and visit Fieldstone while you can.  They just had their customer appreciation day on January 8, but there is still two more weeks to stop in, drink some wine, and hopefully buy a few bottles.  Be sure to congratulate Pat on his upcoming retirement!!

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