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 2nd Street and 3rd 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
- 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.
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