Our Vine to Wine Journey
Our vineyard story began, simply enough, with a brainstorming session written on the back of a cocktail napkin sitting in the kitchen of our Boyne City, Michigan home in 2015. We had a desire to set down some more permanent roots in Northwest Michigan with the creation of a sustainable business for our family. Farming seemed like the perfect fit, although we had no idea what exactly we wanted to grow. But after some research and talking to a few local growers, we ordered our first shipment of cold-hardy grape vines (bred specifically to withstand and thrive in cold Michigan winters) and the vineyard began to take shape.
Over the next few years, we added to our vine count (now totaling close to 2,800 vines) learning the art of cultivating these grape vines as we went. Our focus was and continues to be on growing cold-hardy grape varieties locally, eventually producing our own estate-grown vintages and continuing to spread the word about these notable, although lesser known, varieties.
We plan to open a wine tasting room to join the ranks of the best Michigan wineries, sharing the literal “fruit of our labor” just south of Petoskey, Michigan in the Fall of 2019. We will continue to update our blog to share our experiences as we prepare for construction of the tasting room, the harvest of our first crop and production of our first vintage. Please join us in, what should be, an exciting vine to wine journey!!