It’s been a while since we’ve posted and boy, have we been busy!! Since our last post, we started construction on our new tasting room, planted 1,100 new white cold hardy grapevines (LaCrescent and Frontenac Gris), tended to the other 2,800 older grapevines, got our official small winemaker license and are now starting to bottle the wines that we’ll have available when we open the tasting room in early to mid October! Needless to say, it’s been a crazy 9 or 10 months!

If you’ve passed by our tasting room location on US 131 N between Petoskey and Walloon Lake Village recently, you have probably noticed our new sign and driveway. We’re working hard to wrap this construction up and anxious to meet everyone who happens to walk through the door to visit us! We’ll keep updating the website, Facebook and Instagram as we get closer to our opening date – hope to see you soon!!

Progress Photos:

Our first Tip of the Mitt Marquette harvest on September 29th was a success!! Thanks to all that came out on a cool, damp Saturday morning to help!! Although it will end up being a small batch, we are so thrilled to be able to bottle and offer an estate-grown wine when we open our tasting room next fall. I’ve included a few pictures from harvest and initial processing of the wine below.

We’re now starting prep work for our plantings next Spring…the vineyard work never stops!! Excited to be planting a few cold-hardy white varieties like La Crescent and Itasca. Tasting room design is almost complete and we’re hoping to break ground before the end of the year – Boyne Valley Vineyards is slowly becoming a reality!!!

Marquette cluster before harvest

1st lug full of harvested Marquette grapes

Macro bins full of harvested Marquette grapes

Marquette grape must after crushing/destemming and fermentation

Pressing Marquette grapes after 1 week of fermentation