Northern Michigan, Day 1

Julie and I are on vacation in the northern part of Michigan. To be precise, we're staying a couple days in Traverse City. Now, this area is known for a few things. A lot of water, massive tourism, a Cherry Festival, and, important to us, a lot of Michigan's best wine. As it turns out, our trip is largely centered around tasting wine. And taste we have. Yesterday, we went up Old Mission Peninsula, a strip of land maybe 15 miles long and probably no more than a mile wide. On the peninsula, there are probably 8-10 wineries. We visited five. This trip is a real way of seeing just how variable wines of a small region are, and just as important, how their producers approach not only making, but also selling, wine. So, here's a run down of the day's wineries:

1. Brys Estate: Their tasting room, rather pretentious, was peopled with a sort of "faux friendly" staff who either didn't know all that much about wine, or didn't want to talk about it. Their wines were a mixed bag--some good, some OK, and a few not so much. Unfortunately, they charge for tastings, and make you pick from among their wines to taste, so we didn't get to try nearly all of their wines. Here are some impressions:
2008 Pinot Blanc: A good example of p.b. from Michigan. Floral and mineral notes, some apple, quite charming.
2008 Pinot Grigio: Decent acid, moderate fruit, a rather bizarre finish that was a bit "salty" in nature.
2007 Rose of Pinot Noir: Decent minerality and creamy raspberry notes, the wine drank rather hot, especially toward the finish.
2007 Dry Riesling: One of their best efforts, petrol on the nose, tons of acid, lemony notes. Probably the best of their wines.
2007 Pinot Noir Reserve: A lot of oak, some fruit, decent peppery earth tones. Too oaky for my tastes.
2007 Late Harvest Riesling: One of the least impressive rieslings we tasted, for what it was supposed to be. This should have been comparable to an Auslese or so, I figure. Well, to its credit, it had decent acit, but it was just plain thin, without the fruit that should have been there to credit it as a late harvest. I got the sense they picked before they really should have, based on what they were trying to do.

2. Two Lads: One of the newest and smallest producers on Old Mission, they only had three wines to taste. But the winery is an ultra-modern, somewhat "green" facility. Their staff was mostly family, and they genuinely cared about the place and their wine. That showed through not only in the experience iwth them, but in the wines. That said, all of their wines are a bit "over-produced" in my view. They were talking about how their wines were "only" 13.5 or 14% alcohol. Personally, I don't want my pinot gris or rose to be at those sorts of alcohol levels, especially from Michigan, and I honestly don't quite know how they got the fruit so danged ripe. The run-down:
2008 Pinot Grigio: Well made, but I really wasn't sure I wasn't drinking a sauvignon blanc when I first tasted it. It was herbal, grassy, gooseberries, even a bit of cat pee (in a good way, believe it or not).
2008 Rose of Cabernet Franc: This isn't your granny's white zin, nor is it as subtle as many fo the beautiful french roses. The cab franc tobacco, and even tar, came through, along with orange notes. A bit big by my standards, rather alcoholic.
2007 Cabernet Franc: Big, tannic, I thought a tad overmade. Lots of oak.

3. Bowers Harbor: The best, most enjoyable winery of the day. Quite large operation, with a slightly rustic appearing tasting room. The staff was uber-friendly, quite knowledgeable of their products and processes, very willing to share information and passion with folks tasting. First free tasting, too. These guys make especially great rieslings, of a most impressive stature. The rundown:
2008 Block II dry riesling: Tons of petrol on the nose, minerals, crisp acidity, tons of complexity, a lot going on. I can see why it won a lot of awards already, and is promising for 2008 rieslings up here.
2006 Montana Rusa Riesling: Also some petrol, more well settled and rounded out than the newer vintages due to age, fruit not as big as the acid.
2006 Pinot Noir: Too much oak, some sour cherry notes. 06 wasn't a great year for reds up here, and the oak didn't help. Their weakest wine.
2005 Cabernet Franc, Erica Vineyard: Classic tobacco and tar of cab franc, well made, impressive already, could age.
2006 2896, Langley Vineyard: Blend of cab franc, merlot, and cab sauvignon. The cab sauv is amazing to me, as i didn't think it'd ripen well up here. Lots of chewy tannin, minerality, fruit, decent balance, will need age.
2005 Block II off-dry riesling: Great balance of acid and sweetness, lots of citrus notes. SHould age some still.
2007 Riesling Langley, off-dry: Floral notes pronounced, not as acidic as some others, probably too much fruit relativ to acid levels.
2006 Gewurztraminer Icewine: One amazing wine. Lychee, trop fruits, huge long finish, plenty of acid to cut the fruit and floral notes. Should age well. Not sure it's worth the huge price tag, though.
Blanc de Blancs Sparkling wine: 80% chardonnay, 20% pinot gris. Nice if not stellar sparkling, a lot of acid, toasty notes, some nuttiness. Well made.
Cherritage: A cherry wine, 2:1 ratio of tart to sweet cherries. More appealing than I expected, not that sweet, pleasant.

4. Chateau Grand Traverse: The mass-market NoMI winery. Staff not terribly knowledgeable, lots of visitors, little attention or discussion. Not worht the visit, in my opinion. Almost none of the wines were worth writing much about, and were rather unimpressive. But I will note three interesting wines. Surprisingly, their reds were really good news, particularly when they didn't "try too hard".
2007 Gamay Noir "Limited": I really doubt there was much limited about it, but it's an honest fruit-driven gamay with classic fruit notes and some pepper hints. Could've been a simple beaujolais.
2006 Pinot noir: Not bad, almost all fruit driven, some oak for balance and complexity.
2006 Gamay Reserve: This was one of the most disturbing wines on the list. They managed to make it both sweet-fruity and overoaked, all at once. Truly bizarre experience, and not at all pleasing.

5. Peninsula Cellars: Tasting room in an old one-room schoolhouse, great staff, friendly, moderately knowledgeable. Awesome tasting room, fun quotes and themes, reflected a lot of effort. Again, no tasting fee.
2007 Pinot Blanc: Floral, acid, pear and apple. Not bad, not great. A bit too floral for my tastes.
2006 Chardonnay: An amazing amount of acid, not so much on the fruit.
2006 Gewurztraminer: Petrol, some lychee, reserved
2006 Manigold Gewurz: Tons of expressive floral notes. Too much so for my liking.
2006 Dry Riesling: Lime and floral notes, strong acid.
2006 Semi-dry Riesling: More complexity than above, lot of floral notes, some apricot.
2007 Pinot Gris: peachy, very long minerally finish. NOt what I would expect for a P.G.
2006 Pinot Noir: Good balance of fruit and oak. Well done.
2006 Select Riesling: An auslese style that was made well. Complex, apricot, peach, sweetnees balanced with good acid. Their highlight!
NV "Homework" rose of pinot noir. Sweet, cloying, not so desirable
2005 Cabernet Franc: Has honest cab franc notes of herbs, tobacco, cherry fruit, not hugely complex, but good.
2005 Cabernet Franc Reserve: Much more complex than above, a bit overdone, perhaps, needs age still, oak, smoke, minerality. Interesting.

In all, good wines and wineries, not too many disappointments, a lot of nice people.

We went for dinner at Amical, a french bistro downtown Traverse City. I'd rate this as a very good, solid restaurant, with a few "issues". The good: Nice, friendly, moderately knowledgable staff. Fun atmosphere with eclectic art. Creative menu that reflects effort and thought. The not so good: The wine list was rather unusual, and not in a particularly complimentary light. It was a strange mix of good and bad, New and Old World, Michigan wines, and it was unclear how they fit together for coherence. My real beef, though, was with the "by the glass" list--which to their credit was pretty extensive. Not so good--they didn't list vintages. Now, if you have drunk much wine, you know--vintage matters. So, list it, dammit!

Specific food: We started with soup--Julie had a tomato soup iwth a bread crust over it. Amazingly good, and a HUGE crock of soup--too much food, but tasty as can be. I had an Asian chicken soup with cabbage and mushrooms--the cup was a great appetizer side, and pretty tasty. Not great, though. Entrees: I had a lamb shank braised in beer with a honey-beer reduction sauce and herbs de Provence. Very tasty, perhaps a bit too sweet. Pairedw ith a 2006 Bastide Cote du Rhone. Not a bad wine, good pairing. Julie had a veal puttanseca with spaetzle. Good taste, the puttanesca was awesome. The veal was overcooked, though, and the spaetzle was a weird pairing with the dish. IN all, a good restaurant, and a place I'd recommend, if not in the most glowing terms possible. Solid place.

Vegetarian Restaurant

Tonight was the start of "restaurant week" in Ann Arbor, and we decided to try out Seva, a veggie restaurant here in town. Now, typically, I find vegetarianism annoying and generally unpleasant, but I do think that some veggie cooking can be good, and this restaurant had a really innovative, well-aged wine list on their website. With a 3 course meal on a 2 for 1 deal with $25, this seemed a good idea. Well... the results were mixed, in my view.

The food itself was decent, even good. My spring roll was tasty, and Julie's cheese with honey and pistachios was downright amazing. We both had cheese-stuffed ravioli as our main, with a side salad of carrot and apple. The salad was good, with a nice ginger taste. The ravioli was OK, but rather lacking in flavor--it would've been amazing with a bit of pancetta on there. Both the sorbet and vanilla ice cream were a nice finish. So, decent points for food. Good, not great. And, the wine we ended up with, a 2002 Selbach-Oster Spatlese Riesling was well-aged, nicely made, and showing well. And, it was at a great price--only a couple bucks over retail. Indeed, the wine list attracted me to this restaurant more than anyting else--a bunch of older (5-20 year old) wines at really good prices.

Now, the problems begin. When we arrived, they had my name wrong on the reservation. Now, how hard is to spell "Lake"? OK, we figured that out. Then, I look at the menus, and they didn't bring out a wine list, only had the drink menu with "by the glass" wines. I asked the waitress for the wine list, which led her to point out the few "by the glass" wines. Now, this was not her fault in the least--she just had not been trained well enough to know this wine list existed. Bad restaurant management. Then, she finds it, brings it out, with a warning--the list may be a bit out of date, and they may not have everything. OK, that's horrible management--keep your damned menu up to date. So, we pick a bottle, which they don't have, but to the credit of the waitress, she suggests a different riesling (she called it a Weingut, which is equivalent to "Domaine" on a French wine, so again, crappy training) from the menu (but it was a 2006, a vintage I find lacking in complexity). Fortunately, there were 3 other rieslings on the "reserve" list, so I suggested they try that. Meanwhile, our apps hvae arrived. Now, the manager comes over with the two rieslings they could find--one of which was the spatlese we chose. Bizarrely, the wine goes back to the back for another five minutes until the waitress comes back with it and glasses. Again, just weird. Now, at the end of dinner, we had some wine left in the bottle--not a lot, not enough to take home, not enough to even get a mild buzz. So, I asked our waitress, who was a wonderfully friendly, attentive person, if she'd be interested in trying the wine, as I figured these probably didn't get opened real often. Knowledgeable staff would, presumably, make for a better sales staff, right? She was very interested, appreciative, but went to ask if it was OK. Apparently, this was seriously against the rules, and staff simply couldn't taste wine at work. So, what's the moral of the story? Great people working the floor, good food. And, at least tonight, the ability to show a complete lack of ability to manage a restaurant successfully. These guys advertise online a serious, aged, great value wine list. But they don't bother to do what they need to keep up the inventory, maintain an accurate list, or train their staff in what that wine is, or, for that matter, even anything about its existence. It's really a disappointment. I also am a bit amused at some of the list--there are 10 year old barolo, barbaresco, cabs, even a 20+ year old bordeaux. These are serious, great wines, and they're BIG. They go exceptionally beautifully with meat. I don't know that anything in the vegetarian menu works with that sort of wine. So, again, I'm not convinced that the management has thought through their list with their menu in mind, but my mind is open, and I'm impressed by the list still.

Salmon and Rose

I am a fan of good fish, but finding it here in Michigan is not so easy. Busch's, our local grocery chain, usually has salmon and other fish, but alot of it is "fresh," meaning it is, in fact, often rather fishy and stinky by the time we get to enjoy it. So, paradoxically, the best fish is often that which has been vacuum-packed and flash frozen right on the fishing boat. Such was what we found this week--it was a side of wild-caught Pacific salmon--with beautiful color, still frozen and vac-packed. I broke it dow to four filet portions, and cooked up two, simply seasoned with salt and pepper. With some orzo and on a bed of sauteed spinach, and a squeeze of lemon juice, it was quite tasty. No fishy flavors, good classic oily salmon taste. Yum!

Best of all, though, we paired it with a Sancerre Rose wine. Now, a lot of people think of white zinfandel when they think of pink wines. Well, what a disservice to the beautiful old world roses! This, made from pinot noir, is a mix of strawberry, cherry fruit, with some floral notes, with a stark minerality and strong acid notes. It is an amazingly complex, fully dry, tasty wine. In no way is it the sickly sweet, nasty white zin we think of. So, don't fear the pink!