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10/01/2006Region's vineyards are boomingState sales are up 80 percent over last 8 years
Maxine and Dan Adair of Warren sample wine at Leelanau Wine Cellars in Omena. This was the couple’s fourth visit to northwest Lower Michigan and their third time touring the region’s vineyards. OMENA — Shawn Walters started in the wine industry as a "cellar rat" more than a decade ago. Now he's responsible for crafting some of Michigan's most popular wines. Walters works at Leelanau Cellars in Omena and he'll be hard at work this month; grape harvest will find him toiling seven days a week, up to 16 hours a day. The effort is needed to meet a growing demand for the Leelanau County winery's product, part of a continuing surge both in vineyard acreage and wine production across the state. "It can be smooth, or it can be very difficult," Walters said of the harvest that in some areas began last week. Nowhere is the growth of the region's wine industry more evident than at Leelanau Cellars. The 31-year-old winery will open a new tasting room this fall in the former Harbor Bar along M-22 in Omena, and it planted almost 40 acres of new vineyards along M-204 between Suttons Bay and Lake Leelanau. This winter Leelanau Cellars will move its wine-making operations into a former cherry processing plant north of Omena, and it's become the second-largest wine producer in Michigan. Walters said the company expects to sell 85,000 cases of wine this year, up more than 40 percent from last year and more than double what was sold two years ago. Better than 1,000 acres of vineyards dot Leelanau and Grand Traverse counties, according to local agriculture officials. That figure increased about 30 percent in the last three years, but it's nowhere near the saturation point. Leelanau County extension director James Bardenhagen said demand for vineyard land remains strong on both the Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas. "We ain't seen nothing yet. We could be a little Napa Valley before long," Bardenhagen said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is completing an inventory this fall of vineyard acreage across Michigan, and officials anticipate a significant increase from the 1,300 acres recorded in the last survey in 2003. "We expect as much as a 20 percent increase of vineyard acreage in the state," said Linda Jones, head of the Michigan Grape & Wine Industry Council in the state agriculture department. Most vineyards are located in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties or in Berrien and Van Buren counties in southwest Michigan. New vineyards are spreading into other northwest areas, including Benzie and Emmet counties, as more agricultural land is shifted toward grape production. Based on current trends, the council estimates Michigan could get to 10,000 acres of grapes by 2020. Sales of Michigan wines are on the upswing, too. Data from the Michigan Liquor Control Commission said sales of Michigan-made wine within the state grew to 282,000 cases in 2004, an increase of more than 80 percent over the previous eight years. Michigan-made wines account for four percent of all wine sales in the state. "Michigan's wine market share is growing in the overall market," Jones said. Folks like Dan and Kim Dempsey of St. Clair Shores help fuel the growth of Michigan's wine industry. They've toured the state's wine country for three consecutive fall seasons, and said they enjoy it more every year. "We don't take a summer vacation," Kim Dempsey said outside a wine tasting room in Omena last week. "We go south in the winter and take a fall trip up here." The quality of the wine is a major attraction, they said, but they also enjoy the region's fall colors and scenery. "It's just kind of laid back ... we can hop and skip around and see whatever we want to see," Dan said. "We couldn't wait to get back this year." The Dempseys will have even more choices soon. The state approved four new wineries in Michigan this year and approval for a fifth is pending, Jones said. Michigan has nearly 50 wineries, more than double the number of a decade ago, though it still lags behind other states, including Washington, Oregon and Ohio, in terms of winery growth. See related story:
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