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April is Michigan Wine Month: Woo hoo!
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For work-challenged, slowly imploding Michigan, every month is whine month. But only one gets to be wine month: April..jpg)
That’s because Governor Jennifer M. (not for mole) Granholm has magnanimously declared April ‘Michigan Wine Month’ in a gesture she repeats with equal magnanimity every April.
This year, however, it can be viewed as a nod to one of the few industries in Michigan that is actually doing well. Sales of Michigan wine increased by 5% in 2008, possibly because everyone is home drinking since nobody is able to find a bank willing to loan them money to buy a car to drive to a job if they had one, which they don’t.
Or, stated more eloquently by Ms. Granholm: “With eight new wineries slated to open this year, Michigan’s grape and .jpg)
wine industry demonstrates that our state is ripe for growth and opportunity. Michigan’s wine industry is an important component of the state’s $71.3 billion agri-food business sector and is vital to our tourism efforts.”
wine industry demonstrates that our state is ripe for growth and opportunity. Michigan’s wine industry is an important component of the state’s $71.3 billion agri-food business sector and is vital to our tourism efforts.”Which may be translated as, “Thank God they’re not asking me about Chrysler.”
Personally, I like a lot Michigan wines, love a few of them, but really go bananas over the spunk shown by the winemakers themselves, whose efforts on this chilly, isolated peninsula have thus far been a lot more guts than glory. .jpg)
Michigan perches at the extreme edge of the world’s grape growing zones, and the winemakers who stake their claim here have pushed the enologist envelope nearly to its limit. Some are dreamers with more dollars than sense; some are fanatics willing to take a hit in the pocketbook in order call themselves winemakers, but the majority are hardscrabble agriculturists with a true love of challenge—not much different than the Westward Ho! pioneers of centuries past.
As like those indurate settlers of yesteryear, Michigan’s breed of winemaker tends to be eccentric, focused, determined—and hella fun to be around.
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Michigan currently boasts 64 wineries, nearly all in picturesque and day trip-worthy locations. As a band of brothers and sisters, the winemakers continue to plow through evil harvests, foreclosures, erratic winters and idiotic laws made by idiotic lawmakers up in Lansing—the block that Jenny’s from. Now, with Michigan’s industrial and manufacturing economy gone down the toilet, it’s satisfying to see a few of these weary pioneers actually beginning to grow their businesses and presumably, turning a little profit.Meanwhile, I crunched some numbers for them and estimate that to re-tool the entire Ford Rouge River Complex into a corking, bottling and labeling plant dedicated to nothing but Michigan wine will run in the neighborhood of $300 million, which would raise the price of a bottle of 2008 Sandhill .jpg)
Crane Riesling to around four hundred thousand dollars (the Reserve is slightly higher), effectively beyond the range of the average consumer.
Crane Riesling to around four hundred thousand dollars (the Reserve is slightly higher), effectively beyond the range of the average consumer. Still—a word to the wise—a UAW spokesman who asked not to be identified thumbs-upped the plan and offered substantial retirement and benefit concessions in exchange for maintained market share, base wage guarantees and a monogrammed Pockete corkscrew.
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