The U.P. isn't letting online money pass it by

There is a small variety of different wineries that exist in the U.P. They are very much the same and very different at the same time. They offer genuine hospitality. They have great wines. They've won various awards in various categories. They have websites. They sell across the U.P. And each one has a unique story behind their wine.

If you're a traveler or a local, if you like traditional wines or something different, here are three of the Upper Peninsula's wineries, all willing to open their doors--and their wine--to those willing to stop by. Some might even find just what they're looking for--the life, love, and taste of exquisite wine.

The Mackinaw Trail Winery
The keystone to the Mackinaw Trail Winery is vintner Raffaele Stabile. Stabile grew up in Detroit before moving to the U.P. in 1979. He took his family's wine-making traditions with him and turned it into a thriving business.

The Italian-American entrepreneur first began making wine professionally in a pole barn in 2004, in Iron Mountain. The following year he sold more than 1,000 cases and moved to Manistique with his operation. Last year he sold nearly 7,000 cases and is expecting an increase in sales this year. Stabile has approximately 36 barrels in cooperage in his current location in Manistique. His winery currently has three tasting rooms, located in Manistique, Mackinaw City, and Petoskey. His expansions include another building for storing.

He only uses "old world" grapes--also termed viniferous--for his wine-making process. His barrels are predominately French oak and age for 12 to 24 months. He frequently finishes with top awards every year. His wine selection includes red wines, white wines, fruit wines and dessert wines. The mixed red table wine "Big Red" is one of the more widely-spread wines, found in plenty of U.P. stores, but there also are standouts like the silver-medal winners White Ibis semisweet white wine, and his 2008 late harvest Chardonnay.

Stabile willingly shares ideas and forms of processing. "Enriching life with exceptional wine," is his mission, Stabile says. He considers his family's tradition to be a form of art.

Garden Bay Winery
John Lucas and Gloria Anderson consider Burt Chandler to be the heart of their operations for Garden Bay Winery, located in Garden. Their vintner has more than 14 years of experience and is continuously looking to expand his knowledge through books and associates like Stabile. In fact, they don't think of Stabile as competition. Instead, he is considered to be a colleague.

The grapes they use are primarily hybrids from American and French grapes. They also grow raspberries, blueberries and other berries on 260 acres near the old Garden Golf Course, which Lucas originally developed. They have produced several varieties of wine including sweet berry wines and fruit wines. Their top-selling wines include an award winning raspberry wine, which was awarded a gold medal at the 2011 Finger Lakes International Wine Competition, and Northern Lights Out, a delicious blackberry wine.

Their berries aren't just for wine-making either. They have jams and fudge made from the same berries that they have been selling since they opened their business three years ago. Everything they make is done with Michigan fruit. "Our motto is: Made with a lot of berries and a lot of love," Lucas says.

Demand for their products has grown over the years, prompting them to open a new tasting room in Munising. They plan on incorporating artwork for making their wines gift-oriented as a complement for tourists who visit the area to see the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, among others.

Threefold Vine Winery
The Threefold Vine Winery, which is derived from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, isn't just a vineyard, and the whole family participates in daily farm life in Garden.

Fourth-generation U.P. native Andrew Green has always been a farmer, with a beef cattle operation, an orchard of peaches, cherries, plums and apples, and fields of wheat, oats, and barley.

In the spring of 2002 he took four acres and decided it was time for grapes to be grown in the U.P.

"No grapes had been grown here before, and I liked that challenge," Green says.

The majority--99 percent--of all their grapes originally came directly from cuttings gathered from around the U.S. and some from Canada. Now they are the only vineyard in the U.P. to grow their own.

As traditional as their family values are, their wine-making is not. He and his wife, Janice, first tried wine-making during their first year of marriage when they made dandelion wine. When they decided to go into the wine-making business, the Greens didn't take any courses. They experimented with numerous recipes and gradually worked up to 70 different varieties of grapes. Trusting their farmers' instincts led to them making their own unique brands of wine. And every year they practically sell out their entire unique stock, with several instances of tripling their sales since Threefold Vine began making wine.

The Green family also cultivates bees on their farm, which produce honey for their mead, sometimes called honey wine. They sell up to 12 cases of the fermented, alcoholic honey drink every year to Mayfaire Renaissance Festival organizers to be sold during their festivities on the Calhoun County fairgrounds in downstate Marshall.

Wineries may be a fairly new industry in the Upper Peninsula, but the talent and dedication of those creating new varieties of intoxicating wines, is not. They all continue to ply their trade and fine-tune their growing list of successful recipes. As the awards stack up, and the interest grows, wine connoisseurs will do well to seek out the growing enterprises that started here.

Azrael D. Morherudaen is a freelance writer who recently returned to Upper Michigan. He is a Texas hold-em enthusiast that enjoys spending time with his wife. You can contact him via email.

Shawn Malone is managing photographer and can be reached via email.

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