Wine made in Saline ... ... but fruit comes from around the world

John Olsen's days of winemaking and selling in Saline are a far cry from his previous career.

Olsen used to travel around the world on a regular basis working in the computer industry. "I was missing a lot of my family's lives. I wanted something closer to home,'' he said.

Olsen and his wife opened The Spotted Dog Winery out of an historic storefront in downtown Saline at 108 E. Michigan Ave., where they ship in juice from vineyards around the world and ferment it into about 40 different wines on site. The winery offers tastings and creates wines on commission, allowing customers to purchase cases of custom-made and custom-labeled varieties.

Why he likes this: "I love to make things. We like wine, it allows me to be a mad chemist and (be) creative and everything all at once.''

On finding new ideas for wines: "We like to try different wines as we travel around the country, see what everyone else is doing, see what things taste like, see if we can glean ideas from other people. And it's kind of like an artist. You're constantly honing your skills and your talent.''

On wine amateurs and wine snobs: "Most of the people that come in here want to learn about wine. They want to have fun with wine, they want to enjoy wine. And you know, we don't stand on a lot of pretense here and we find most of our customers don't either. We want people to learn to experiment and explore and find something they may not have tried before.''

On how business is going: "I've often heard people say to me, 'Your business must be great because, you know, nobody ever stops drinking and if it gets bad, they drink more.' But they also drink cheap. ... The point is, we're just as at risk as anyone else.''

How's the business adapted: "We try to have events to bring people down here, let them have some fun, which I think everybody needs in this economy. And in the end, we hope to get some business from it, too.''