Parallel to France, winery clearly Michigan

When we took a mini-vacation to St. Petersburg, Fla., last year, the warm temperatures, incredible beaches and great food had Dan wondering, “Why don’t we live  here?”

Krista quickly brought us back to Earth: “Because we need jobs.”

Oh, right.

Dr. Steven Grossnickle doesn’t quite get to live in a favorite vacation spot, either, but he’s got the next best thing – he owns a winery there.

Steve’s an ophthalmologist in Warsaw and the proud owner of Forty-Five North Vineyard and Winery in Lake Leelanau, Mich., part of the booming Traverse City wine region. He and his wife bought the land three years ago, planted 37 acres of grapes and last year started selling their wines.

This wasn’t completely random. Steve’s family had been vacationing in the area since he was a boy in the 1960s, and in the early 1980s he and his wife bought a vacation home there. As the wine industry exploded around them, it made sense to open a winery of their own.

“A friend of mine up there is in realty, and he found a couple of parcels, but the deals fell through,” Steve said. “Then he called one day and said, ‘I found the perfect spot,’ and he really did.”

A lot of work and investment later – they brought in both a wine maker and a cellar master, plus other staff – Forty-Five North (www.fortyfivenorth.com) was born.

The first vintage, 2007, was a stunning success.

“It was almost embarrassing,” Steve said. “We got the ‘Best White Wine’ in the Pacific Rim tasting. It was double gold for our Riesling.”

Despite the accolades for the Riesling and other wines, the real star has been the pinot gris, Steve said.

“(Celebrity chef) Mario Batali walked in one day and said gruffly, ‘I don’t like Michigan wine,’ ” Steve said. “He walked out with four cases of pinot gris. He said it was the best he’d ever had.”

You’ll soon get a chance to find out for yourself – Wine Time, the wine store at Jefferson Pointe, will soon be carrying Forty-Five North’s pinot gris. We can’t wait to try it.

Steve said the winery got its name because it straddles the 45th Parallel, as does a more famous wine region – Bordeaux, France. And although northern Michigan can be a difficult climate for grapes, some varieties seem to thrive there.

“Reds grow pretty well, but the whites … ,” Steve said. “The pinot gris and the Riesling are just amazing.”

He said one expert told him there is a protein compound in the soil in the Traverse City area that makes those wines so good because it gives the wines an essence of sweetness even when they are bone dry. Wine experts would call that “terroir” – when the wine tastes like where it’s from. We can attest to the Traverse Bay terroir. We spent several days on the peninsulas there a few years ago, and the wines are distinctive. One of the most distinctive was the un-oaked chardonnay from Willow Vineyard, which tasted like the sand dunes the area is also famous for. We even talked about how great it would be to own a winery in the area ourselves.

Of course, opening a winery is more than just buying land and planting grapes. There is bureaucracy, permitting, buildings to construct, paperwork to file and regulations to wade through. Steve said the couple had bought a historic barn, moved it to the winery and had hoped to use it as a new tasting room, only to find out they won’t be able to. And making wine isn’t quite as simple as smooshing grapes and adding yeast.

“It’s been a new experience for me,” Steve said. “I had taken a lot of organic chemistry as an undergrad. It’s like a big organic chemistry experiment.”

Only, when you’re done, instead of having chemicals and a bunson burner to clean up, you have a delicious bottle of wine.

We know many of you travel north in the summer. This year, stop by Forty-Five North and get a taste of what your neighbors are up to.

“It’s really been a lot of fun,” Steve said. We bet it has.

Cheers!