Dr. Duke Elsner, Agricultural Agent (specializing in viticulture & wine education) from the MSUE-Grand Traverse Office will provide classroom and field-based instruction on the following topics related to table and wine grapes: variety selection; site requirements; basic vine structure and growth; planting and early care; basic trellising; vine training and pruning; and pest management.

The cost of the workshop is $5 per person. Informational bulletins related to growing grapes will be available for an additional fee. Advanced registration is recommended. To register, call 256-8323, or download a registration form from www.msue.msu.edu/leelanau. ‘

The event is part of the 2010 "Green Garden" program, a series of spring programs focusing on environmentally sustainable gardening practices. For more information about other programs offered in the Green Garden series, visit the above website, or contact Pam Schmidt, Leelanau County Home Horticulturalist at 231/256-8323.

Photo credit: Vineyard Grapes by troyryans/2155928176/

From 5:30-7:30pm the public is invited to a wine tasting for $7/person at the Traverse City Opera House. Cheeses, breads, crackers, and fruits will accompany the featured wines of the Leelanau & Old Mission Peninsulas. An abbreviated “State of the State” will be offered at 6:30pm.

A fun atmosphere will feature games, trivia, door prizes, and small silent auction to benefit the Michigan Wine Foundation. Many local restaurants will offer special discounts on Monday evening to patrons with a NoMiWi ticket!

Get all the details at

Many small, boutique wineries are family-run. When visiting a wine tasting room consider yourself a guest. The owners and staff are proud of their facility and want everyone to enjoy their visit. Expectations in wine tasting rooms are different than at wine festivals or in busy bars. After visiting 450 wineries in the last three years and talking with numerous wine hosts and visitors, we have created a selection of ideas to keep in mind when visiting a winery tasting room. Simple rules of etiquette can help to make the experience enjoyable for all.

The atmosphere in a winery tasting room is one of a subtle sophistication. While shorts and athletic shoes are acceptable so are semi-dress clothes. Do not wear perfume or cologne the day you are visiting winery tasting rooms. The smell will interfere with a wine's aroma, not only for you, but also for those near you.

In the sophistication of a winery tasting room, loud outside voices are not appropriate. Conversational tones are perfect and fit in well with talking about the wines you taste and meeting other wine enthusiasts who have common interests. Do take the time to talk to other visitors. It is interesting to meet others with a passion for wine. Some visitors are new to wine. Never belittle someone for what they think about a wine. Don't act or sound like a wine snob. There are always those who know less and more about wine than you.

If you appear drunk, the tasting room attendant is not permitted, by law, to serve you even if it is a tasting. Drunken behavior has no place in the atmosphere of the tasting room. Wineries deal with this behavior in different ways, most often you will be asked to leave.

asting rooms can be crowded on weekends. Weekdays are generally slower and wine hosts have more time to talk about the wines you taste. In either case, if the tasting room is busy, do not elbow your way to the tasting bar. If the tasting room is busy, consider stepping back to discuss your wine and enjoy the tasting with other like-minded people. This gives others room to step up for a tasting. On busy days, some wineries will set up tasting tables or bars outside the tasting room. Give yourself plenty of time at a winery. Relax and enjoy the wine tasting and the ambiance of the tasting room. Many wineries have gift selections to browse while tasting wines. Take your time tasting and browse the shelves…

Read the rest and if you have any suggestions (or questions) regarding tasting room etiquette, please post them below!

Photo: Willow Vineyard Tasting Room by KARUNAPHOTO

Picture driving back roads through the hills of the Leelanau Peninsula in a bright red, souped-up Dodge Charger for three days, with weather more beautiful than anyone has a right to expect in mid-November, bouncing from winery to winery and tasting some of the very best wines the appellation has to offer, and you’ll get some idea of what our adventure in northern Michigan was like last month.

Click through to Gang of Pour to read their tasting notes and perceptions about the wines and the region. To check out the videos, start with the one below and then use the related ones at the end or click to gang of pour on YouTube!
Photo by Kim Adams: David Rusnell,Claudia Tyagi, George Heritier & Charlie Edson at Bel Lago.

Taber's purpose in writing this book may be best described by Francis Ford Coppola, the film director and owner of Napa Valley winery Rubicon Estate.

"It's like meeting a politician and shaking his hand," Coppola says. "You always feel later that you have a personal relationship with him. If you've been to a winery and walked through the vineyard, you feel it's yours and you order its wines."

Read some of Taber's writings at travel4wine.com (click through and let him know that Leelanau is a wine touring destination as well!) and at his web site and definitely consider an off-season visit to our wineries and tasting rooms. There's great lodging deals at area B&Bs and lodging establishments and Leelanau shops and specialty food & wine stores offer great holiday shopping!

At just $15 for a lifetime membership, you can’t beat the price for this unique gift for the Michigan wine lovers on your list. Vintage Michigan members receive discounts on their purchase of Michigan wines at wineries, retailers and restaurants throughout the state. They also receive a quality Michigan Wines corkscrew or Michigan bottle stopper as their free gift when you sign them up.

Want to be more creative? Put together a Michigan wine-themed basket, with a bottle or two of your favorite Michigan wines, a couple of glasses and a Vintage Michigan membership tucked in.

Visit www.michiganwines.com for more information about the Vintage Michigan club and to purchase a membership online, or contact the Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council at (517) 241-4468.

Photo credit: Heightened Senses [Dennis]

I always like Riesling with turkey, although with poultry Chardonnay would be beautiful. You have a lot of versatility and a lot of possibility with turkey. You could use a white wine or an aromatic wine. Those tend to go well with turkey, too.

Click through to read the rest and you might also want to try this recipe for roasting your turkey with white wine & rosemary.

Photo: Ciccone by Kiran Bhat

*Wikipedia's Sommelier entry explains that a sommelier is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional who specializes in all aspects of wine service. Since the Master Sommelier Diploma was introduced in 1969, 171 people from around the world had become Master Sommeliers by 2009. Of these there were 74 active Master Sommeliers in the Americas.

Claudia is one of three in the state of Michigan, and her observations can be found at twitter.com/Winegenie.

The top sparkler at the 2008 Michigan Wine & Spirits Competition was made by Bel Lago Vineyard & Winery, near Cedar. Their semi-dry “Brillanté” is made primarily from cayuga grapes and garnered a Double Gold award at the competition. It also received a Concordance Gold at the Indy International Wine Competition, one of the largest international wine competitions in the country.

Chateau Chantal, on Old Mission Peninsula, won a Gold medal for their sparkler “Tonight” at the Michigan competition. Riesling is the predominant grape, which lends an appealing aromatic quality to this brut bubbly.

Larry Mawby at L. Mawby Vineyards in Suttons Bay is Michigan's most well-known maker of sparkling wines. He has a style for nearly every taste. “Consort” is a semi-dry sparkler that received a Gold medal at the Michigan competition. It’s made primarily from chardonnay grapes that are hand-picked and carefully whole-cluster pressed. Larry also makes an extra-dry sparkler called “Conservancy” that benefits the Leelanau Conservancy.

Then there's the fun stuff … sparkling wines with a twist. Topping the list of the most popular holiday bubblies are Sparkling Raspberry and Passionate Peach from St. Julian. You get the true taste of the fruit and moderate sweetness. Just plain delicious.

There’s a Michigan sparkler to satisfy every taste. Celebrate the holiday season and ring in the new year by serving and sharing one of Michigan's award-winning sparkling treasures.

The Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council is a 10-member panel that supports the growth of the grape and wine industry in Michigan. The Council office is housed in the Michigan Department of Agriculture, which is the official state agency charged with serving, promoting and protecting the food, agriculture and agricultural economic interests of the people of the state of Michigan.

Photo credit: sparkling wine by zakzorah

Red and white wines from most European nations carry potentially dangerous doses of at least seven heavy metals, U.K. researchers find.

A single glass of even the most contaminated wine isn't poisonous. But drinking just one glass of wine a day — a common habit in Europe and the Americas — might be very hazardous indeed, calculate biomolecular scientist Declan P. Naughton, PhD, and Andrea Petroczi of Kingston University, London.

Naughton calculated "target hazard quotients" (THQs) for wines from 15 countries in Europe, South America, and the Middle East. The measure was designed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to determine safe levels of frequent, long- term exposure to various chemicals.

The article notes that wines from three of the 15 nations studied had safe levels of heavy metals: Italy, Brazil, and Argentina. Based on the maximum THQs for wines from each nation, here's the list of the worst offenders: Hungary, Slovakia, France, Austria, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Greece, the Czech Republic, Jordan, Macedonia and Serbia.

The photo is pour by The Way You Do Everything.