Above photo by Mark Videan.
By Kevin Howell
Over time, I’ve developed a taste for hoppier beverages, but my palate has recently taken favor with the fruity flavors of some wines. Two new area wineries, which opened in July, offer their own take on grape-derived beverages, with tasting rooms unique to their establishments.
Pere Marquette Winery
Pere Marquette Winery is located on a bluff above Lake Michigan and found along Iris Road, south of Ludington. Owner Wes Morton makes his own wine in a converted horse barn there and grows the grape varietals used in his wines.
In a small but comfortable tasting room across from former horse stalls, my navigator Jean and I sampled several of Morton’s flavors. We began with Badger White, a blend of Chardonnay, Riesling and Seyval grapes. To my amateur palate, it had a nice flavor ⸺ smooth but definitely dry.
Next, with a name I could better relate to, due to my background in distilled spirits, Hooch turned out to be a nice fruity, sweetish white wine blend. In fact, extreme blending is how the wine came to be.
“It’s a blend of every white grape I’ve ever made wine from, (drawn from) the ends of tanks when I’m finished blending,” Morton explained. “It’s sweetened white wine.”
Tending toward sweeter wines, I liked it.
“A couple years ago when my partner (since deceased) was still here, we had a couple of glass carboys with leftovers that were maybe two years old,” Morton said, of the origin of Hooch. “I was going to throw them out just to get rid of them, but Rocky (his partner) was pretty frugal and said, ‘We can’t waste that much wine.’ I said, ‘I’m not selling this crap,’ so we dumped it all together, added some sugar, added some fresh juice, some preservative, and I put a piece of duct tape on the side and called it Rocky’s Hooch.”
A couple months later, Morton tried it again and decided it was pretty good after all. With a few modifications, Hooch remains on the wine list.
Morton, a retired world-traveling photographer, serves about 11 flavors of wine, including Pinot Noir,Rosé, Pinot Noir, Cayuga White and more. His wines are made from grapes he has grown for 30 years.
Pere Marquette Winery’s tasting room is closed until April, but Morton may have a few wines available if a customer calls.
North Branch Winery
North Branch Winery opened last summer, just two days after Pere Marquette. Owned by Indiana transplants Tom Doughty and Toni Biggs-Doughty, the couple lives in the Shelby area on the North Branch of the White River, hence the name of the winery.
They chose the small town of Scottville to make their wines due to traffic heading through town to the Ludington beach. They also thought of campers and fishermen along the Pere Marquette River. All told, they have been making wine for about seven years, and they currently use the back portion of their small shop for this process.
Not long after they opened, Jean and I happened across the tasting room and stopped in for a sampling. We walked out with a bottle of Riverside Blend, a slightly sweetish blended wine with Barbera grapes.
“California doesn’t have any more Barbera (grapes) right now so we can’t get any more Riverside Blend made right now,” Tom explained on our most recent tasting trip.
Unlike Pere Marquette Winery, Tom and Toni do not grow their own grapes. They outsource their grapes mostly from Michigan producers ⸺ with the exception of a few from California, like the Barbera.
On this second tasting occasion, we tried a Chardonnay, a white wine with hints of melon, peach and other fruit; Blueberry Blush, made from local blueberries and North Branch Chardonnay, a little dry balanced with a little sweetness; and Barbera, a full-bodied red with touches of strawberry, watermelon and hibiscus. All were tasty, but I really liked the fifth sample, a warm mulled wine with peach, Pinot Noir, a little sugar and spices. It hit the spot on a chilly day.
North Branch Winery will remain open this winter, and next summer there are plans to use the neighboring space of a vacated business.
“We plan to expand to the south, next door; there’ll be a door here,” said Tom, pointing to an area behind the tasting bar. “And in the back there’ll be (an area) to increase production size too. Then there will be tables and chairs, another bar ⸺ we’ll start some sandwiches too, so if they (customers) need some extra sustenance we can offer something light.”
For more on Pere Marquette and North Branch Wineries, follow their Facebook pages and visit their websites: peremarquettewinery.com and northbranchwinery.com.
Kevin Howell is a freelance writer residing in Mason County. He loves the Michigan woods, lakes, people and Michigan craft beers ⸺ not necessarily in that order!
Related stories:
Read about Backwoods Homemade Wines, of Irons, published in our Jan. 2022 issue, found HERE.
Read our story about Love Wines, of Ludington, published in our November 2019 issue — before the winery’s move to Washington Street — found HERE.
