LISA & BOB:
Michigan and Niagara Winery Travelogue
Sunday, June 6
We woke up around 9am and trotted off to the breakfast at the local Livestock Exchange - HUGE pancakes literally larger than the plates. I couldn't finish half of one. Then we headed out to the downtown market area.
We wandered through the Taste of Ann Arbor festival, complete with Irish jigs and delicious food. Shame we were so full already! We went into the other various markets, ending up at the Kerrytown Market Building. We were thinking about what to have tonight with the Beef Fondue we were going to make. I saw a sign touting wine at the end of a hallway, and merrily trotted towards it.
It was the Partners in Wine & Cheese - with a huge amount of cheese in their front window, and an impressive selection of wines! I was in heaven. I roamed around the various aisles, and found to my additional delight that this was not merely a "Wine Spectator Best Buy" shop. In fact, the owner, Karl Johnson, takes a special delight in stocking special and unique wines. He tries every one he brings in, and spent quite a while with us explaining the tastes of various wines, and deliberating with us over what would go best with our dinner tonight.
In the end, we grabbed three Michigan wines - a red, a white, and a dessert, plus one Australian red for back-up. Dan & Liz plan on revisiting him many times, and I wish he was located a little closer to our home. He was an incredible resource for good wine information. On we went.
We stopped by a market and grabbed the meats and veggies, and headed home. I wrote postcards while the others roamed the farmland, examining it. I also updated my web pages :) There were goldfinches in the yard, and the wind blown thistle was gorgeous, with waves of grass blowing in the light wind.
Soon, it got to be time for dinner. Bob and Dan returned with lawn furniture, and Dan brough us out some cheese. We first had an Old Mission Winery 1998 Semi-Dry Cranberry Riesling from Traverse City, Michigan, with a selection of sage cheese and Gruyere cheese. It was very light, with a waft of the cranberry flavor - a great complement to the cheese, and perfect for the heat wave that was hitting Michigan at the time. Easy to drink, and "innocuous" was the word suggested.
Then, the main course. Beef fondue (in oil) dinner with delicious sauces and vegetables. It was also during a heat wave, so we didn't want anything too hearty. The 1997 Zafarana Pinot Noir was quite a good match, with flavors of strawberry and cherry to it - not too heavy, but strong enough to hold against the various peanut and BBQ sauces, and other flavors in the meal.
And finally, dessert - a Peninsula Cellars Melange - dessert cherry wine with grape spirits, at 18% alcohol. This is also a Traverse City wine. The half bottle tasted of black cherry, but also banana and apricot. One taster smelled a bit of old mouldy board in it - usually a sign of corking - but the rest of us could not sense that. We all enjoyed this, and even tried mixing in a bit of grapefruit juice and sparkling water (separately) to see how it would lighten out the wine.
Exhausted, we went to sleep soon after this.
Michigan & Niagara Winery Travelogue
Lisa's Travelogue Pages