You know that I go back to drinking wine from my high school days and I graduated from college right about the time of the Judgement of Paris.  Well for all of those early years, California was not on my mind and certainly not Michigan.  We had been traveling to the different parts of wine country in Michigan for the last twenty years or so.  We were staying at the Inn at Bay Harbor and we tried some of the wines from Black Star Farms and decided that we had to go out of our way to drive home, to buy some of the wine that we just had, met a great employee in Chris Lopez and we ended up joining their club.   

Each club shipment has four wines, two different offerings.  The first wine out of the carton is their Black Star Farms Arcturos Sur Lie Chardonnay Michigan 2022, which is what the newsletter describes, but with a different wine in the photo (they may need another proofreader, but I know that it is difficult, as I think of my errors over the years).  Black Star Farms is located on the 45th Parallel that runs through some of the great wine regions of the world, and it also can appreciate the “lake effect” climate.  This wine carries the Michigan AVA, because Black Star Farms has vineyards on both sides of Traverse City; on the Old Mission Peninsula AVA and Leelanau Peninsula AVA.  This wine undergoes all phases of production in Stainless Steel tanks and they age on the lees (Sur Lie) to get more complexity compared to other unoaked Chardonnay wines. They use Stainless Steel to maintain the pure fruit flavors of the grapes, both in aromatics and flavor.  The light-golden-yellow wine offers notes of citrus, apples, and pears, along with hints of florals and honeysuckle.  On the palate, this medium-bodied wine has tones of citrus and white fruits, pineapple and lemon peel; and a bright finish with tinges of flint (terroir).

The second wine in the shipment was Black Star Farms Isidor’s Choice Terrace Red Leelanau Peninsula 2018 and is one of their “limited red wines.”  Isidor’s Choice wines are from a partner-grower vineyard to Black Star Farms.  The Terrace Red features Teroldego and Lagrein grapes originally from Northern Italy and offer a depth of color and a “wild” fruit profile.  Those two grapes are tempered with the addition of Cabernet Franc and Merlot which both soften the wine and add nuance to the blend.  It is described as “wild blueberries that have been dusted with white pepper.”  It is also suggested that this wine will age for a decade or so, and that it should be “opened in advance, to offer broad and complex dark fruit character, plenty of spice” and a wine that craves big food flavors.