I hadn’t been through the Irish Hills since I was a little kid. My great grandmother loved to go for a “buggy ride” into the hills for dinner at a restaurant similar to the Essenhaus. For me the highlight was the observation towers. Even way back then, I was a geographer at heart.

US-12 was Michigan’s “route 66” with tourist traps galore. A zoo of caves and cages with artificial bears, lions, tigers posed in ferocious stances. There was a prehistoric forest with dinosaurs and a mega souvenir shop with every piece of junk you don’t want or need. And, most importantly, were the observation towers atop the highest point on US-12 at about 1,200 feet elevation. I know that isn’t very high but in an otherwise flat part of the state, from an observation tower on the top of a hill, you can see the many lakes and forests for miles and miles around. Today, the towers (which had been the symbol of the Irish Hills for decades) still stand but not open. Everything else other than a few restaurants is in decay and overgrown much like Route 66. When I-94 was built in the early 1960’s, it killed the tourist industry along US-12 in the same way that I-44 killed the tourist industry along Route 66.

So we went golfing at Marshall Country Club and using “old people’s rules” we nearly shot par. Hey, we’ll never have the game anymore to play by PGA rules so why not just change the rules to fit our game? We decided to take a leisurely drive back to Ann Arbor through the Irish Hills and have lunch in Saline. By the way, Win Schuler’s in Marshall still has an excellent prime rib but we had a hankering for Mexican. Along US-12 we stopped at Cherry Creek Cellars. They have over 5 acres of magnificent looking well maintained hybrid grape vines from which they produce what they call the “Schoolhouse Classics”. They get their Vinifera grapes and many of their fruits from West Michigan. But, everything is Michigan grown. It is rare in SE Michigan so see such a healthy looking vineyard. But, at 1,200 feet elevation, there is no reason not to grow quality grapes here.

In the tasting room we tasted five wines a few of which were quite good. Great Lakes Nouveau is a 100% estate grown Frontenac which they claim is pressed off the skins immediately after harvest. I asked how on earth they get the black as ink color without skin contact and was told that Frontenac was a black/purple pulp and juice grape. Huh?! The LeRoux’s, Alice and I have been harvesting and making wine from Frontenac for over a decade and have NEVER gotten any juice with anything other than a pale pink hue from Frontenac. Fermenting on the skins for 10 days to two weeks, we did get a nice deep red but never anything resembling the black as ink color of Cherry Creek Great Lakes Nouveau. The wine was actually pretty good with emphatic early hybrid aromatics and firm acidity. The Montage unfortunately had a distinct mercaptan odor. The Schoolhouse Red offered up a nice complex spice and aromatic wood nuance. The Cab Franc did have a nice spice too with a dusty sense of terroir. Though very faint, there was also a trace of mercaptan here too. I’m not sure it would be a problem for most tasters, however. The best of the lot was the Kerner which made me think of the wonderful Öppenheimer Krötenbrünnen wines from the Rheinhessen that we used to enjoy in the 1970’s.

We continued on to Saline and had lunch at Jalisco. All of the food was good tasting but very salty. To get a feel for their Mexican food we had a steak taco, a ground beef taco, a chicken enchilada, and a pork tamalé with rice and beans. All good and Mexican style but, salty. The wine was terrible which stupid us, you should never order wine in a Mexican restaurant when they always offer excellent Mexican beer, Mules and Margaritas. I would not avoid going there, but just down the road, the food at Cancun (same owner, different chef) is much better and not salty.

On the road with,

A Brian Cain, the Michigan Vintner