Best Michigan Red Wine Ever Made

Quite a few years ago, at one of the Michigan Wine and Spirits Competitions I tasted a wine that gave me hope that, though rare, it was possible to grow and produce a wine comparable with the world’s finest.

Anyone who has read anything that I’ve written knows I love Michigan wines. There is something about the smell, flavor, texture of these wines that just screams “MY HOME” to me. I’m also realistic about our place among the world’s finest wine regions and, by and large, we’re not one of them. Of course, there are exceptions among certain types of wine. By and large, our wines are delicious, enjoyable and speak to a special terroir but rarely compare well to the world’s finest in comparative tastings. Particularly our red wines, delicious as they typically are, really don’t match up well to California’s top appellations or those of France, Italy or Spain. As luck would have it, at a Michigan Wine and Spirits Competition I encountered in a blind tasting a bottle of 2012 Gill’s Pier Leelanau Peninsula Red Wine (54% Merlot / 46% Cabernet Franc) MI (13% abv) at the time about $40. During the competition, my notes proclaimed it to be the best Michigan red wine I’d ever tasted. Of course, as soon as the competition was concluded, I looked up the catalog number to find out which wine had impressed me to such a degree and found out it was 2012 Gill’s Pier Leelanau Red. The following year, Dave Creighton of the Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council put on a dinner and tasting for the Michigan Competition’s wine judges. I had the luck to taste it again and, again, I swore that it was the best Michigan red wine ever produced.

A few years ago, the Kalamazoo chapter of the American Wine Society had planned a winery tour of the Grand Traverse area and I volunteered to put on a tasting of Merlot based wines that I had accumulated over many years of tasting and collecting wines. The tasting spanned wines from 1976 to 2013 from the America’s and Bordeaux. Among those wines was the aforementioned 2012 Gill’s Pier. Due to some logistical complications, the tour and that tasting never occurred.

Meanwhile, our friends, the Walker’s, who own a vineyard in Northport informed us that the owners of Gill’s Pier had lost interest in growing grapes and sold the operation to yak farmers. I was flummoxed by the possibility that the finest vineyard site in the state had been transitioned to yak farming. I was crushed at the thought.

Last year, Alice read in “Traverse Northern Michigan” magazine that the site had been purchased and restored to a winery and was now called Dune Bird and owned by a family with military and piloting connections. So, we visited the winery on our next trip up north. We found out that the vineyard responsible for the best Michigan wine ever, was still alive and well and had been farmed continuously during the yak farming episode by another local winery. Dune Bird now makes a wine from those grapes but it is not open for tasting at the winery and sells for $85 per bottle. I suppose that is not ridiculously high considering inflation, but too rich for my blood so I cannot comment as to whether it tastes anything like the 2012 Gill’s Pier Red. The other wines offered were well made.

Flash forward to this year’s schedule of events for the Lakeshore American Wine Society headed up by Rod and Jo Schmidt. They were looking for someone to put on a tasting for June so we volunteered to conduct the tasting which we had planned to conduct for the Kalamazoo chapter years ago. The wines were all older but we felt that the Merlot based wine theme was still worthwhile. We started the tasting with an absolutely delightful Bordeaux Rosé (Les Portes de Bordeaux $7.49) from Trader Joe’s that did a remarkable vanishing act with this group as it had a week earlier with our ZOOM tasting group. From there, we tasted eight wines starting with the oldest and concluding with the youngest. My favorite and the group’s favorite was the Gill’s Pier Leelanau Red!! This wine was sandwiched in between two of my all time favorite Napa Valley Merlots. Here are my notes of the final three wines of the tasting.

2011 Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard Merlot, Napa Valley CA (87% Merlot / 9% Cabernet Sauvignon / 4% Cabernet Franc) current vintage is about $150 is everything a great classic Napa red wine could possibly posses. The composty depth to robust classy fine elegant Merlot fruit purity blows the mind. Can wine be any better?

2012 Gill’s Pier Red Leelanau Peninsula MI (54% Merlot / 46% Cabernet Franc) was even better! Yes, the complexity and depth of the bouquet was beyond great. Followed by a perfectly balanced firm but smooth texture (a remarkable feat in Michigan) this wine was indeed the finest Michigan red wine I’ve ever encountered. Too bad it was my last bottle.

2013 Emmolo Merlot (by the Wagner Family of Caymus) Napa Valley CA about $45 today didn’t disappoint. If you revel in big bold hedonistically fat ripe powerful reds, this heavily oaked wine offers all that and Napa Valley class. I am one of many who feel this wine is even better than the Wagner’s highly rated magnificent Cabernet Sauvignon. It was a close second among the group’s rating.

In case you are interested in the entire tasting, I’ve attached it below along with a few tasting notes

.Diverse World of Merlot

All but one of these wines contains Merlot.  Ironically, the Cheval de los Andes (joint effort of Chateau Cheval Blanc and Terrazas de los Andes) is actually Malbec/Cab Sv/Pt Verdot.  We will be tasting these wines in order from older to younger because often an older wine can taste dead when following a fresh, vivid, bright young wine.   The wines range from 12 years old to 49 years old.   If you don’t regularly drink mature wines, you may not find the older wines to your liking though I believe all but maybe one of them has been stored reasonably well and should be as good as wines this age are likely to be.  The 2004 Marilyn Velvet Red (Cab Sv/Merlot) was purchased from a party store where it had been from about 2006 to about 2014 under less than ideal conditions.   You be the judge “dead or alive”?    All of the wines were opened with the older wines decanted about six hours prior to the tasting. - Brian and Alice

1.      1976 Chateau Grand Barrail la Marzelle Figeac, Grand Cru Classe St. Emilion, Bordeaux FR (75% Merlot  / 25% Cab Fr)  This winery has been one of my favorites over the years in spite of being poorly rated by both Hubrecht Duijker and Robert Parker.   We stopped by this Chateau a couple of times, once in the 1990’s, and like Duijker says the vineyard looked very neglected and the Chateau was boarded up and unkempt.  About ten years later, the vineyard had been purchased by Dourthe & Fils and is once again highly acclaimed.   The Chateau is now a luxury Hotel with a renowned restaurant.    

Yes, this is a very old wine which was part of the John Beadle cellar where it was stored under ideal conditions. And, yes, it is no longer bright fresh and edgy but the depth of flavor is remarkable and it shows no deterioration. It is still all Bordeaux! Group eighth (last) place.

 2.      2000 Chateau Plince, Pomerol, Bordeaux FR (72% Merlot / 23% Cab Fr / 5% Cab Sv) Parker likes this wine for its big chunky style and says it is capable of aging for 8-10 years.  So, we’re a little late to open it.   What do you think?

Definitely younger and fresher than the ‘76 above but does not possess as much class or depth. In this setting, I’d call it the “poor man’s Grand Barrail”. Group seventh place.

 3.      2003 Cheval de los Andes, Mendoza ARG (41% Malbec / 41% Cab Sv / 18% Pt Verdot)  This is a joint venture between Chateau Cheval Blanc (famous 1st growth St Emilion Merlot wine in the movie “Sideways”) and Terrazas de los Andes.   It emphasizes the pedigree and elegance of a Malbec blend although by no means an unsubstantial wine.

The fine dusty elegant mélange of ripe fruit and earth was very long on the palate. Group third place.

 4.      2004 in magnum Marilyn Merlot Red Velvet, Napa Valley CA (54% Cabernet Sauvignon / 46% Merlot)  Though considered by the wine trade more of a novelty than a fine wine, we’ve had numerous truly exceptional tasting experiences from this wine over many vintages since 1985.

 Though older than its 21 years may have projected, it held up well and gained vigor as it aired. This is still a very nice, perfectly balanced round soft but substantial red. Group fourth place.

 5.      2009 Chateau Suirac, Pomerol ,  Bordeaux FR (75% Merlot / 20% Cab Fr / 5% Malbec)  A minor property that in spite of its lack of notoriety, we’ve enjoyed many bottles over many years.   The right bank ’09 vintage is drinking well and seems to be at its prime now and will hold.

 At sixteen years, still solidly structured with dense fruit and a pleasant bitter herb finish. Group six place.

 6.      2011 Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard Merlot, Napa Valley CA (87% Merlot / 9% Cab Sv / 4% Cab Fr) Considered by many to epitomize Napa Merlot, the legendary Three Palms Vineyard consistently produces great Merlot with rich texture and class.

Red wine doesn’t get any better than this. It is everything one could hope for in Napa. Group fifth place. 

 7.      2012 Gill’s Pier Red Leelanau Peninsula MI (54% Merlot / 46% Cab Fr)  I first tasted this wine at the Michigan State Wine Competition as a judge.   I haven’t tasted it in several years but, at the time I felt it was the best red wine ever made in Michigan.   Unfortunately, the owners weren’t making money on the wines so they decided to tear out the vineyard and revert to traditional farming.  UPDATE:  Alice and I visited this winery last year now called Dune Bird.   They did not rip out the vines but had been selling the grapes to Bluestone.  So, now Dune Bird makes or buys quite a variety of fresh young wines but does make wine from what was Gill’s Pier vineyard to make a wine which was not available for tasting.   The asking price was $85!!

 In this context who would have thought it would have a chance? Yet, it showed all of the depth, finesse and complexity it had promised as a young wine when I first tasted it. Group first place.

 8.      2013 Emmolo Merlot, Napa Valley CA (Merlot)  Love it or hate it, this is the classic Wagner Family (Caymus) style of winemaking: big, fat, ripe and oaky.   In 2013, I believe the Merlot surpassed their highly touted Cabernet Sauvignon of the same style.

 We got a lot of “wow” responses as soon as people tasted it. Yes, I believe it is the Wagner’s crowning achievement. It is the epitome of the California style. Group second place.

Why Merlot?  Because most winemakers and horticulturists believe that great wine is made in the vineyard, most producers seek grape varieties that best express the unique qualities that originate from site.   In a nutshell, Merlot is more likely to make good and great wines than later ripening varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon.   It is easy to conceptualize this attitude if we simply look at the right and left banks of Bordeaux.   Only a very small part of Bordeaux known as the “left bank” or Medoc is suitable for growing Cabernet Sauvignon.   In this area of Bordeaux, it is slightly warmer and usually the autumn rains start about a week later on the left bank of the Gironde estuary.   Elsewhere in Bordeaux, and in particular, the “right bank” which includes Fronsac, Pomerol and St Emilion, it is slightly cooler and the rain comes about a week sooner.   For this reason, and also a lower likelihood of frost in the spring, the odds of producing fully ripe, flavorful grapes by growing Merlot is much higher. To a much smaller extent, this is often true of Cabernet Franc as well.   Meanwhile, in the Medoc, they tend to have frost problems in the spring and Cabernet Sauvignon is less susceptible to frost damage because it buds a tad later.   As an added bonus, if the rains hold off, it is possible to harvest fully ripe Cabernet Sauvignon fruit about a week or two after the Merlot has been harvested.   Elsewhere in the world, this same phenomena occurs.   In Napa Valley for example, it is almost always possible to ripen Cabernet Sauvignon so it is the predominant grape variety planted.   However, in many other regions of California, Cabernet Sauvignon can have a green weedy flavor while on the same site, rich ripe Merlot can be harvested.

Warm up wine: 2024 Les Portes de Bordeaux Rose (Merlot based) FRANCE (11.5% abv)

Finale: 2002 Chateau Thomas Amador County Vintage Port CA* (21% abv)

*winery was located in Indiana, however

The cover photo is a much younger Brian and Alice with Charlie Wagner, founder of Caymus, in his tomato garden.

Enjoy in Good Health,

A Brian Cain, the Michigan Vintner