I have always been interested in wine going back to when I was a young child fascinated with the smell that emanated from my parents’ old fiascos of Chianti that adorned their fireplace mantle.  There was a smell similar to that of my grandfather’s homemade Alfonzo olives in the small dribble of red residue left in the bottom of the bottle.   Later, I would experience Christian Brothers Burgundy at a family Thanksgiving.  Though the smell was absolutely amazing, when my grandfather let me taste it, the dry fruity liquid seemed undrinkably sour to my then tender palate.

Fast forward to U of M where I worked for Dick Scheer at the Village Corner from 1971-1973.   I tasted the most unbelievable wine I could possibly imagine.  It was a 1955 Federico Paternina Rioja Gran Reserva.   That experience changed my life and put me on a life-long wine career.

Doug Welsch from Fenn Valley Vineyards gave me some cuttings of Seyval that I planted along our driveway about 1983.   They grew like weeds and by 1986 I made my first estate grown wine ruining my wife Alice’s Cuisinart food processor in the process.

A year later, Lew Carlson, a history professor from Western Michigan University, introduced me to his home made/home grown red wines from Lawton Ridge Vineyard.  He offered to sell me enough Leon Millot grapes to fill a barrel of wine.   I took the bait and accepted the challenge making my first barrel of really good red wine.  There was no turning back.

For a couple of years in the mid nineties, my good friend Marshall Geasler, now deceased, and I made wine for a Fenn Valley tasting room in Rockford Michigan.   We made the Rogue River label for the wines sold in the tasting room and the Michigan Vintner label for wines that they sold to restaurants and party stores.  We had enormous fun serving people “our” wines. 

After Marshall moved to Texas, I started making wine with Tom and Kim LeRoux in our garage in Grand Rapids. Then we moved to Holland and the LeRoux’s convinced me to move our winemaking operation to their blueberry farm. One thing led to another and we decided to plant a vineyard in a pen where they once raised deer and elk that incidentally was surrounded by a 12’ high fence that would now keep predators out of the vineyard. Meanwhile, Tom and Kim attended outreach classes from MSU to enhance Kim’s already extensive knowledge of horticulture and by 2016 they had a thriving productive vineyard. So, having retired from a sales position at Great Lakes Wine and Spirits (formerly known as Viviano Wine Importers) in August of 2016, we planned to step up production of the homemade wines that Tom, Kim, Alice and I were already making. Unfortunately, a very fast growing cancer had me laid up off and on for a few years and Tom’s health also took a turn for the worse. Long story short, we made a boatload of wine in 2016 and 2017 that we’ll all be enjoying for several more years. Life is full of surprises!

Enjoy in Good Health,

A Brian Cain, the Michigan Vintner

wine |

NOUN fermented juice of fresh grapes, used as a beverage

ORIGIN Middle English, from Old English, pre-12th century; from Latin, ‘vinum'; akin to Greek 'oinos'.