Winning Wines
Before midnight’s strike heralds the launch of a new year, take time to toast and try some of 2011’s top competitors.
Compiled by Lisa M. Jensen

Throughout the past year, they’ve been in a spotlight that hasn’t stopped growing brighter — or broader. Whether competing in Michigan or across the Midwest, nationwide or against the globe, wines throughout the state are claiming top prizes and praise.

This past August, the 34th Annual Michigan Wine and Spirits Competition summoned 25 industry experts to East Lansing, where the contest enveloped 367 wines from 53 of the state’s 84 wineries.

Some of the newest made quite the splash: a Raspberry Wine produced by Garden Bay Winery in the Upper Peninsula won Best of Class Fruit Wine. But from bone-dry reds to sweet-as-can-be ice wines, gold medals were awarded to a variety of wines from all of Michigan’s major grape-growing areas.

At day’s end, judges awarded the top “Best of Class” awards to eight wines from a group of 51 gold medal winners:

• Dry White: Chateau Fontaine – 2010 Dry White Riesling
• Dry Red: Fenn Valley Vineyards – Capriccio
• Sparkling Wine: L. Mawby – Cremant Classic
• Semi-Dry White (tie): Fenn Valley Vineyards – 2010 Riesling; Tabor Hill – 2010 Gewurztraminer
• Rosé: Forty-Five North – 2010 Rosé of Cabernet Franc
• Dessert Wine: Black Star Farms – 2008 A Capella Ice Wine
• Fruit Wine: Garden Bay Winery – Raspberry Wine

While white wines earned particular praise from judges, they experienced just a sampling of 2010’s vintage, which is anticipated to be exceptional and will be more fully released in 2012.

Outward Bound
This past April in California, judges evaluated more than 2,000 wines from around the world at the Pacific Rim Wine Competition and declared a tie for Best Gewurztraminer: Tabor Hill Winery, in Buchanan, for their 2009 vintage, and Chateau Fontaine, on Leelanau Peninsula, for their 2010.

Tabor Hill’s 2010 Traminette, a hybrid variety similar to Gewurztraminer, claimed Best White Wine as well at the International Eastern Wine Competition held in New York. At the same competition — which accepted more than 1,400 entries in 2011— Fenn Valley Vineyards won Best of Class Riesling.

With more than 3,000 entries from 15 countries, the Indy International Wine Competition in August is the U.S.’s largest independent wine competition. Michigan wineries in three different regions of the state struck gold here in 2011, including Sandhill Crane Vineyards in Jackson; Lemon Creek Winery in Berrien Springs; and Leelanau Cellars.

Read the full version of this feature including judge’s comments on page 57 in BLUE’s 2011 Winter Issue. Lisa M. Jensen is editor of Michigan BLUE Magazine.