We turned the winery into a classroom this week!  Thanks to everyone who came out for our Weather for Agriculture event, it's always great to get a group of grape growers together to talk about what opportunities and challenges we're seeing in the vineyard.  Big shout out to Keith Mason, PhD, MSU Enviroweather Program Coordinator, Esmaeil Nasrollahiazar, MSU Extension NW Michigan Viticulture Educator, and our own Derrick Vogel for the presentations, conversations and fielding some great questions.  A couple takeaways from Wednesday and last week's Extension Spring Kickoff event: 🌡️ Cooreated with our observations in the vineyard, Enviroweather is a powerful resource to help us dial in our IPM and vineyard management plans  🌡️ We will continue to see warming winters and springs, along with the erratic shifts in temperature we've seen over the past few years 🌡️ While our hybrid grapes can withstand the coldest winter temperatures, they deaclimate and push sooner than vinifera, making them equally vulnerable to spring cold snaps and frost damage. As Esmaeil aplty discussed, and a question we will continue to ask ourselves and watch for in the vineyard: "can hybrid grapes survive warming winters?" If you're not familiar with MSU Enviroweather, it's a sustainable weather-based information system that helps users make pest, plant production, and natural resource management decisions. Their online platform is available to the public and has real-time data reporting from a network of weather stations throughout Michigan... one of which is located right here at Folklor ("Charlevoix" station on Enviroweather)! Check it out at enviroweather.msu.edu.  Thank you, again, to the Michigan Craft Beverage Council who supported this program with research grant funding.  #viticulture #coolclimateviticulture #coldclimateviticulture #coldhardygrapes #hybridgrapes #coolclimatewine #coldclimatewine #msu #michiganstateuniversity #gogreen

Spring three packs?! Don't mind if we do! Snag your Folklor red, white & rose for porch sipping, mother's day gifting and weekend grilling. Packed with three of our mild-weather faves 💐 2023 Row Boat Bright acidity and pronounced aromatics make this Riesling perfect in all seasons. 💐 2020 Lake Swimmer Light bodied, chillable red perfect for grilling.  💐 2020 Day Trip Beautifully colored Marquette rose. Dry and crisp with notes of strawberries.  Available to ship in Michigan and in the tasting room. Link in bio!  #michiganwine #midwestwine #charlevoixmi #charlevoixmichigan #visitcharlevoix #shoplocal #marquette #riesling #rose #folklorwinecider

"This doesn't look like a winery"  "You're really off the beaten path" ⬆️⬆️ We've been hearing this in the tasting room quite a bit recently. We hear you, we're definitely a work in progress and we've also been really intentional about how we build our business.  And that's starting in the vineyard!  Before we ever looked for a vineyard site, knew an orchard would be a big part of our future or started designing a winery, we wrote ourselves a mission statement of sorts: VINEYARD FIRST. It helps us focus our time, energy and resources, as well as the experience we strive to offer with our tastings and farm tours.  Vineyard (and now orchard) first!  We landed on this motto because we believe that delicious wine starts in the field with healthy soil, well cared-for vines and a thriving ecosystem. It's part of our winemaking philosophy too - to let the fruit shine and add or take as little away as possible on its journey to the bottle.   We hope when you make the drive down Ferry Road and up our long driveway, you'll join us in admiring the slopes that help fruit ripen and drain water and frost, geek over the rocks left behind by ancient glaciers, listen to the birds singing and get excited about all the life growing among the vines, all of which is contributing to the beverage we're pouring in your glass!  📸 @mmivphoto #upnorth #northernmichigan #puremichigan #michiganwine #michiganwinery #lakemichigan #charlevoixmi #visitcharlevoix #petoskeymi #visitpetoskey

We recently did bud dissections to see how the vines fared this winter. We took a sampling of cuttings from each grape varietal and siced open approx. 100 buds each to see how many are alive.  The green tissue, like you can see in the closeup of the dissected L'Acadie Blanc, shows viable primary and secondary buds.  Overall, we had no bud loss on our hybrids and minimal on the vinifera. So far so good! Now we just have to make it through the end of May, which typically marks the end of our frost period, without losing any green tissue to frost.  #vineyardlife #vineyard #hybridvines #hybridgrapes #michiganvineyard #midwestvineyard #coldhardyvines #coolclimatewine #tipofthemitt #tipofthemittava