Before there was Folklor…
… there was Pellston!
When we were first getting our vineyard chops we had the opportunity to manage and rehabilitate a mostly abandoned vineyard in Pellston, MI a place nicknamed “the Icebox of America.” From 2018 - 2021 we managed these 5 acres of vines, selling most of the grapes to local wineries and keeping a little bit for the wines that will be our very first Folklor vintages.
We spent three long and highly educational years snowshoeing in the two-track to prune in the winter months, driving 15 minutes up the road to jump in Lake Michigan after steamy summers of canopy management and recruiting our friends and families to help us harvest.
As grape growers, we did a lot of growing up and a lot of dreaming in that vineyard. We saw our successes in real time - in 2019, we harvested just 800 pounds of Leon Millot. After three years of pruning and care, we were able to increase the yield to 3.5 tons from the same block.
Managing vineyards for other growers also motivated us to pursue farming our own land to move away from conventional pesticides and herbicides, which were used at the Pellston vineyard, and experiment with different trellising styles for hybrid vines to manage their vigor and dense canopies.
Why are we rehashing this all now? To celebrate how far we’ve come! And because the first Folklor vintages come from this unlikely vineyard nestled among the pines, wild raspberries & sumac. We’re excited to introduce you to the cold-hardy hybrid vines we grew there.
Leon Millot
Leon Millot is an older French American hybrid bred by the Colmar Institute in Alsace, France in 1911. The grape ripens early to mid season and has small berries and tight clusters of blue-skinned fruit. It makes for a medium-bodied red wine with low-medium tannin, earthy aromas and a berry-forward palate. We’re growing Leon’s sister grape, Marechal Foch, at the home farm!
Marquette
Marquette is a much newer hybrid variety bred by the University of Minnesota and released in 2006. It’s the most widely-grown grape in the Tip of the Mitt AVA. Marquette is a teinturier grape, meaning both the skin and the flesh are red making for a deeply colored red wine and beautiful, almost fuchsia roses. Wines made with Marquette have notes of strawberry and cherry with low tannin and bright acidity.
Frontenac Gris
Frontenac Gris is another University of MInnesota hybrid and the pink-colored mutation of the red-skinned Frontenac Noir. This variety grows in very characteristic, long loose clusters that ripen late in the season. In the Tip of the Mitt, Frontenac Gris is used for white, rose and orange wines that have tropical flavors and mouth-watering acidity.
If you want to see more from Pellston, check out the “Icebox” highlight on our Instagram page!
And if you’re ready for a taste, go see our friends at Walloon Lake Winery and try the Sunshine Daydream and Echo Beach, and keep an eye out for their Reycraft Red to be released later this year.
