July 17, 2009
Steve Grossnickle, Owner
One might wonder about the title, Post and Beam, thinking it might be a newspaper, i.g., the Detroit Post and Beam, or possibly a personal injury attorney group, Post and Beam. Fortunately, neither is the case and it refers to the barn construction type for Forty-Five North’s new tasting room. The terms refer to the posts and beams supporting the entire structure. I had several days that will remain locked in memory working with the construction crew. They are a first class crew — Donnie Peplinski, Tim King, Justin…
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June 22, 2009
Steve Grossnickle, Owner
Dissecting the term, “Tasting Room”, requires deeper analysis of both “tasting” and “room.” Tasting, as in winery, is defined as the olfactory experience of sampling wine, and as a privileged taster at an event in Napa with a select number of Australian vintners, I experienced wine judges doing what they do best: gargling, sucking, aerating and a host of other rather uncouth mouth and airway movements that would possibly offend Emily Post. In short, they take wine apart with their mouths. And, as a physician, after investigating tasting and the olfactory experience of wine tasting, I have found that there are non-tasters, tasters and super tasters among us. These three classes of individuals, and you are one of them, have our parents and their DNA input into our makeup to thank for this. The super tasters are…
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April 27, 2009
Steve Grossnickle, Owner
So, what’s better than 22-carat gold? Forty-Five Carat Gold, of course! The title of this missive would indicate that once again gold has been discovered on the 45th parallel and not only once, but thrice. Last fall, the San Francisco Wine Competition deemed our Hard Apple Cider worthy of gold. Second, at the Finger Lakes Wine Competition in late March, our Nouveau Pinot Noir Rosé and Select-Harvest Riesling received gold medals. And, just last week, more gold was panned at the Pacific Rim Wine Competition where our Pinot Noir Rosé received Best of Class, beating all comers on each of the judges’ cards. Our 2007 Reserve (oaked) Chardonnay and tasty Peach Crémant received golds and our Pinot Gris, Unwooded Chardonnay, and both Rieslings (Semi-Dry and Select-Harvest) all received silver awards. In my…
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April 19, 2009
Steve Grossnickle, Owner
Coming with Forty-Five North’s Michigan Winery License in 2007 was an automatic licensure of a tasting room; imagine our excitement upon receiving that news. Since then, picture if you will, a tent, a production room wannabe tasting room, an antique barn heretofore designated as “tdb” (that darn barn; see photo), a raised trunk lid, and even one suggestion of a good humor wine truck which have all served the purpose of a Forty-Five North tasting room. Eternal optimists all, the staff…
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January 17, 2009
Eric Grossnickle, Designer
If you had ever visited our old website, a small graphic in the upper-right read, “actual website coming soon.” Well, what was meant to be a temporary website served as our website for 1.5 years and offered little more information than what was included in the blog entries. Although it’s taken quite a bit longer than expected, I’m happy to finally roll out our new website. There’s now quite a bit of new information here including a little bit about our history and the tasting room, detailed information about each of our wines, a dedicated photo gallery, and a handy contact form. Also, if you’re the social networking type, you can now follow us on Twitter or find…
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January 10, 2009
Steve Grossnickle, Owner
While researching names for new release wines, I have found a multitude of names and vintages among the perhaps fifty percent of the wineries who release them. The word “Nouveau”, French for “new”, is easily the most popular name associated with these wines. Wine to many connotes an aged grape product that improves with age. And although in many respects that is true, young wines may be measured in weeks and months rather than years and yet still have a clean-crispness and what I describe as a “fresh from the barrel” taste. There will be no hint of oak, only stainless steel on the…
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November 13, 2008
Steve Grossnickle, Owner
Although we had originally intended for the resurrected barn to be the tasting room, the structural integrity has been questioned, rebutted, and headache-produced on a Biblical proportion. Because the overall intent of this project was to be positive, fun, and productive for the citizenry of Leelanau, it has evolved into anything but that. For that reason we will side and roof the resurrected barn as an Ag structure and possibly an event center in the future. Randy Mouw of the Barncats of Rockford, MI will be back on the job and in charge of this project; they will be re-structuring many of the old timbers to the specifications of Robert Meyer, head of the Leelanau County Construction Code Authority in hopes of fulfilling our dream. A new post and beam, rough hewn, Amish made kit barn from Beam Barns, LLC and…
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August 7, 2008
Steve Grossnickle, Owner
Although I’ve searched the Mormon family tree website, I can find no documentation of an Amish-Grossnickle connection; however, this weekend I felt the DNA connection with the raising of our tasting room barn. My good friends, John Clay and Steve Curley, helped as we assisted David Ciolek and his able bodied aide, Cody, in the setting of the major end beams for the barn, all done without aid of a crane. It was an exhilirating experience as we climbed ladders, swung ropes over beams, set diagonal braces, and fit it all together with an ingenious device called a “come along”. One can…
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One might wonder about the title, Post and Beam, thinking it might be a newspaper, i.g., the Detroit Post and Beam, or possibly a personal injury attorney group, Post and Beam. Fortunately, neither is the case and it refers to the barn construction type for Forty-Five North’s new tasting room. The terms refer to the posts and beams supporting the entire structure. I had several days that will remain locked in memory working with the construction crew. They are a first class crew — Donnie Peplinski, Tim King, Justin…
