A taste of Traverse City

Great food and wine in Traverse City and you can celebrate all the flavors this summer at some great events. Joining us now Whitney Wara of the Traverse City Tourism and Patrick Brise from Brise Estate Winery. Thank you both so much for being here. It is one of those times of the year too and we're just coming off of Traverse City Cherry Festival and we go from one event to the next. Tell us more about what's coming up in August. Absolutely so August 19th to the 23rd it's gonna be our second year of Traverse City food and wine. We're really excited. This is a wonderful celebration of the region's agriculture, the beautiful agricultural products so our wines, our you know ciders and all of the things that you can make with the fresh produce and fresh grains and and other you know protein products. What a time to be in northern Michigan in Traverse City specifically. It's such a beautiful area and it's just continuing to grow. Yeah and I'm curious about the talk about the fresh produce here in Michigan especially during these times how important that is to take advantage of what's truly in our own backyard. Yeah absolutely. The second most diverse agricultural state in the nation so California is the only one beating us out in terms of how many different kinds of things we grow and I think our region has really done an amazing job so we brought a handful of things just to showcase today. We've got fresh grains being grown and milled there in the region. We've got folks growing or you know raising goats and and making beautiful goat cheeses and wonderful award-winning raclette cheese. If you haven't tried Leelanau cheese they do an amazing job and then just this diversity of other offerings and this is really about celebrating that coming together. We have amazing chefs coming in from all over the state, a few from the national level as well and then our local chefs they all come together and put all of this on stage and on your plate. Perfect event. Patrick let's celebrate some wine too. Over two decades now this you know the Traverse City region as specifically has been this incredible area for wine. Well how did this come to be over two decades ago essentially? There's now over 50 wineries in the Traverse City area. In addition to another dozen or so microbreweries, distilleries so if you are wanting to come up to Traverse City there is so much to taste and so much to enjoy. Let's taste some here. Yeah and so what I brought today was a couple wines for summer right? We're getting into the summer we're gonna have this festival next month. Yes. So we can start with a rosé which rosé is we say rosé all day right. So it's morning. You can't go all day without starting in the morning right? This is a blend of Cab Franc and Merlot and very light style great for summer cuisine great for a hot day just it's just a taste of summer. Charlie Lankton just mysteriously walking by the studio. Come on in. Charlie Lankton is highly educated when it comes to wine. And Michigan really excelling in cool climate wine making so the styles of wine that we grow the grapes that we grow think of like Alsace in France or the German wine region so those are beautiful grapes that don't necessarily excel in other regions like California. So this other wine that I brought for you is our signature white and this is a beautiful white blend it's our winemakers signature blend and it's got all those love those cool climate loving grapes. So we've got Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris all bundled together. So just a nice summer white for you. Patrick has the has the air quality affected the crops at all the grapes the plants anything like that? Great question. Not at this stage I mean we if we have this going on for you know a month or two then you could start to see reduced photosynthesis from the the cloud cover you can see smoke taint appearing in sort of the flavor of maybe the wines eventually but a few days. We're hoping this is just a couple days. As of right now it hasn't affected any traffic up north either has it? No we're doing we're doing okay you know everyone can just bear with us as this little bit you know. Well hopefully it's out of here soon but we invite you all up to Traverse City it is Saturday August 22nd the second annual the Grand Tasting in Traverse City celebrating local wines, brews and culinary delights. Thank you so much for being here and thanks for the wine too. This has been a real treat on a Friday. As we like to say in Traverse City, come on up. Come on up. Rose all day. We'll be right back.