January 16 2007
There’s a maxim by leadership guru John Maxwell about the “leadership lid” —the gist of the maxim is you can only be as successful as you envision for yourself. If you fancy yourself a CEO then chances are good that you know the steps to take to enable yourself for success towards that goal.
Despite this knowledge of self-limiting thought patterns, I still pause when I see a mention of a Midwestern winery or related news. It happened on Monday when I received an email from Appellation America and there was an article on Peninsula Cellars from Michigan. And, I remember being shocked (SHOCKED) a couple of years ago when an Indiana winery, Oliver, was named to Wine Business Monthly’s Hottest Brands list.
By now, I shouldn’t be surprised when wines of the Midwest get called out for special mention and I am officially pulling off my own “leadership lid” for Midwestern wines. God bless Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio because a member of our brethren had his number called this week.
Black Star Farms, something of a winery + agri-business in Northern Michigan is featured on the Wine Business Monthly (WBM) online site today as their Hottest Small Brand #9. They will also be featured in the February issue as a part of the Top 10 Hottest Brands article.
From the WBM article that can be found in its entirety here, and quoted below from Partner Don Coe:
“The one thing I know is it is not that hard to ‘make it’ when you have good land, good growers and with Lee Lutes, a talented winemaker,” he said. “It is hard however to sell it. The world does not need another wine and especially a wine from Michigan, which is only now evolving as a wine region. For that reason Black Star Farms delivers experiences.”
Black Star Farms bills itself as an “Agricultural Destination” and links its products to value-added agriculture and agricultural tourism. Its best marketing tool is word of mouth and personal involvement with its wine, brandy and cheese makers on a working horse farm. The approach has made it popular with tourists, attracting more than 60,000 visitors last year from 20 countries and 40 states.
Products include traditional table and dessert wines, fruit wines and cider, fruit brandies, preserves, syrup and toppings, a Bed & Breakfast, a creamery, orchards and vineyards.
“Our mantra is that successful agriculture is no longer just growing something but instead, growing, processing, retailing and marketing, all occurring on the farm,” Coe said.
Don is a smart guy: they “deliver experiences,” use “word of mouth,” and most important, they make good wine.
My wife and I along with friends of ours visited Black Star in the fall on a wine tasting trip through the Leelanau Peninsula in Northern Michigan. The tasting room on that Friday afternoon, at the peak of color season for turning leaves, was jammed. It’s a large tasting room to begin with, making many California tasting rooms that I’ve been to look absolutely pedestrian by comparison, and it was filled with at least150 people with two-deep lines at the tasting counter and a snaking line at the cash register.
Under normal circumstances, that kind of overwhelmingly busy situation can be off-putting to customers, particularly for people looking for a more quaint experience, but somehow, because the folks at Black Star are very friendly and cordial and the wine quality is high, very high for a Midwestern winery, you end up rooting for them, happy to take your wallet from your pocket; not coincidentally many people were joining me that day with the Black Star credit card machine humming.
The majority of their whites really shine—particularly their Rieslings across a sweetness spectrum from dry to a semi-sweet late harvest aperitif style wine. Their Pinot is well-made and a definite winner for a Michigan Pinot and their dessert wines are all excellent without cloying sweetness. I have a bottle of the Cherry dessert wine that’s made in a Port style, though a touch lighter in body. I’ll likely move that bottle up in the drinking queue now.
Congrats to Black Star Farms for their inclusion on the WBM list. Despite their obvious progressiveness if we could now just get them to take a momentary focus off of delivering experiences and word of mouth marketing to selling online, others might be able to experience their wine, as well. Unfortunately, you have to download and fill out an order form off of their web site. No ecommerce. Hmm ... in this regard, I hope they take off their leadership lid. Based on the crowds I saw, it might be a good idea. Check them out at: www.blackstarfarms.com and see the future of Midwest wine.
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