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General

• What and why is MichWine?
   

  Today's Michigan wines are dramatically better than those of just a few years ago; many of them can hold up their heads in nearly any company. But the tiny production quantities and marketing budgets of many wineries mean that most of these wines pass under the radar of the national wine media and reviewers, making it difficult for consumers to find the state's top wines and the wineries that make them.

  That's where MichWine comes in. We're the first independent, consumer-driven publication to focus on Michigan wines and wine country. With no ties to the wine or tourism industries, we can write objectively to help you locate Michigan's best wines, wine events, wineries to visit, and places to eat and stay in wine country.

  
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• Who's responsible for MichWine?
   

  The MichWine buck stops with Joel Goldberg, a longtime wine fan from the Ann Arbor area. He's been a moving force behind WineCAM (Wine Consumers Across Michigan) and MoCool, the world's longest running off-line wine tasting event.

  As you browse the site, it should be obvious that dozens of other people helped to get MichWine up and running and play an ongoing part in keeping it going. We try to mention them along the way; they deserve much of the the credit for whatever you find informative and enjoyable about the site.

Wine Review

• What's your review procedure?
   

  Our goal is to review a broad selection of Michigan wines from different grapes, styles, wineries and regions. There is no way we can -- or wish to --  review every wine made in the state, or every wine of a given varietal.

  We welcome review samples from wineries and distributors, and will taste every sample we receive. In addition, we request review samples or directly purchase wines when we believe they will be of interest to our readers or will broaden the variety of our reviews.

  All MichWine reviews start with the MichWine Tasters, a diverse panel of Michigan wine consumers and journalists. None of the Tasters has any direct financial interest in the production or sale of wine.

  Wines are tasted blind, usually grouped with like-varietal or like-styled wines. The Tasters know in advance what type of wine they are tasting, but have no information about the specific wines in the group.

  Each panel member makes notes and scores the wines on a standard 100-point scale. Published reviews represent a consensus of these scores and compilation of comments. If there is significant disagreement about a wine, the tasters may retaste another sample to reach a better consensus, or note the differing opinions in the review.

• Why do you use a tasting panel to review wines?
   

  Tasting is subjective, and even expert tasters often have prejudices or blind spots that lead them to favor one type of wine over another, and magnify or ignore certain characteristics. Having a group of experienced tasters write our reviews minimizes the influence of these individual proclivities and helps readers better understand how they might react to the same wines -- which is our goal.

• Who are the MichWine Tasters?
   

  Members of the MichWine Tasters, our wine review panel, are:

  Kim Adams -- Co-creator of Detroit's Gang of Pour wine site, soon-to-be publisher of MichFood, MichWine's companion site

  Rich & Karen Brown -- Leaders of Ann Arbor WineFest, Night for Sight, and other wine charity events

  Joel Goldberg -- MichWine editor; founder of Wine Consumers Across Michigan (WineCAM)

  Sally Goldberg -- Former editor, South African Wine & Beverage
  

  Chris Kassel -- Wine writer (Detroit Free Press, Hour Detroit) and food / wine video producer

  Dave Rusnell -- Past Director, Jackson chapter, Les Amis du Vin; judge at All Canada Wine Championships and Great Lakes Wine Competition

  Claudia Tyagi -- Master Sommelier; wine consultant, teacher, writer

  MichWine policy requires that our panel members have no direct financial interest in the production or sale of wine. Not all group members participate in every tasting.

• Why do you use a 100-point scale to score wines?
   

  Most wine consumers are familiar with the 100 point scale, simply because so many publications and reviewers use it. It's a convenient shorthand to summarize the overall quality of a wine, as well as a handy way to compare wines reviewed on MichWine with those you may read about elsewhere.

  That said, it's clearly impossible to describe any wine with a single number. Two wines may have similar scores but differ greatly in their characteristics or the foods they go best with. If you're looking for a bottle to open with dinner tonight, it's a waste of money (and good wine) to buy that 95 point wine that won't drink well for five or ten years. You're better off with something that scored 85 but is ready to strut its best stuff today!

  That's why we urge you to read the reviews as well as the scores, at MichWine and elsewhere -- they're an integral part of being a smart wine consumer.

• What does a score on the 100-point scale actually mean?
   

  Every wine gets 50 points just for showing up. Then the scores break down this way:

  • 90 to 100 -- Excellent to outstanding
  • 80 to 89 -- Good to very good
  • 70 to 79 -- OK, but with some noticeable flaws
  • Below 70 -- Forget-about-it

  But keep in mind that a wine tasting isn't a dog show. That is, there isn't a single "breed standard" to which all wines of a particular grape are supposed to conform. We judge each wine on its own merits, and the quality of grapes and winemaking it displays. If it shows some exotic flavor we've never tasted before, then it's up to us to decide whether that flavor is harmonious with the rest of the wine and adds to our enjoyment, or is an annoying distraction -- and score it accordingly. Again, that's why it's important to read the review and not just look at the score.
  

• Do you print reviews of every wine you taste?
   

  No. We print reviews for wines that the MichWine Tasters score 80 or above that are (or will be) available for public sale -- from the winery, at retail, or in restaurants. Michigan produces more than enough good and excellent wines to talk about. We have no desire to gratuitously bash lesser wines, so we don't normally give review space to wines that score below this. We will note that we also tasted these other wines; you're welcome to draw your own inferences.

  Because our primary goal is to inform consumers, we may make exceptions if the panel concludes that a wine (as opposed to an individual bottle) is clearly defective, or finds that its characteristics differ markedly from the winery’s description or from previous releases of the same wine.

• Can we use your reviews at our winery or retail store?
   

  We're pleased to make our wine reviews available for fair use by the trade, at point-of-sale or in other promotional material.

  To facilitate this, review pages have a print icon and an email icon. Clicking one of these icons pops up a window to print the review text or email a link to the review page.

  We make two requests if you use MichWine scores and reviews for a commercial purporse:

  (1) You must include the MichWine logo or the name "MichWine" in any printed or electronic materials, in boldface type or an image of at least the same size used to reproduce the review's point score. This happens automatically if you use one of the icons on the review page to reproduce the review. Please note that all material on the site is copyright by MichWine LLC.

  (2) Wherever possible, please include the full review text, not just the point score or the review's three juiciest words. We strongly believe that consumers make the best buying decisions when they have access to the fullest information.

• How do we send MichWine a sample of wine to review?
   

  We welcome review samples of Michigan-made wine from licensed wineries and distributors. Our tasting panel will taste every review sample we receive. Please print and fill out the review sample sheet to accompany your wine. Use our contact form if you need more information about sending us review samples.

Wine Calendar

• What events and areas does the wine calendar cover?
   

  We're committed to making MichWine's calendar the state's most comprehensive directory of wine events -- a single souce for wine-related activities statewide that are open to the public. You'll find events related to Michigan wines as well as Michigan events whose wine focus lies elsewhere.

  For your convenience in locating events of interest, you can select what your calendar displays by region and event category:

  Regions (select from the top menu bar):

  • All listings statewide
    
  • North Wine Country
  • South wine Country
  • Metro Detroit & Ann Arbor
  • Grand Rapids, Lansing & Outstate

  Event Categories (select at the bottom of calendar pages):

  • Winery events
  • Regional & Wine Trail events
  • Charity events
  • Educational events
  • Other events (sponsored by restaurants, hotels, tasting clubs, etc.)

  In the interest of avoiding clutter, the calendar does not include weekly or more-frequent tastings at restaurants or wine bars. By request, we'll publish a single monthly listing for these tastings and put the other dates within this listing.
• How do we get events listed on the wine calendar?
   

  The quicker way:

  We'll soon be testing direct-entry into the calendar by event organizers. You simply log into the MichWine site, put your information into the calendar entry form, press a button and it's listed!

  If you'd like to help us test this, please get in touch via our contact form and we'll set you up with an account when we're ready to start testing.

  The normal way:

  Add the address calendar@michwine.com to your email distribution list for press releases and and event notification; we'll add your information to the calendar as soon as possible. Or send it directly from the website with our contact form or "Submit Calendar Item" from the Wine Calendar menu.

Advertising

• Does MichWine accept advertising?
   

  Not at this time.

  Because we want to avoid questions about the objectivity of our articles and reviews, MichWine isn't initially accepting any direct advertising on the site. We do use third party advertising placements, such as Google AdWords, because we don't control the content of these ads, and only receive payment when our readers find the links useful.

  In order to cover our expenses, at some future time we do plan to make available a limited amount of commercial space on the MichWine website. Advertisers will be carefully screened to avoid conflict with our editorial content. If you think this might be of value to your business, please use our contact form to let us know, without any obligation.

• What are your "Ads by Google"?
   

  MichWine is part of the Google AdWords network. We provide space for Google to display text ads that relate to our site's content. In return, we share in their receipts when our site's visitors click on links they find of interest to them.

  We have no control over the individual links Google displays, or whether our visitors might find those sites useful to visit. Providing these space for those links helps us cover some of our website costs without having to depend on individual advertisers, helping us to avoid questions of objectivity in our editorial content.

  When you click on a Google AdWords link, you are leaving the MichWine website.

• What is the "Advertise on this site" link?
   

  This link, at the bottom of our Google AdWords section, provides potential advertisers with information about displaying their messages on MichWine. If reaching our site's visitors might be of value to you, we encourage you to click this link for more information.

  We receive no revenue if you click that link, or if you decide to place a Google AdWords message on MichWine. Our only payment comes when site visitors click on Google ad links that are of interest to them.