Wearing another hat, wine columnist for the Ann Arbor Chronicle, I've been collecting wine lists from Treetown restaurants.

Scanning these lists for Michigan wines is generally an exercise in serial masochism. With a few wine-country exceptions -- like Traverse City's Trattoria Stella and St. Joseph's Bistro on the Boulevard under lamentably-departed sommelier Marcie Barker --  the results are usually predictable and dispiriting.

Perhaps a half-dozen Michigan bottles appear on a hundred-wine list. Perhaps fewer. They'll include a requisite bubbly or two from Larry Mawby and a couple of Rieslings from widely-distributed producers like Chateau Grand Traverse or Black Star Farms.  A lone Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir or some sort of sweeter, late harvest white typically round out the offerings.

But I expected more from the wine list at just-opened Grange Kitchen and Bar. Not only is chef / owner Brandon Johns a locavore foodie hero whose restaurant name honors the Grange movement, but its website promises "Locally Sourced, Farm to Table Dining".

Sure enough, its hundred-wine list doesn't offer a mere half-dozen Michigan wines.

There are eight, thanks to the inclusion of four Mawby bubblies.

Amazingly, this "locally sourced" restaurant offers just one red wine from Michigan's outstanding 2007 vintage -- Brys Estate's Pinot Noir. No Cab Franc or Bordeaux blends make the grade, despite their record showing at the recent Michigan Wine Competition. Not a single bottle from the Pioneer Wine Trail, less than an hour's drive from the restaurant.

Disappointing as that is, today isn't Beat Up Brandon Johns Day. Because his list typifies something I've often noticed: many Michigan locavores have a blind spot when it comes to locally-produced wine.

I can't say why this is. It doesn't work that way elsewhere. From Sancerre to Sonoma, restaurant lists overflow with the region's wines.

But Michigan locavores, who regularly celebrate community farmers and wouldn't be caught dead dissing Bell's of Kalamazoo or the hometown micro-brew, ignore a jeroboam-full of reasons to become locapours:

• Like other farmers beloved by locavores, Michigan grape growers and wineries are almost exclusively small, family-run businesses
• Wine grapes sustain agriculture and forestall development in places where other crops (like cherries and Concord grapes) no longer provide their former income.
• Vineyards and wineries practice sustainable agriculture. Grapes can yield crops on the same land every year for centuries. Winery pomace can recycle as fertilizer or animal feed.
• Michigan-made wines impose a far lower environmental footprint than bottles trucked from California or shipped from Australia.
• Wine transcends commodity status to become one of Michigan's fastest-growing value-added agricultural products.
• Wine brings millions of tourist dollars to our state, and supports many ancillary businesses. 

And perhaps most important for those of us who love to eat and drink:

• Today's top Michigan wines can hold up their heads in any company, anywhere. Those who eat -- or serve -- local foods have no reason to avoid pairing them with local wines, on dinner tables or wine lists

True, we don't make wine from Malbec or Zinfandel, two fixtures on most restaurant wine lists these days, including Grange's.

Then again, we also don't raise Kobi beef or pull Chilean sea bass from our lakes -- and locavores survive nicely without putting such non-local species on their dinner plates or restaurant menus.

"Locally Sourced, Farm to Table"?

Unless, it often seems, the farm happens to grow wine grapes.