Heady days for Black Star Farms
Leelanau's Black Star Farms is enjoying an amazing run of good news.
After being named one of bedandbreakfast.com's Top Ten Eco-Friendly Inns, they were invited to provide a prize for Wheel of Fortune's Green Week. The show will reportedly air tonight (Apr 11) at 7 PM on WPBN TV 7&4, and a contestant did win the prize. More from the Traverse City Business News.
On the heels of that comes news that Wine Enthusiast magazine has selected Black Star Farms, Suttons Bay as one of America's Top 25 tasting rooms in its May issue.
It seems almost an anti-climax to report that this week they added online wine ordering to their web site.
Image courtesy Wheel of Fortune / Sony Pictures.
Kudos to Black Star on their run of good exposure. At the same time, I can't believe their tasting room was rated in the top 25 nationwide. My wife and I refer to Black Star as the "corporate" tasting room, which to us lacks charm. We wouldn't have put Black Star's tasting room in the top 10 in the Leelanau/Old Mission area. But, there is no accounting for taste.
Comment by BobDylan — April 11, 2008 @ 10:34 am
I had to laugh when I heard Black Star and LMawby were trying to call themselves green or eco-friendly. I wonder how many thousands of dollars it costs to heat, air condition and light those places. The carbon footprint must be massive. Most of those types of accolades are the result of generous advertising.
Comment by Green police — April 15, 2008 @ 6:21 pm
It probably costs a lot.
However, I don't think green/eco-friendly means you sit in the dark and hope you won't go out of business tomorrow. Rather, it means that you make choices that include an assessment of the benefits to your environment, something that both of these wineries do as a matter of course.
Furthermore, I think that you could make a case that all the wineries in our area are having a tremendous ecological impact by keeping land in agricultural use.
Comment by Andrew McFarlane — April 16, 2008 @ 6:33 am
There is a vast difference between making a small green innitiative and being green. We are seeing alot of businesses jumping on the bandwagon at the last minute because they figured out that green sells, and using there clout and channels to create the illusion that they are out in front of eco-conciensness when in fact they are in the stone age. It is the equivilant of Mcdonalds calling themselves organic because they use pesticide free salt on there french fries. I personally have seen the lights in Suttons Bay dim when Mawby and Blackstar turn on there mega-whole cluster grape presses that run for eight weeks a year. To become green these places would have to get rid of all there winemaking equipment (pumps, filters, bottlers, crushers, presses, etc) and artificially climate controled cellars and re-tool with low voltage, efficiant, and manually operated equipment. They would have to cut emmissions by 90% and wine production by 75%. They would also have to purchase and install 10's of thousands of kilowatts of alternative energy sourcs. Ecologically beneficial is great, but green is green. There are no shortcuts, but there are lots of sacrifices.
Comment by Green police — April 21, 2008 @ 9:01 am
Oh, what a great idea, Green police.
Wait, even better...they could just go out of business, thus reducing their carbon footprint to zero!
That high vineyard land (great views) would end up sold and subdivided for homes, but who cares? At least you wouldn't be startled by the "lights" dimming in Suttons Bay when those evil grape crushers crank up.
Of course, YOU could buy up that land and let it sit there sucking up CO2 forever. Now, that sounds like the perfect solution to me.
The fact is, Andrew M. is correct....wineries throughout Leelanau are keeping agricultural land in productive use, benefitting the local economy and the environment, and those that do their best to tread as lightly on the environment as possible should be recognized, not whined at.
If the aim of your post was to prove a point, the only one you've made so far is that self-righteous silliness knows no bounds.
Comment by CosmicCrowbar — April 21, 2008 @ 8:08 pm