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WineEast Technical Review Putting His Best Foot Forward Left Foot Charley is an urban winery in un-urban Northern Michigan By Linda Jones McKee CE N T R A L Left Foot Charley Lake Huron Traverse City ON WI MICHIGAN Lake Michigan IL Grand Rapids Detroit IN OH Left Foot Charley is an ���urban��� winery in Traverse City, Mich., that purchases grapes from vineyards and is located in a historic district that formerly was the Northern Michigan Asylum. L eft Foot Charley. It���s an unusual name for a winery. But then, it���s located in a place that is not exactly the center of the wine universe, and a distinctive name can help consumers remember the winery and how their wines taste. Left Foot Charley is an urban winery in the decidedly un-urban Northern Michigan town of Traverse City. The owners, Bryan and Jen Ulbrich, chose to open a winery in this town of 15,000 residents partly because they have family in Michigan and also to follow Bryan���s dream: making great white wines, and doing it in his own way. Ulbrich started his career in the wine business in another unlikely place: working in the tasting room of the R.W. Webb Winery, one of the first wineries to open in Arizona. He left the tasting room for the cellar when, as he says, he ���got into fermentation��� and became fascinated with the white wines of Germany and France. In 1995 the Ulbrichs moved to Northern Michigan, which during the previous 15 154 W in es & V i ne s JANUARY 20 13 Wine East HIGHLIGHTS: ��� A white wine specialist in Michigan adapted a former mental asylum laundry into a 9,000-squarefoot winery. ��� Left Foot Charley buys from 18 small, independent vineyards with highquality production of mostly German and Alsatian varieties. It makes hard cider, too. ��� Located in a regional vacation destination, the winery capitalizes on sales from visitors but also caters to locals with regular events and a mini-restaurant. years had begun to develop a reputation as a center for cool-climate wine production in the northern Midwest. Most of the vineyards and wineries near Traverse City are either on the Leelanau Peninsula on the west side of Grand Traverse Bay or the Old Mission Pinot Blanc is one of four white vinifera varieties that grow well in Northern Michigan. Peninsula on the east side. Many of the wines in the region are made from white winegrape cultivars: Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Grigio or Gew��rztraminer. The grapes Wineries often get started by planting some grapevines, then making wine as the grapes begin to produce three or four years later. Ulbrich chose a different path. Rather than plant his own vineyard, he started working with Lee Lutes at Peninsula Cellars, just north of Traverse City, and for two years he learned to make wine in the school of day-to-day experience. Then, in 2004, he helped a friend rejuvenate a struggling Riesling vineyard and made his first 200 cases of Left Foot Charley wines in a small rented building. Ulbrich continued to focus on the region���s white winegrapes with the goal of finding small lots from vineyards that were unique in soil type, slope, microclimate and exposure. ���I was looking for Northern Michigan terroir,��� and for grapes that express that