DETROIT – Many people love wine, but Cortney and Shannon Casey turned their passion for Michigan wines into a business. It all started with a blog called "Michigan by the Bottle" where they would write articles and do video blogs on local wineries. Eventually, after enough people said "I want your job, how did you get it?," they finally decided to make it their job, opening the first Michigan by the Bottle Tasting Room in Shelby Township in 2012.
Over the years they opened two other tasting rooms in Royal Oak and Auburn Hills. Each tasting room offers a different selection of Michigan wines, most of which are from smaller or lesser known wineries, and they run the gambit from the well known sweet whites, to reds. You can taste any wine you'd like at the tasting room and take home the ones you like.
"It's good to try just as many things as possible because it really opens up the doors for you of things that you can find, that you love, throughout the state," says owner Cortney Casey.
We decided to have some fun and asked them to pair Michigan wines with other Michigan favorites like...
LITD: What wine would you pair with a coney dog?
MBTB: The Sassy Rose from Sandhill Crane Vineyard in Jackson. It's got a little more body than most whites but not too much, like a red may overpower a hot dog, but this will go really well with it.
LITD: What pairs with the classic Detroit-style deep dish pizza?
MBTB: Chaos Red from Verterra Winery in Leland. With pizzas I typically like a red to go with the red sauce, but something that is lighter and a little more fruit forward, with a slightly elevated acidity to offset the marinara.
LITD: How about Better Made potato chips, what pairs with those?
MBTB: A sparkling wine, Bel Lago's Leelanau Brillente. With something that is salty I like to pair it with a sparkling wine.
LITD: For dessert, what would you pair with a Michigan cherry pie?
MBTB: Desserts are funny because when you pair a wine with dessert you always want your wine to be sweeter than your dessert, if not your wine is going to taste a little flabby. So what I would recommend is a dessert wine from Chateau Aeronautique, it's called Passito Cabernet Sauvignon.
Michigan by the Bottle hosts several events at their various tasting rooms for you to learn all about wine and have a good time. For more information on events, locations, and hours of operation, please visit their website.