The Winery at Young Farms

BY R. COLLINS

In southern Mecosta, Michigan, just east of the Canadian Lakes, lies a hidden gem in the heart of the state. The Winery at Young Farms sits on a lush vineyard and blueberry farm that crafts estate-produced blueberry wine, as well as hybrid wines and dry reds that rival even those from esteemed winemaking destinations in the country—all in the heart of north-central Michigan. For winery owners Mark Young and Abby Young, the goal when opening their tasting room in 2017 was to provide their Canadian Lakes community with high quality wine, without sacrificing the neighborly experience.

“When we started, we wanted to create this feeling that you were really just drinking wine with your friends, so it doesn’t look like a traditional business, honestly,” said Mark Young. “[The winery] is in my front yard, so it’s just like you’re hanging out, drinking a glass of wine with me and my wife. I think it’s a unique experience in that usually, most of the time, you can chat with the winemaker.”

Though both Mark and Abby have backgrounds in different professions, in pharmacology and pediatrics, respectively, the winemaking dream was never far from reach. Mark had lived in Mecosta County his whole life and had even made his first bottle of wine in his college dorm room. The Youngs eventually bought the property in 2003 to harvest Christmas trees, but when they became interested in growing other crops, a soil test revealed their next endeavor: blueberries. You can still find the winery’s flagship blueberry wine—and best-seller—Bertha’s Blue, on rotation, along with a selection of whites, reds, ciders, and another fruit wine that together, give any wine palate, from those that stay on the sweet side to those that prefer the dry, something to sample.

“Maybe the most surprising wine is called Eugene’s Red, which is a mix of cabernet sauvignon with grapes sourced from southwest Michigan that’s blended about fifty-fifty, depending on the year, with Marquette grapes, which we grow,” Young said. “It’s a dry red, and in Michigan we’re definitely not known for our dry reds—but I would put this up against any dry red. It’s aged 20 months in oak barrels and is just a really good, deep, dry red.”

Like the tasting room and the property itself, the wine menu at The Winery at Young Farms, is made to host anyone who walks through the door. It is this friendly, accessible energy that the Youngs continue to enjoy as they approach their sixth year of winemaking on the estate, and for Mark, it is a continuous advantage of the Canadian Lakes region as a whole.

“It’s diverse in its own way in that you just never know who’s going to walk through the door. You have young professionals, retirees, and people who have never tried wine before. We’re still a big agricultural community so we have a lot of farm families,” Young said. “There are just all these people from different backgrounds, but everybody gets along. It doesn’t really matter who you are or where you came from, when you walk in—and it’s not just the winery but everywhere you go [in Canadian Lakes]— you get along with everyone else.”

Visit the Winery at Young Farms tasting room this summer for estatemade wine, small plates, summer events, and more. The tasting room is open from Tuesday to Saturday, from 1 to 9 p.m., and the winery hosts live music on Thursdays and Fridays from 5 to 8 p.m., as well as a weekly book club.

Visit thewineryatyoungfarms.com to learn more.