FINDING A SENSE OF PLACE From Michigan to California and back again, winemaker Chris Southern’s career comes full-circle at Detroit Vineyards
by Erin Marie Miller
F
or Detroit-based winemaker Chris Southern, getting into the
wine business was serendipity: “It was an accident. I was going to go into sustainable agriculture, like urban farming. When I was researching programs, I’d written down that Cal Poly had one. Turns out, they didn’t. But I was already done with the application so I was like, ‘Wine. Sure. I’m not gonna get in anyway,’” Southern recalls with a laugh. As fate would have it, Southern did get accepted to California Polytechnic University’s wine and viticulture program —
4 | MICHIGAN UNCORKED Chris Southern, winemaker at Detroit Vineyards
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