Michigan's fruit belt yields potent brandies
Winegrower turns bounty of state's southwest into cottage industry

August 8, 2002 
By Jane Ammeson / The Herald-Palladium in St. Joseph

BARODA -- Rick Moersch, who with his wife, Sherrie, founded the Heart of the Vineyard, loves all things old. Amidst the rolling hills, vineyards and woods that comprise Heart of the Vineyard, sits a round white barn built in 1911.
   Next to the barn is an old post-and-bank style barn that was built on a nearby farm in 1881 and moved to its present location in 1919. This style of barn, which was built into an embankment, housed livestock on the lower level, keeping the animals cool in the summer and protecting them from freezing in the winter.
   The design is also perfect for a wine cellar, and is where the vineyard stores its bottled wine. On the main floor is a tasting and display area.
   Given this penchant for history, Moersch decided to begin making brandy -- turning fruits into a potent brew.
   And what better place to make brandy than in a round barn.
   "When I decided to make brandy, I searched for a round barn," Moersch said.
   "That's because round barns were designed so there were no corners for the devil to hide. A round barn allows for no evil spirits, just good ones, and that seemed like the perfect place for a distillery where spirits are made."
   But as Moersch points out, the decision to do so was made in a moment of exuberance that somehow failed to take into account the amount of work such a project might entail.
   An Internet search helped him locate a decrepit round barn near Rochester, Ind., that Moersch bought and moved to its present location.
   He hired Amish carpenters to renovate the barn for what he describes as adaptive use, adding windows around at the top for more light and a copper bar and dining area for wine-tasting dinners (the winery can be rented for parties) on the main floor. He installed a German-made copper still in a room nearby.
   Moersch, who opened the vineyard in 1992, got into the brandy making business several years ago when Michigan changed its laws about who can make and sell brandies and reduced the licensing fee from $10,000 to $50. Given the bountiful produce of this fruit belt area, making fruit brandies seemed like a winner.
   "The state wanted to encourage a small cottage industry as (a) way to use local fruit," said Moersch, who notes that it takes about 30 to 50 pounds of fruit to make one bottle of brandy. "And the process of making champagne and brandy is similar in terms of how you heat press the fruit and make the wine."
   Moersch traveled to Germany, Austria and France several times to learn how to distill brandy, accompanying Kris Berglund, a Michigan State University chemistry, chemical and biosystems engineering professor who helped develop Michigan's brandy industry.
   While Michigan has long been a wine growing state -- the 13th largest in the nation -- brandy making has usually been more a French and German kind of thing.
   Indeed, Moersch relied on European ingenuity for his brandy making by buying a German-made copper pot eau de vie still that sits in the cellar of the round barn. The term eau de vie is French for "water of life" and is the term used to describe these clear fruit brandies.
   Heart of the Vineyard is perfectly situated to use local produce. The site itself was a family-owned orchard for almost a century. Heart of the Vineyard brandies' pure fruit flavors include blueberry, black currant, black cherry, apricot, apple, peach, pear and plum as well as grapes. The grapes are pressed and distilled into Armanac or Cognac-style brandies while the fruit is pureed before distillation. No preservatives are used in the process.
   "One ton of fruit yields about 150 gallons of wine, which when distilled produces roughly 20 gallons of 150 high proof brandy," Moersch said.
   "Obviously the key to cost effective production is finding quality fruits at bargain prices. But that's not usually a problem given the sheer enormity of what's grown both here and in northern Indiana."
   So far, Moersch has processed more than 50 tons of fruit, producing 1,000 gallons of both brandies and fruit liqueurs. The first bottles were corked at the end of March.
   Moersch was once a high school science teacher who segued into winemaking for Tabor Hill Winery, which is down the road. While there, he began making a dry, French-style champagne under the tutelage of master champagne maker Claude Thibaut.
   At the same time, he bought a 30-acre plot of land nearby and began planting grapes.
   This desire to always try something new led him to open his own winery, where his unique grape varieties including marsanne, viognier and sheurebe, as well as the more common types such as pinto gris, merlot and cabernet franc have garnered attention from the Wall Street Journal (they wrote a story about his wines). Chicago restaurateur Gordon Sinclair, who featured Heart of the Vineyard's champagne as a house item at his restaurant Gordon's and Henry Bishop of Spiaggia, last summer ordered 50 cases.
   Lambrecht's Package Liquor Store in St. Joseph carries the brandy. Because of the long standing relationship with Lambrecht's, Heart of the Vineyard presented the first bottle of brandy that came off the line to Dan Lambrecht. Moersch points out that like wine and beer, brandy can be used in cooking.
   "It makes a great marinade," he said. "And it also adds a wonderful taste to foods."

Jane Ammeson writes for The Herald-Palladium in St. Joseph. This report was distributed by the Associated Press.