If the sun and the sand by themselves don’t lure you to the beach, how about tastes of award-winning wines from all over Southwest Michigan?
Join the fun and the crowds Saturday, June 18th at the 6th annual Lake Michigan Shore Wine Festival at Bridgman’s Weko Beach.
The festival promotes locally grown and produced varietals and wines, with 12 wineries from all over the area presenting their wares.
Tastes and glasses of wine will be available from Contessa Wine Cellars, Domaine Berrien Cellars, Fenn Valley Vineyard and Wine Cellar, Founders Wine Cellar, Free Run Cellars, Hickory Creek Winery, Karma Vista Vineyards and Winery, Lawton Ridge Winery, Lemon Creek Winery, Round Barn Winery, Tabor Hill Winery and Warner Vineyards.
Round Barn will also be showcasing a few summertime libations from their brewery tasting rooms in Baroda and Union Pier.
The festivities run from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. In addition to plentiful samples of Michigan’s finest local harvest (wine, of course), the festival will feature great food from area restaurants and markets, as well as rousing live entertainment.
Top Secret Band, a high-energy cover band from California will kick off the afternoon at 1 p.m., followed by local favorite bluesman Duke Tumatoe at 3 p.m.
At 5 p.m., jazz-funk-reggae band Midwest Hype from Chicago will bring their fun lyrics and groovy tunes to the stage. Then at 7 p.m., Cadillac Dave & His Chicago Redhots will take their turn at rocking the crowd with more blues melodies.
Headlining the day’s musical entertainment, Indianapolis-based P.S. Dump Your Boyfriend will hit the stage at 8:30 p.m. to deliver non-stop entertainment with their unique mix of pop/rock, funk and hip-hop.
Naturally, the beach will also be accessible to all attendees throughout the day – a great bonus for kids tagging along with their parents.
Combined with a day filled with sun and sand, local fare and music running the gamut from blues to pop/rock, the festival is not only a destination for wine enthusiasts but for the entire family.
“Bridgman is a small community on the shores of Lake Michigan,” says Bridgman’s Mayor, Ron Birmingham, “but for the past five years our Wine Fest event has been on the ‘must-do list’ of over 4,000 people.”
Admission to the festival is $10 at the door for ages 21 and older and includes a souvenir wine tasting glass. Children 12 and under are free. Advance tickets are available for $8 at www.ticketweb.com or Bridgman’s Harding’s Friendly Market and Edgewater Bank.
Tasting tickets will be sold for $1 each, with tastes going for 1 ticket each and glasses of wine for 5-7 tickets.
Previous years have brought both rain and shine to festivals at Weko Beach, but rest assured that this year’s Lake Michigan Shore Wine Festival will be rocking under the big-top tent no matter the weather.
For additional information, visit www.miwinetrail.com.
Jennifer Piotter is a contributing writer for BlueStarHighway.com and writer of the food blog Kitchen Extract.
