You are about to virtually visit an award winning winery that truly has something for everyone.
This family owned (4 generations), true Michigan winery deserves to be celebrated. And to top it off, St Julian Winery is turning 100 in 2021! Now let’s raise our sparkling wine glasses and CHEERS to that!
St Julian Winery is not just a winery, but they also have cider and spirits as well for the adults and they didn’t forget the kids as they have sparkling juice. There is literally something for everyone here.
And with the onset of COVID, they pivoted and started creating sanitizer, so you can bet when we visited it was very safe with a lot of precautionary measures that were enforced to keep everyone safe from the staff to the guests.
True Michigan Award Winning Winery
It’s so important to St Julian Winery that they are a true Michigan winery that all of their wines are made with grapes from 40 miles of the winery. I personally love this as you are getting a true taste of the region and its environment.
And for those of you that live in the Midwest, you can find this Michigan winery represented in major grocery stores. Now I have never seen a lot of bubbly, but keep reading and you won’t even have to leave your home!
St Julian Winery Tasting Locations
It’s no doubt that with how long St Julian Winery has been around and their massive portfolio of wine (over 100 varieties!) that they have 6 different locations for wine tasting.
We visited their main winery in Paw Paw and it has the perfect mix of indoor and outdoor areas for your wine tasting enjoyment. It’s also where all the action happens, so it’s really cool to be able to peek into the room with all the tanks.
You can enjoy your wine tasting inside around their bar right as you enter or in their Apollo room if there is not an event. Outside, you can enjoy your wine tasting in their very cozy patio that even though it’s right off the main road, doesn’t feel like it at all.
We tasted our sparkling wine at the indoor bar and then enjoyed it so much, we purchased our favorite glass of sparkling wine, their champagne, and sat and enjoyed the perfect summer day on the patio.
This location in Paw Paw is where they’re crushing the grapes, bottling the wine, and everything in between. And then, of course, all wine, sparkling wine and cider is enjoyed right here too.
Sparkling Wine Tasting
Pre-COVID, you were able to choose 6 wines, sparkling wines or ciders to taste, but now, they have pre-selected flights for wine tasting served on a very handy tray.
This is not sponsored, but they did give us our own private tasting of all of their sparkling wine. We did pay for all of the bubbly and I would be lying to you if I said we didn’t leave with an entire case of bubbly!
Blanc de Blanc is their only one made by using the traditional method. This was definitely dry sparkling wine, but very good with hints of apple, pear and lemon.
Brut Champagne is made using the tank method. They have been making it since before WWII so they are grandfathered into being able to call it champagne even though it’s not from Champagne, France. This one is absolutely perfect! The perfect amount of sweet, but not too sweet at all as it is a brut, after all.
And the price point! $12.99 a bottle. Yes, we came home with a lot of these!
Sweet Nancie has a residual sugar of 5.00, which had me a bit scared since I don’t like sweet bubbly, but it was not overpoweringly sweet. Very fruity and would make a great after dinner/dessert drink.
Spumante had me even more afraid with its 6.5 residual sugar, but I actually brought a bottle home. It was enjoyable, although, for me (remember I don’t love sweet bubbly) I couldn’t drink more than one glass. I do think this will be the perfect bubbly when I need to sweeten up a cocktail without having to add sugar.
Sweet Nancie Peach is their best selling sweet sparkling wine with residual sugar of 14.0. Yes, it was sweet but would be awesome in bubbly cocktails and, of course, pairs well with dessert.
Our top sparkling wine and the ones we brought home with us were:
- Champagne
- Blanc de Blanc
- Spumante
Sparkling Juice
I mentioned above that they have sparkling juice as well and it’s quite the selection. Pre-COVID, they would do sparkling juice tastings for the kids while the adults enjoyed their wine tasting.
At the time of our visit, they had not yet reinstated this tasting, so definitely call on this if you’re looking forward to it before you go.
Wine Serving Tip
Now while we were sipping our sparkling wines and chatting, we of course talked about all things wine. And Tony who was absolutely awesome and is a tasting room manager shared this tip with us that I had to share:
20 minute rule: Put red wine in the refrigerator 20 minute before serving and take white wine out 20 minutes before serving.
Cider & Spirits
If you love hard cider, you have got to try their ciders. I tried their Sinnamon and it’s on tap (I believe for fall) and it was so good we had to stop on the way home and grab a howler so I could enjoy more later.
We also tried their vodka while we were enjoying our sparkling wine tasting. They have 2 vodkas, one made from 100% cherries and one made from 100% grapes. Vodka isn’t all they have, they also have rum, whiskey, bourbon and gin. Such a fun addition to a wine tasting for sure.
Wine Club
You can imagine being around for 100 years, St Julian Winery has a very loyal following that includes a wine club with over10,000 members. They have 5 different levels of the club you can join and all levels include great discounts on wine, premier access to award-winning wines, invitations to exclusive club events and more!
Shop at Home
Never fear if you don’t want to or can’t venture to this awesome Michigan Winery you can shop at home. Now, trust me, 12 bottles of brut champagne is a great buy, but you can certainly mix it up like we did. In fact, I also bought a bottle of their cranberry wine for some awesome holiday cocktails coming up.
St Julian Winery Report Card
I’m quite sure you already figured out that this Michigan winery earned an A+ from us. The sparkling wine was great and a fantastic deal with all of their bottles under $25, and several of them under $15.
The space was just so inviting and even with their new precautions in place with social distancing there was plenty of space to enjoy a wine tasting or an entire bottle.
Southern Michigan Wine Tour
We visited St Julian Winery while we were on a weekend away tasting all of the sparkling wine that southwest Michigan had to offer. We visited a total of 8 wineries during this trip and you can see read all about the ones we loved and which we will not be visiting again.
