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A local vintner brings a taste of
Leelanau County to our tables.

BY MEGAN SWOYER

ob Jacobson owns dozens of Riedel wine
glasses, the "functional" crystal stemware
designed specifically to the character of the
wine. It's to be expected: He's the president
of Leelanau Cellars, a vineyard and winery in northwest
Michigan. What's unexpected? That the 35-year-old
bachelor really doesn't care about which vessel goes with
what wine.
"I know the protocol, but I don't follow it," says
Jacobson, who lives in Ann Arbor. "You can drink out of
whatever you want to drink out of. I have probably 120
wine glasses, and I don't use most of them."
Eschewing the haughty image often associated with
the world of wine and its connoisseurs, Jacobson is more
interested in the quality of what he's sipping and its
value. "That's what Leelanau Cellars is most concerned
about," he says. "Overriding everything is putting a
good product in a good package at a good price."
Jacobson first became familiar with grapes when his
father, Michael Jacobson, opened his Omena, Mich.,
vineyard in the mid-1970s; at the time, it was one of just
two vineyards in Leelanau County. Growing up in East
Grand Rapids — where, Jacobson notes, there weren't
a lot of other Jewish families ("As a kid, I didn't know
anything different") — he also spent a lot of time at his
family's 1934 vacation home on a former cherry farm in
Northport.
"I worked at the vineyard during summers in high
school and college," recalls Jacobson, who graduated
from the University of Michigan with a political science
degree. In 1994, he started working at the vineyard frill
time in various capacities. "I've never had a tide," he
laughs, adding that his two sisters opted out of the fam-
ily business.
These days, Jacobson's most excited about a series of
expansions. The winery recently moved into a newly ren-
ovated space on Grand Traverse Bay: The site that was
once a gas station, restaurant and an apartment is now
z a wine-sampler's paradise, offering a panoramic view of
c l
. ( W -5 Caribbean-blue waters; a fieldstone fireplace; a 35-foot-
long tasting bar, with a shop offering red, white, fruit
CC) and dessert wines; red, white, fruit and dessert wines, >