Holly Balansag Soars as Sandhill Crane Vineyards' Head Winemaker
Cue the cranes.
Sandhill cranes—a dozen at least—stand statuesque in a field at Sandhill Crane Vineyards in Jackson, as if trained to do so.
Winemaker Holly Balansag laughs and says that some days they’re more prevalent than others, especially nearing migration time—more than truth in advertising.
In the family operation that is Sandhill Crane Vineyards, Balansag is the second-generation winemaker. Her dad, Norm Moffatt, began making wine as a hobby when he retired from the Detroit Police Department.
“He was the instigator. He was the one with the winemaking knowledge and planted the grapes,” she says of her father, who still lives on the property, though Balansag and her sister, Heather Price, run the operation. She adds with a laugh: “He’s the type of person who takes a hobby really far.”
When the family decided to “go pro” in September 2003, Balansag quickly learned that professional winemaking is a dramatically different process than the hobby version. And at the time, few of her winemaker contemporaries were female. She’s considered the first female head winemaker in Michigan.
“When I started I felt a little odd because I’d go to these wine conferences and there’d be all guys,” says Balansag, who also dealt with feeling at odds for lacking formal training. “Now there are more women. I feel like women have good palates.”
Besides: they’re hard workers, she says frankly. Her staff at Sandhill happens to be 90 percent women—a move she says wasn’t deliberate. It’s just the way it happens. The way Balansag tells it, she sort of fell into what she does too.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do in the business until I started making wine and fell in love with it,” she says. Not one for pretense, she likes the more approachable, casual moniker “winemaker” over “vintner.”
“I like to keep the business down to earth. Winemaking can be scientific or creative. I’m way more on the creative side.”
She clearly got the hang of it, and Sandhill has risen in popularity since. In 2010 they more than doubled their building square footage to make room for additional winemaking, a café and an event space to host private events, including weddings.
Sandhill has almost five acres of vineyards to grow six varieties, but would need 25 acres, give or take, to make all the wines they offer, so they bring in additional grapes from vineyards along the Lake Michigan shore.
“Their winters are milder, their growing seasons are a little longer. We’re in the center of the state. We have no lake effect,” says Balansag, adding that they grow mostly hybrid varieties designed to withstand tougher conditions and bring in six to eight other varieties that they can’t grow as well. She says Marquette is probably her favorite. “It makes a really nice, rich, full-bodied dry red.”
Balansag likes to offer a variety, so usually makes up to 30 wines, many of which are small batches.
“I like to appeal to everybody’s tastes. We’re not wine snobs. We make sweet wines and dessert wines too,” she says, though she admits a dry red is her favorite. Their fruit wines are among the most popular, using Michigan raspberries and apples. “I think there’s an occasion for every wine.”
Sandhill also uses its platform to give back. Purchases of their Blushing Crane Wine benefit the nearby Haehnle Bird Sanctuary and their Abrazo—Spanish for hug—benefits the Cascades Humane Society, where Balansag adopted her dog, Rusty, who also appears on the label. Both wines have medaled at the Great Lakes Wine Judging.
For Balansag, the magic is in watching what transpires from her notes—about pH levels, acidity, fermentation, the yeast she used—to determine when a wine is just right. “That’s where the fun is for me,” she says. “I make sure it’s a good-quality wine before we blend it. We usually do everything ourselves.”
Even with many varieties, Sandhill isn’t easy to find beyond the vineyard, aside from a few smaller outlets in Jackson and Ann Arbor and in metro-Detroit’s Michigan By the Bottle in Royal Oak and Shelby Township. The winery needs most of the about 4,500 cases it produces for its own customers.
“That’s enough for us,” says Balansag. “We’re small and I want to stay small. I think that’s what our customers love about us too.”
Nicole Schulte, tasting-room manager, warns that if something wows you, buy it then because it might be gone in a month.
“It’s kind of the beauty of a small craft place like this,” says Schulte, who first came to Sandhill for a wine tasting and before long came to work there.
“I like it because it’s a family-run business. It was really refreshing to be led by women, especially in a male-dominated industry,” she says, adding that they encourage individuality and being yourself. “That was something I immediately admired about them.”
Balansag’s daughters also have a hand in the business: Lani, 22, a film major at College for Creative Studies in Detroit, designs the labels and the website, and Pauline, 19, works in the kitchen, which focuses on charcuterie and weekend specials.
“flat’s where my sister Heather’s creativity comes in too—she’s a really good cook,” says Balansag.
The wintertime slows some for Sandhill, giving them time to plan and host several wine releases and events, including Wine and Wool. Balansag remains hard at work, finding the perfect balance: the perfect wine.
“The dry reds are special to me because they’re hard to make in Michigan. They do better when you have drier weather,” says Balansag. “When we have a really good year for dry reds, I’m very excited.”
Sandhill Crane Vineyards
4724 Walz Rd., Jackson,
517-764-0679, SandhillCraneVineyards.com
