FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                   

Contact:  Brian Lillie

Phone:  231-223-4110                                          Emailwine@chateauchantal.com

www.chateauchantal.com  

June 2, 2008

Chateau Chantal Proudly Announces the 15 Days of Celebrate!

Robert and Nadine Begin opened the doors of Chateau Chantal in 1993 with two ideas as the goal: great wine and unequivocal hospitality. As of this July this vision has successfully been the focus at 15900 Rue de Vin on Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City for 15 years.  In observation of the 15th anniversary and the Begin’s achievements Chateau Chantal will be hosting the “Fifteen Days of Celebrate!” beginning on June 16th. During this two week period Chateau Chantal invites the public in a toast scheduled daily in the original cellar at 15:00 hours (3pm). The actual anniversary will be observed on July 1st, 2008 when the Chateau Chantal staff invites all to join for a piece of cake commemorating great wine and great company.

Contact:  Liz Berger                                                                                                                       FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Phone:  231-223-4110

Email:  wine@chateauchantal.com

www.chateauchantal.com

CHATEAU CHANTAL HOSTS MARY IN THE MORNING WINE TOUR

On Wednesday, May 28th from 5p.m. to 7p.m., Chateau Chantal will be hosting the Mary in the Morning Wine Tour!  The hosts of this popular morning radio program, Lori Cole and Mary Rogers, will be in attendance along with winemakers Mark Johnson and Brian Hosmer for this free wine tasting at the beautiful Chateau Chantal.

Also on-site will be local vendors who work closely with the winery.  Great Northern Roasting Company, Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, Living Light Massage, Old Mission Peninsula Restaurants, and many others will be offering demonstrations, samples, and coupons.

Please join us for what will certainly be a fabulous night of wine tasting, product sampling, and mingling with friends.

Chateau Chantal is an old-world winery, bed and breakfast, tasting room, and vineyard; it is located 12 miles north of Traverse City on Old Mission Peninsula, on a high ridge surrounded by vineyards, and offers stunning views of both East and West Grand Traverse Bays.

###

If you’d like more information about this event, please contact Chateau Chantal at 231.223.4110

or visit us online at www.chateauchantal.com

2007 ICE WINE HARVEST

December 18th, 2007

After another fantastic grape growing season Chateau Chantal is looking forward to another magnificent Ice Wine. 

Chateau Chantal has only had a few ice wine harvests in recent years, which is why we are so excited about this years crop. Ice wine is made from grapes frozen on the vine, and then pressed while still frozen. It’s known for its incredible sweetness and fruitiness, with all the delicateness of a rich and lush desert wine, often described as “liquid gold”.

To give you another example of the unique quality of Ice Wine, in a normal 1-ton harvest you can produce 175 gallons of wine, but in a 1-ton harvest of Ice Wine you are able to produce only 40 gallons of wine.

The harvest took place last Saturday December 15th before sunrise (6:45am) in 12-degree (Fahrenheit) weather. We only had a ½ acre area to harvest so the harvest was completed in less than 2 hours.

Chateau Chantal invites you to do a story on this process. Our wine makers Mark Johnson and Brian Hosmer will be available to provide details and answer any questions that you have.

If you are interested in a story please give us a call at 800-969-4009 or 231-223-4110.

Wintertime at Chateau Chantal

December 18, 2007 

Women's Wine Weekend

Friday and Saturday, February 1st and 2nd, 2008

Refresh your friendships, renew your soul, and relax in style! Gather your lady friends for a special women’s wine weekend at Chateau Chantal. Spend some time away from daily life and enjoy the special schedule for the weekend. From Friday evening’s champagne reception to Sunday’s farewell, your experience will be the perfect opportunity to getaway with the girls!
Package includes two nights accommodation, champagne reception, full breakfast each morning, winery tour, lunch at Old Mission Tavern, your choice of a one hour massage or a Downtown Traverse City shopping certificate, a dinner at Chateau Chantal paired with wines, discussion of the Art of Wine Tasting, evening entertainment of a big-screen movie or fireside chat, plus a take home gift from the winery! Held on February 1st and 2nd, this special weekend is price starts at $373 per person depending on room choice and number of people in room. Most suites can sleep from two to four guests – so grab your best friends, your fuzzy slippers and enjoy the wine, food and relaxation! To book call 800-969-4009.

Cooking Classes January through April 2008

A grand hit with all guests! Chef Nancy Allen creates a wonderfully entertaining and educational afternoon of hands-on preparation. After your "work" is complete, enjoy the fruits of your labor with your fellow classmates over dinner. Nowhere will you find a more enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and realistic cooking teacher than Nancy. All cooking classes are approximately five hours and no longer require a weekend stay at our 11 unit B&B. Bring an apron and a favorite knife. Cooking class prices are $125 per person. Stay in the B&B and your rate is only $110 per person. We would be happy to figure out package prices based per person including two nights accommodation, full breakfast each morning, cooking class and learning materials. Check our calendar of events for cooking class dates during the winter months. Book Now

Wine Immersion Seminars

January 19th, 2008; March 29th, 2008; April 19th, 2008

An all day event providing an excellent overview of winemaking, viticulture and food and wine pairing. Hosted by our witty and passionate winemaker, Mark Johnson. The day includes a vineyard walk, peasant's lunch, cellar tour, wine tastings, learning materials, and gourmet dinner. The $135 per person price covers lunch, multi-course dinner paired with Chantal's wines, learning materials and instruction. Class starts at 11AM and runs through dinner. Call 1-800-969-4009 for further details and reservations. Weekend packages begin at $290 per person. Call to register and check room availability. Book Now

Sunday Morning Returns to the Great Room!

Back after popular demand! Chateau Chantal has returned to in-house Sunday breakfast! The Boathouse was a great option for our guests for the past couple of years but the popular vote remains with the intimate breakfast in the castle on the bluff. Breakfast returns December 16th, 2007. For those troubled by the decision all is not lost. Doug at the Boathouse will still welcome our guests on Mother's Day and Easter.

The 2007 Mac-N-Cheese Results Are In!

After another exciting and tasty bake-off the people have chosen who made their favorite in four categories. The votes were cast by secret ballot and decisions were made based on the following four categories:

Chateau Chantal "Hits Gold" at

the Annual Michigan Wine and Spirits Competition!

Four of Chateau Chantal's Proprietor's Reserve wines took gold medals at the annual Michigan Wine and Spirits Competition. One that continues to simply get better with age is our '04 Proprietor's Reserve Dry Riesling. Winemakers, judges, and connoisseurs agree this is what a riesling from Michigan is all about. Accompanying the '04 PR Riesling in the gold category was the '05 Proprietor's Reserve Pinot Gris, the '05 Proprietor's Reserve Trio and our first vineyard designated vintage in the '05 Proprietor's Reserve Cabernet Franc- Krupka Vineyards. Our 2nd vineyard designated release, the '05 Proprietor's Reserve Pinot Noir- Pontes Vineyard, also placed well taking a bronze medal. After all was tasted, spit, and done Chateau Chantal brought 10 medals back to Old Mission Peninsula.

Some like it hot...

CHATEAU CHANTAL is devoted to cool-climate wines grown in our Traverse City, Michigan vineyards. But we are also in love with the inky, rich Malbec we are growing in our new Mendoza Argentine vineyard in Lujan de Cuyo. You heard it right; we are growing wines both above and below the equator! And our Malbec Tango label is now available at stores throughout Michigan and right in your backyard! Call your favorite Chateau Chantal retail outlet for information on the release.  We are very excited about this release and want to hear what you have to say! After you find your bottle, we ask you to try it and let us know how you like it at tango@chateauchantal.com .

Bob has made it big time!

See him on TV!

Chateau Chantal is certified!

Coenraad Stassen leaves Chateau Chantal

The Great Macaroni and Cheese Bake Off

Another overwhelming success was the consensus from the wineries and the restaurants that participated in the annual event. Many interesting and tasty variations of the old staple were offered from the traditional extra cheesy to goatcheese with roasted pistachio. People pleased their palates the saturday after Thanksgiving voting on their favorites. Here are the winners in each the categories:

Most Unique- Peninsula Market

Cheesiest- TraVino Wine and Grille

Best With White Wine- Trattoria Stella

People's Choice- Trattoria Stella

Due to the popularity of the event tickets are now being limited to the first 1000 participants... up 50% from 2004!

We've tallied the scores!

Nearing the end of 2006 Chateau Chantal is checking the stats to prove once again why we are the best. In the past year we have taken home over thirty-two awards with over twenty of them being silver or better. Here is a list ofsome of the competitions we have entered this year: The Grand Harvest Awards, The New World International, Finger Lakes International, The Taster's Guild International, International Eastern Competition, The San Francisco International, The Indy International, and a few more. The wines that are placing smiles on the judges faces this year were 2004
Proprietor's Reserve Riesling, the 2004 Late Harvest Riesling, the 2005 Semi-Dry Riesling, a couple of new additions in the 2005 Select Harvest Chardonnay and the 2005 Proprietor's Reserve Krupka Vineyard Cabernet Franc, and 2004 and 2005 Pinot Noir and Proprietor's Reserve Pinot Noir. Lastly, of course, are our staples: Naughty, Nice, Celebrate, and Cerise.

Award and Competition Breakdown

Marie-Chantal Weds!

Chantal Begin, namesake of Chateau Chantal, married her Australian fiancé Paul (Paolo) Dalese at St. Joseph's Parish on Old Mission Peninsula on October 14, 2006. Paul's parents, Mario and Bruna had emigrated from Italy after the war and settled in Adelaide, Australia. A flock of "Aussies", Italians, Canadians and miscellaneous travelers from as far away as Japan, the reception roared into the late evening at Chateau Chantal.

Chantal graduated from DePaul University in Chicago, worked at the Lyric Opera Building a couple of years before venturing to the University of Adelaide where she absorbed additional marketing credits in winery management... and a romance with Paul. The two are settled in the Chicago area. Paul's entrepreneuial skills have started a heavy- truck, transmission-parts business that ships weekly to Austrailia. Chantal works with a small, boutique distributor near their home.

View photos here

The Release of the Proprietor's Reserve and Select Harvest

We are proud to introduce the Proprietor's Reserve Line for 2005. In 2005, Michigan grape growers experienced the ripest fruit ever harvested. As a result the winemakers hand selected specific vineyards because of the concentrated flavors in the fruit these areas produced. We hope all enjoy these vintages as much as we do... introducing the 2005 Proprietor's Reserve Pinot Noir, the 2005 Proprietor's Reserve Trio, the 2005 Select Harvest Chardonnay, and the special release of a rare Michigan red the 2005 Proprietor's Reserve Krupka Vineyard Cabernet Franc.

It's about time!

Malbec is in the House!

THE VINEYARD STORY
Cool whites and delicate reds find the terroir of Old Mission Peninsula a natural at the 45th parallel in northern Michigan. For the consumer of deep reds however, we took the advice of Bordeaux’s ‘flying winemaker’ Jacques Lurton, and visited his new Bodega on the hot desert floor near the foot of the Andes in Argentina. We fell in love with the red Malbec variety and bought 135 acres in the prestigious region of Lujan de Cuyo in the State of Mendoza. The native Indians figured out long ago how to direct the melting snow from the mountain to alter the floor of sandy clay-loam into an oasis of what is now the fifth largest wine-grape growing area in the world.

At an elevation of 2800 feet, the growing season serves an ideal of cool nights and hot days! Forty percent of the acreage is planted with vines ranging from 9 to 20 years. Italians would promptly recognize the vineyard’s overhead, Pergola trellis system that provide full exposure of the leaves to the sun while giving shade to the grape clusters themselves and preventing sunburn.

THE GROWING SEASON ‘04/’05
Chantal South is in the opposite hemisphere to its parent home in Michigan and finds harvest in our late winter and early springtime. What a delight this vintage! We pruned for a modest yield. The growing season was almost perfect in our area and the quality very high. Harvest started about two weeks earlier than normal and continued for four weeks under perfectly sunny skies with temperatures in the 70s. All the grapes were hand harvested and arrived at the winery shortly afterwards.

THE WINEMAKING
At the winery the grapes were crushed, destemmed and pumped into traditional Lagars.
For fermentation, selected yeast strains were added to different lots and fermentation took place at about 70 degrees F. Color extraction was extremely fast and led to early pressing from the grapes after only six days. This prevented extraction of many of the harsher tannins and helped retain bright fruit flavors. After settling, the wine was racked to reconditioned French oak barrels were it aged for six months. In November the wine was filtered, transferred to 1000 liter ‘bag in boxes’, and loaded into ocean ship containers for its final journey at Chateau Chantal North. Final blending and bottling was completed at the home winery during the second week of June, 2006.

THE WINE
The color is beautiful, dark and inky. The bouquet is classic Malbec with dark, berry fruit, some cherry and just a hint of the toast, chocolate and vanilla flavors from the barrels. The wine pairs well with any hearty fare, red meats, pasta and cheeses. It, of course, goes best with thick steaks grilled over an open mesquite fire on the Pampas….
or, with imagination, your backyard will do as well.

Chateau Chantal's Proprietor's Reserve Riesling

It has been seven years since the General Public has had a taste of our Proprietor's Reserve Riesling, and with the great Riesling harvest's of the past two years, we are proud to offer it again!

Proprietor's Reserve Reisling 2004

(pronounce: Reez-ling)  These grapes were selected for their concentrated flavors and fermented with special yeast cultures.  An optimum balance between fruit, body, and acidity leaves this wine clean and crisp with hints of green apple and citrus.  Enjoy with white meats, Asian, cheeses, or all by itself.

Already, acclaim is being sung from the hills.  The PR Riesling has won a Gold Medal at the Vendimia 2005 International Wine Competition down in Argentina!  It also won a Silver Medal at the Michigan State Fair.

This wine falls into the Dry White category, and is priced at $21.99 a bottle.  400 cases have been produced, so production is limited.  Sale of this will be available in early November.

Surprise!!  A 2004 Proprietor's Reserve Pinot Gris just in time

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our winemakers and all our vineyard staff, we are please to announce the release of a Proprietor's Reserve Pinot Gris from the 2004 harvest.  Released just in time for the holidays, you can share the award winner with friends and family, pairing it with just about any food.

Stainless steel fermentation followed by 10 months of aging in French oak yields an optimal balance of body and acidity with bold fruit aromas accompanied by soft oak layers.

Wine Legislation Updates

The best up-to-date information we can give you is best represented at this address....

www.winecam.org

Cerise wins Double Gold in NYC!

   Our fortified wine, Cerise has won international acclaim.  This spring our 'wine scientists' took wines to four major festivals and came back great news.

   The Eastern International Wine Competition took place in NYC this year, and Cerise won a Double Gold in the Cherry Dessert wine category!!  Also winning were our Cherry Wine (Silver), Late Harvest Riesling (Silver), and Trio (Bronze).

   At the Taster's Guild International Competition in Grand Rapids, Cerise again took top prize with a Gold.  Placing as well, were the Sparkling Cherry (Gold), Late Harvest Riesling (Silver), Trio (Silver), Cherry Wine (Bronze), and Private Reserve Chardonnay (Bronze).

   Lastly, the Los Angeles County Fair awarded Cerise a Silver medal.

New Releases from the Winery!

   We have Pinot Noir and our new Proprietor's Reserve Pinot Noir now available!  Pronounced: (P-No no-R) Displays cherry and plum flavors characteristic of Pinot Noir grapes.  Small oak barrel aging provides smokiness and vanilla flavors to compliment the fruit.  The Reserve sustains a higher complexity of these flavors thru new-age clone grapes.

   Also bottled is the 2004 Late Harvest Riesling and it is available to interested customers.  It is a luscious, sweet, white wine.  Delicious when accompanied with fruit, dessert, and cheese.

We would like to thank all of the readers of The Detroit News that voted Chateau Chantal "Michigan's Best Vineyard" for 2005 .

2004 Ice Wine Harvest

Based upon our current weather conditions and the weekend forecast Chateau Chantal is very excited that we will be able to harvest and produce a 2004 “Ice Wine” vintage.

Chateau Chantal has only had one ice wine harvest in the last three (3) years, which is why we are so excited about this years crop. Ice wine is made from grapes frozen on the vine, and then pressed while still frozen. Incredible sweetness and fruitiness, with all the delicateness of a rich and lush desert wine, often described as “liquid gold”.

To give you another example of the unique quality of Ice Wine, in a normal 1-ton harvest you can produce 175 gallons of wine, but in a 1-ton harvest of Ice Wine you are able to produce only 40 gallons of wine.

The harvest is planned for Monday, December 20th at sunrise (7:30). We only have a ½ acre area to harvest so the harvest should be complete within 2 to 3 hours.

Chateau Chantal invites you to come and do a story on this process. Our wine maker Mark Johnson will be available to talk with you and provide you with the details and answer any questions that you have.


Eau de Vie - The Water of Life

Chateau Chantal’s copper still has survived its waiting period. En fin! Our first release of Cherry Eau de Vie, a pure spirit at 40% alcohol, has arrived! Eau de Vie is distilled whole tart cherries, blended only with pure Northern Michigan water. Enjoy just a sip at a time and experience a three-hundred year old European tradition. From your tastebuds to your toes, this Cherry Eau de Vie will certainly warm your spirits!


The Supreme Court, American Wineries, & You

   On May 16th, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of private wineries in the battle with wholesale distributors over the direct sale of wine to consumers.  The High Court ruled that states whose vintners ship directly to consumers can no longer prevent out-of-state wineries from doing the same.

   Now, it is up to the states to decide whether direct shipping is to be wholly interstate or banned completely.  Michigan is one of these states.

We here at Chateau Chantal believe in free trade, growth, and progressive movement in the wine industry; therefore, we strongly support the decision made by the Supreme Court.  And we need your help!  State capitals are now the focus of the court's decision, and heavy lobbying is taking place for and against wine-direct shipping.  Wineries across America have united and created a website designated to helping you, the consumer, to learn and take a part in the reformation of the wine industry's future.  

http://www.freethegrapes.org/

   This website has loads of information, and up-to-date press releases; as well as an online form you can send directly to your state legislators with the click of a button.  We need all the help we can get, so please take a moment of your time and visit it today.