The road to Detroit leads through…Erie, Pennsylvania?
The road to Detroit leads through…Erie, Pennsylvania?
It does if you’re an Erie Seawolf baseball player who wants to play for the Detroit Tigers in the Major Leagues. By catching a Double-A game in Erie, I completed a travel sweep of the Tiger “farm teams” in West Michigan, Toledo and Lakeland. Many fans in the Seawolves stands wore Tiger jerseys at the charming old neighborhood ballpark. It’s just over four hours by car from Detroit and the great seats are still cheap seats.
A man named Joe in the concession stand grilled locally-made Smith’s hotdogs “old Tiger Stadium-style” with a crispy, charred casing. I said “yes” to a Yuengling from Greg, who was selling suds in the stands, but the next day I was swirling and sipping in tasting rooms 20 minutes away in the Lake Erie Wine Country borough of North East.
I learned the road to Mazza Vineyards and its South Shore Wine Company leads through Italy, Germany and Australia. Mario Mazza, the company’s general manager, enologist and heir told me, as we talked between the tanks, that his father Robert was an Italian immigrant from Calabria who farmed his father’s grapes with his brother Frank. Robert and Frank decided, at the age of 19 in 1972, to start making and selling wine in Erie.
“My uncle loved wine and my father wanted to own a small business,” Mazza explained. “They figured they needed some expertise so, they sought out and hired Helmut Kranich, a winemaker from Germany, who specialized in Gewurztraminer grapes.”
Years later Mario came, as did his turn. “When I grew up I went to Adelaide, Australia to study enology in the Barossa Valley Region.”
“Australia was likely very fun for a young American? Why ever did you come back?” I asked.
“My father’s deal was he’d pay for my education and my trip…on the understanding I promised to come back to the family business.”
Mario returned with skills and a wife – an Aussie named Mel. “She stayed with me and tolerated my 80-hour weeks through the harvest season at Two Hands Wines, so I knew she was a keeper.”
How did Mel like moving from Down Under to Erie?
“Erie, like Adelaide, enjoys the influence of water being on the Great Lakes. Just like Adelaide, Erie has easy accessibility to beaches and wine country. I think that aspect is undervalued,” Mario explained.
Instead of having to travel, the world comes to Sam and Becky Best. They own Lakeview Wine Cellars, also in North East. Their tasting room, with a view of Lake Erie, displays, under glass, samples of sand from around the world brought to them by customers.
“Here’s some from the Kentucky Derby finish line at Churchill Downs. And this sand here is from Utah Beach, in Normandy France, with some German barbed wire in it,” Sam showed me. Other sand samples were from as far away as Easter Island; a bunker at Scotland’s St. Andrews Links; Egypt; Jerusalem; and Mackinac Island.
We toasted, with a glass of Lakeview’s sparkling wine called “Cavitation,” the decision he and Becky made 14 years ago, after Sam retired from the postal service, to sink his savings into the soil, while their loyal old Irish Setter “Cabernet” laid by their feet.
Back up the Great Lakes Seaway Trail in downtown, I stayed at the surprisingly snazzy Hampton Inn Erie Bayfront. It’s eighth-story rooftop restaurant Oscar’s offers a bird’s-eye view of the Erie Maritime Museum’s floating replica of the U.S. Brig Niagara. Oscar’s menu, in homage to Admiral Perry’s historic statement, pleads “Don’t give up the ‘shrimp!’”
Across the harbor, at the Sheraton Erie Bayfront, you also get a view of the bay and Presque Isle State Park – home of Erie’s seven miles of beaches, amusement park, Tom Ridge Environmental Center, boat rentals and trails. The breakfast menu includes Peach Bellini French toast; lemon poppy seed pancakes; Cajun chicken and waffles…and Lucky Charms.
Erie is along Interstate 90 between Cleveland and Buffalo. VisitErie.com to make your escape.
Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at MShiels@aol.com His radio program may be found at MiBigShow.com or weekday mornings from 9-noon on WJIM AM 1240
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: The road to Detroit leads through…Erie, Pennsylvania?
