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The Wine Gallery

Wine Tasting Rooms & Art Galleries featuring local wine and local artists.

What's the big idea?

“The Wine Gallery” wine tasting rooms will feature wines produced by local wineries and art from local artists.

Special wine labels will feature art from local artists, paired with limited edition prints that are also available for sale in the store.  Each season the label art will change, creating a collectibles market for the art prints, and bottles.

The stores will also sell other art from local artists, art furniture and home decor, as well as wine accessories and gifts for wine enthusiasts.

Each store is a unique experience because they feature local art and wines.

Describe the nearest player in your field.

There are art galleries, and there are wine tasting rooms throughout the wine producing regions of Michigan. I don’t know of any similar collaborations between the artist community and wineries.

How are you different from that player?

The Wine Gallery is a collaboration between local wineries and local artists to promote agri-tourism and art tourism in Michigan.

A mix of store owned inventory and consignment helps keep investment down.

It also will be the first wine tasting room that can offer product from multiple wineries.

How's the world different with your idea in it?

Agri-tourism has been a big part of the Michigan economy for many years, (a great example is the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City.) The Wine Gallery promotes agri-tourism in the Great Lakes wine regions, while also showcasing the great artistic talent to be found here.

Why are you the one to run with this idea?

I am a wine and art enthusiast with more than 15 years of retail management experience. The stores I have opened and operated range from the very small (kite shops, and a fly fishing store) to the very large ($27 million/year big box store.) I have also worked as a professional stained glass artist.

There have been 3 replies to this idea

  1. Dan Mulligan

    Owner

    I visualiize each winery being paired with an artist each season, so that all of thier labels have a similar look to them. The winery would, of course, have input into the choice of artists. I would especially like to have them collaborate with favorite local artists, if they have that sort of preference.

    The number of artists and wineries depends on the region, there are more than ten wineries in the Grand Traverse region, I would love to work with all of them. In the Irish Hills, jackson area, there are fewer.

    I would like to have some overlap of product in different stores, it would be great to feature some great wines from Berrien county (Southwest MI) in Grand Traverse (Northwest MI) and vice versa. That really would promote these great wine regions.

  2. Dan Mulligan

    Owner

    I see the wine gallery as a “virtual tour” of the local wineries and galleries. When they enjoy the experience in our stores, and buy wine and art, many will want to see the places where the wine and art came from. We may even book “wine and art tours” in the stores.

    Those tours will be great! Imagine a tour that takes you to the winery of your favorite wine from the Grand Traverse area like Chateau Grand Traverse (www.cgtwines.com/,)  or L.Mawby (www.lmawby.com/)  AND the studios of great artists from the area like Ken Scott (www.kenscottphotography.com,) or Glenn Wolff (www.glennwolff.com/.)

    And there are great wineries and artists like those all over the great lakes region!

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