Sustaining a beautiful legacy at Longview winery

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By Linda Hepler Beaty
Sun contributor

When it comes to some things, it’s important not to focus too much on the here and now, but to take the long view, holding on to a vision for the future. And that’s how it was for Linda Ackley and Alan Eaker when they met almost two decades ago at a conference. Alan was living in Tampa, Fla., at the time, working at the University of Southern Florida as a visual arts professor. And Linda was an artist living in Michigan. Both had children finishing high school. So they embarked upon a long distance relationship, postponing the day when they could finally be together.

With the children off to college, Linda moved to Florida and married Alan. And in 1998, Alan retired from his teaching career. At that time, he said, he wanted to give back to his wife, who had uprooted herself from Michigan to marry him. “I loved her so much, I told her I’d do anything for her,” remembered Eaker. “She had good memories of summers spent in Leelanau County, and she wanted to buy a farm here.”

So they bought a farm in Suttons Bay, and moved back to Michigan, and over time, Alan became eager to return the land to its original purpose. “The farm had been fallow for nine years,” said Alan. “And the whole idea of growing grapes on our land was an afterthought. But I liked the idea of trying something new, and exploring the possibility of farming struck a note with me. I was anxious to apply myself to a new kind of creativity, a new challenge, something physical and romantic.”

With Charlie Edson, owner and winemaker at Bel Lago Vineyards and Winery mentoring them, the Eakers selected vines, and planted 10 acres of wine grapes on their land. Today there are 12 acres of grapes, including hybrids Cayuga and Frontenac, and vinifera varieties Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Cabernet Franc.

For the first few years, the Eakers sold their grapes to Bel Lago, but they eventually joined forces with son Aaron Ackley and his wife Nikki to build a side-by-side restaurant (Cedar Rustic Inn, owned and managed by the Ackleys), and tasting room (Longview, owned and managed by the Eakers) just north of Cedar on the corner of Good Harbor Trail and Schomberg Road. The joint venture is a win-win situation, said Eaker, with the Ackleys referring people to the tasting room for wine tasting after a meal, and the Eakers suggesting the Cedar Rustic Inn for a meal after tasting wine.

Longview is a boutique-type winery, said Eaker, producing only about 1,500 cases of wine per year. And he is jack of all trades in the vineyard and winery, taking the fruit from immature vine to finished product with little help except for harvesting. His philosophy: “I try to grow the best possible fruit,” said Eaker, “to let as much of the wine making as possible be in the field. You can make bad wine out of good grapes, but you can’t make good wine out of bad grapes.”

What kinds of wine can you taste at Longview? “Our most popular wine is Rustic white,” said Eaker. The semi-dry wine is fruit forward, with tropical notes of pineapple and passion fruit, according to the wine maker. There’s also Rustic Red, a “soft, most approachable red,” made of 70 percent Frontenac and 30 percent Pinot Noir grapes, as well as a Pinot Noir, with toasty vanilla, cocoa bean, black cherry and raspberry overtones, soft tannins and a long finish. Rounding out the menu are Chardonnay, a dry and semi-dry Riesling, Pinot Gris and Cabernet Franc.

There’s no lack of acclaim for Longview wines, which over the years have taken numerous awards, including silver and bronze in the Tasters Guild International competition and gold and bronze in the Pacific Rim wine competition. But it’s the customers who keep Eaker, who admittedly works a “nine day week,” going. “The real reward is the people and their enjoyment in tasting our wines,” he said. “People are what keep this business alive.”

But there’s also an opportunity for teaching too, about the grapes and how wine is made, said Eaker. “You can’t take the classroom out of the professor.”

Though at times he’s discouraged, especially about the unpredictability of farming, “we can’t see ourselves doing anything else in the foreseeable future,” said Eaker. “This is our future; this farm will be here to sustain our family in the future. We want to leave a beautiful legacy for those who come after us.”