Three Trees, Three Wines

The first summer for Three Trees Vineyard of Suttons Bay

By Jillian Manning | July 20, 2024

In 2023, Lyle Cifuentes traded her job as the director of digital content at WXYZ-TV Detroit to open a winery in Suttons Bay, swapping “high heels and a dress” for “Carhartt overalls.” Though the career switch may have surprised some of her colleagues, it was years in the making.

“We’ve been coming up here for 25 years,” she says of visiting northern Michigan. “We would go to winery after winery after winery and just do tastings and whatnot. And my I told my husband, ‘One day, I’m going to own a vineyard.’”

Now, Cifuentes and her husband, Phil, along with business partners Scott and Laurie Muschong, are the owners of Three Trees Vineyards—named for three beloved family matriarchs—which opened this June just five miles outside of downtown Suttons Bay.

The Family Business

The city mouse to country mouse transformation for Cifuentes didn’t happen overnight. The couples purchased the 41-acre property where Three Trees sits in 2021 and took the ensuing three-plus years to plant new grapes, make wine (there were some established vines on the property already), and build a tasting room.

That’s all they’ve built so far, however. Rumors had once swirled that the land would be used for condos, but Cifuentes assures us the operation is and will remain “100 percent agriculture.” In fact, the owners themselves are living in campers.

“Here, we live in a 1977 Coachman…where it smells like 1977,” Cifuentes jokes, explaining that she and her husband will pop back and forth between their home downstate for tasks like laundry.

It’s all part of the job, as the two families are not just the owners, but also the only staff.

Cifuentes manages the tasting room, social media, and website. The Muschongs’ son, Evan, just graduated from University of California, Davis and is headed north to take over as winemaker. (Previously, Three Threes had been working with a winemaker in Detroit.) Even one of Cifuentes’ daughters, Hannah, drives up to help out on the weekends, despite having a full-time job downstate.

And everyone pitches in when it is time to plant, prune, and harvest the grapes.

“We do have a little outside help with consulting—making sure that the grapes are good, the vines are good, the vines are strong—and we do get a little help with pruning,” Cifuentes says. “But pretty much, we farm the land all ourselves.”

The Wines

All the hours of hard work paid off earlier this summer when Three Trees finally opened to the public.

The tasting room sits atop a ridge on the property, giving panoramic views of the vines and the Leelanau countryside. The rustic building features a warm wood interior, tall windows, and laid-back seating for guests. An outdoor seating area has recently been added, complete with picnic tables and Adirondack chairs from Amish carpenters in Claire, Michigan.

But of course, the wines are the true draw. Three Trees started off the season with three 2021 wines: Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Pinot Gris. All three are made exclusively from the grape varietals whose names they bear and concrete fermented. Cifuentes says all three have proved to be popular, even in a region that has traditionally put sweeter white wines in the spotlight.

“Merlot kind of got a little bit of a bad rap there for a hot minute with Sideways,” she says, referring to the film starring Paul Giamatti as a wine snob who hates Merlot. “It’s honestly my favorite of all three.”

She says the Cab Franc is a “light to medium body” wine while the Merlot is “medium body, and it’s a little bold.”

The grapes for the Pinot Gris were sourced from Boathouse Vineyards, as the Three Trees property wasn’t ready to make whites back in 2021, though Cifuentes explains the winemaking process itself still went through Three Trees and carries their stamp.

“It’s very floral, very citrus,” she says of the Pinot Gris, adding that it offers flavors of apple and tangerine and is “the perfect summer wine.”

The Future

So, what’s next for the winery? They’ve begun to offer live music, often with a small ticket price of $15, to entice guests to come out on the least popular day of the week: Monday.

Why? In part to give their friends and neighbors a place to go. Cifuentes says Mondays are “really lovely because our neighbors work [weekends],” and that often other restaurants, wineries, or attractions close on Mondays to give staff a break. This makes heading to Three Trees an easy choice, especially with the bonus of music.

Currently, Three Threes operates 12-6pm daily, though you may have guessed that the 1977 Coachman won’t cut it during a northern Michigan winter. Cifuentes expects the winery will operate through the peak color season and into November, but they will likely close between December, January, and February before reopening in the spring.

Taking a few months off may be necessary for another reason, as Cifuentes says the winery is already racing through their supply of 2021 wines.

“People are buying bottles left and right, and I’m like, ‘Are we going to run out? But we have a ton of inventory for 2021,” she tells us. Meanwhile, “2022 is cooking and 2023 is cooking, and we’re just waiting for them to mature. Hopefully we don’t have to tap into them for fall.”

Find Three Trees Vineyard at 5200 S. Elm Valley Road in Suttons Bay. threetreesvineyard.com