South River Vineyard

Every wine region has one place that sounds made up until you stand in front of it. In the Grand River Valley, it is South River Vineyard, where the tasting room is an 1892 Methodist church that the owner found abandoned at a stoplight.

Gene Sigel was driving to Kent when he noticed the empty church and stopped to photograph it. The neighbor he asked for permission told him he could have the building itself, for the trouble of taking it down. So he did: dismantled it piece by piece and moved it forty-two miles to his vineyard on South River Road, where it reopened in 2002 with the original pews, wainscoting, flooring and some of the stained glass still in place.

The wine underneath the story is serious. Sigel ran the vineyards at Chalet Debonné before founding South River with his wife Heather in 1995, starting from two leased acres of Riesling, and he grew into one of the largest vinifera growers in the valley. The estate focuses on old-world varieties suited to this cool lakeshore climate: Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Take your glass to the porch. The church sits on a rise above the vines, and Sigel says people come for the view, the tranquility and the stars at night. He is right. Next door, in a restored 1885 barn, Red Eagle Distillery pours rye and bourbon made from local grain.

It shares a road with M Cellars and the Harpersfield Covered Bridge, so the three make an easy afternoon: walk the bridge, taste at both, and be back at the estate for dinner.