Northern Lights - Issue 23 - August 2023
GOING ORGANIC BREEDS HEALTHY SOILS, WINES, MEALS AND PEOPLE!
by AMY LANE
Dave Bos posing proudly with four of their select wines.
At BOS Wine, it’s where the fruit comes from that’s key to great wine.
It’s a setting with a diversity of flowers, insects, plants and animals. It’s compost, cover crops and natural preparations that make for healthy soil. And it’s observation -- paying attention to the rhythms of a farm, from moon cycles to plant behavior.
It’s the holistic approach of biodynamic farming, and it’s Dave Bos’ practice and passion.
“I care about two things: Making world-class wine, and changing farming,” said Bos, who with wife Jackie owns their 10-acre farm between Elk Rapids and Traverse City, as well as a downtown Elk Rapids tasting room.
The two, who moved to northern Michigan from California’s Napa Valley in 2017, are among Venture North Funding & Development clients with green operations or aspirations. For some, it’s a way of life; for others, it’s an important part of what they offer.
Wine Business Roots
For Dave and Jackie Bos, it’s how they have been building a business that has roots in California and the Grand Traverse region, where Dave in 2003 got his wine industry start in entry-level cellar positions at Chateau Grand Traverse. Seeking further education and vineyard experience, he moved to Napa in 2005 where he met California native Jackie and worked his way up to vineyard manager at Grgich Hills Estate, overseeing a 367-acre vineyard that he helped convert to biodynamic farming.
It was there, living on the Grgich Hills property, that Dave and Jackie started their BOS Wine label, with fruit for the first 2010 vintage coming from Phoenix Ranch vineyard in Napa. California connections remain today in BOS wines, with the West Coast vineyards providing grapes for a couple California-produced BOS reds.
Most grapes, however, are sourced from northern Michigan vineyards on the Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas and near Interlochen. At all, as of the next vintage, the owners practice organic or biodynamic farming, Dave Bos said. And he hopes to convince others to do the same.
Go Green!
“The first two questions I ask any farmer that says they want to become greener: Are you using Roundup (herbicide) or anything like that in your vineyards or farm. If somebody is still using that, they haven’t had any shift in mindset on what they’re trying to do, on a quality standpoint. And then I ask if they compost,” Bos said. “If you can’t do anything else, do compost.”
The goal is to create a farm system that is minimally dependent on imported materials and instead meets its needs from the living dynamics of the farm itself, with the waste of one part of the farm becoming the energy for another, says a BOS Wine blog.
“What we want to do is bring health, quality and vitality to the farm system,” Dave Bos said. “Biodynamics is a paradigm shift in the way you look at your farm system.”
The outcome: Healthier vines that make better fruit, and in turn, better wine. “World-class wine is subjective,” Bos said, pointing to an “it” factor that he said is appreciated and understood when tasted, not unlike a fine classical music experience. “How would you know you’ve ever listened to perfect Bach,” he said, “if you have never gone to a concert.”
The husband-and-wife duo plan to plant their own vines next year and hope the vineyard, in addition to producing fruit for wine, will become a classroom with a “heavy educational focus for all things grapes…planting, pruning, as well as farming practices, biodynamic farming,” Dave Bos said.
Home Base in Elk Rapids
It’s farm property that Jackie found, as she did with tasting room BOS Wine Garden, a restored farmhouse featuring wines from grapes grown in Michigan and California vineyards that Dave Bos has personally farmed or consulted on. The Elk Rapids site’s three lots “allowed us to spread out and create a garden…a real tranquil place” that is also easily accessible to customers and aims to provide an educational and wine-tasting experience, Jackie Bos said.
With a background in landscape architecture, she said she loves to “take a detail…and make everything connect, have a purpose.” She has worked with local female artists to provide art pieces in the tasting room – some of which tie into Jackie’s wine label design – and ceramics used for food offerings.
“There are so many creative people and artists and entrepreneurs, and so the creativity of this area and the artistry of this community and the people that live here, is really a fun thing to add into our tasting room. Because wine is an art form,” Jackie Bos said.
The wine garden opened in September 2021 and “it’s been great,” Jackie Bos said. “We feel like it’s just the perfect setting for our brand and for the hospitality experience we’re hoping to create.”
Good Things Happen with Capital
This last spring, BOS Wine got help from Venture North, which provided a loan enabling BOS to build up inventory and prepare for the busy summer season. “Having the cash flow to be able to do that and to support our growing business is crucial to having the product we need to service our customers,” Jackie Bos said. “The thing that we really appreciated with Venture North was their ability to make things happen in a timely manner to get us the cash flow we needed.”
She said Venture North is “for small business owners. It’s really great to feel that support in your local community, and wanting to build up small businesses as a strong part of our local economy.”
As a federally certified Community Development Financial Institution, Venture North offers loans, mini grants and free consulting services to support small business growth and jobs, promoting economic and community development.
Pictured: Jackie Bos, second from right, joined in the BOS Wine Tasting Room by (left-to-right) Elizabeth Serrano, Bos Wine Club manager, Trinet Sailor, in charge of special projects and Venture North president, Laura Galbraith.
“What we want to do is bring health, quality and vitality to the farm system…Biodynamics is a paradigm shift in the way you look at your farm system.” Dave Bos, BOS Wine
In It To Win It Meal Prep
And in Traverse City, with a focus on preparing local and organic-sourced food, entrepreneur Dana Winowiecki is growing, with Venture North’s help.
The owner of In It To Win It, a meal planning and personal training business, Winowiecki is launching a meal preparation service that will offer healthy, well-balanced meals using produce and products from a variety of local farmers and small businesses in northern Michigan.
Menus will be developed around the local fruits and vegetables in season and Winowiecki hopes to use semi-organic or organic products, preparing menu items that will change periodically and that provide a convenient meal option.
“I think that there is…a demand in Traverse City for accessible, healthy meals that people can just pick up, and go,” Winowiecki said.
For the Leelanau County native, health has been a way of life. Growing up on her parent’s farm, healthy and semi-organic fruits and vegetables from the farm were front and center and a mainstay of the weekly family meals that she and her sister were in charge of cooking. “My passion and love for cooking, is directly correlated to my parents,” Winowiecki said.
She graduated from Central Michigan University with a health fitness and preventative rehabilitation major and a nutrition and psychology minor. For years, she’s been a personal trainer and meal consultant with a passion for nutrition and fitness.
“I want to help people to achieve their goals in both those aspects,” Winowiecki said.
To launch her meal prep business, she’s renting kitchen space in Goodwill Northern Michigan’s Traverse City kitchen and she’s working with a delivery service, although orders may also be picked up. She plans much of her purchasing from MI Farm Cooperative, a northern Michigan farmer-owned cooperative. The co-op sells products from its more than 20 member farms to restaurants, stores, schools and others in Grand Traverse, Leelanau and Benzie counties.
In It to Win It owner, Dana Winowiecki, in the industrial kitchen space she’ll be using to prepare and package her meals.
Everyone Wins
“I want to support small businesses, especially local farmers,” Winowiecki said. “It just tastes better when it’s coming from somewhere local, and, you know where it’s coming from.”
She said that not all farms are organic or certified organic, but she will seek to have as many of her meals as possible be organic while still staying within price ranges that customers will pay.
On a mission, Winowiecki hopes to be up and running in September. “I hope people are willing to invest in their health, and their long-term health too, and I’m giving them a healthy option,” she said.
Venture North previously provided a mini grant, joined by money from a related source, that went toward an attorney who helped Winowiecki select the correct corporate structure for her business, confirm her chosen name, and prepare articles of incorporation and other items.
Johanna Madden Gross, Venture North’s contract graphics and social media specialist, helped design Winowiecki’s business logo and website, but said that Dana has had a huge hand in both.
“It’s been clear from first meeting Dana that - from her locally-sourced meal plans to her logo - she knows what she wants and has been planning and dreaming about this for a long time. This isn’t some whim or hobby. Dana is focused, driven and really cares about her clients and making a healthy impact in the region.”
Venture North “is about community impact, particularly in areas that need our help the most,” said Venture North consultant Tim Ervin. “So it’s only natural that we’re looking to help small businesses involved in farming and use of locally grown foods. It’s an honor to serve them and support great entrepreneurial businesses that are pressing ahead with green and organic foods and meals that are healthy and good for us.
“What better place for this to happen, than right here.”
A colorful sampling of Dana’s healthy meal-prepping talents, set to feature local, seasonal and organic foods whenever possible.
Amy Lane is a veteran Michigan business reporter whose background includes work with Crain Communications Inc., Crain’s Detroit Business and serving as Capitol correspondent for nearly 25 years. Now a freelance reporter and journalist, Lane’s work has appeared in many publications including Traverse City Business News.
