January 19, 2026
Amanda Danielson
Partner | Advanced Sommelier |
We’ve all heard the quote: Alone we go faster, together we go farther.
I’d like to suggest a modest update: With the right people and the right teams, you can go far and fast, without lowering the bar or burning anyone out.
Next week’s New York City dinner, hosted by Pure Michigan, came together in just a few days. No drama. No grandstanding. Just competent professionals doing what they said they would do, when they said they would do it.
As is entirely predictable and necessary, I complicated the beverage side. The intention was completeness: not just wine, but beer, cocktails, alcohol-free pairings, coffee, and tea—each sourced from producers in Traverse City and Detroit—so that from the moment guests walked in the door to the final sip of the evening, everything in the glass reflected Michigan. Ambitious, yes. But achievable when the people involved know how to collaborate.
Working with Jen and Eric at The Cook’s House is second nature at this point. Our teams operate with the ease that comes from shared standards and mutual trust. The same is true of the team from Vecino, representing Detroit (and my hometown). From leadership through service, everyone worked toward a single goal: showing 20 members of the travel and food media the depth of talent Michigan consistently produces.
Because time is finite and calendars are not aspirational documents, I couldn’t open the wine selection to the entire industry. Instead, I worked with producers quite literally in my backyard. Within a day, we had wines to taste from Black Star Farms, Shady Lane Cellars, and Left Foot Charley, and a concise list that credibly represents the region and that allows me to frame a narrative spanning versatility, vintage variation, and stylistic range. Short’s Brewing Company, Two James Spirits, and Casamara Club rounded out the offering, making special deliveries to ensure everything arrived on time. Even Light of Day Organics stepped in, lending us the necessary equipment just in case the venue didn’t have what we needed to brew tea. When people talk about collaboration, this is what it actually looks like.
This isn’t an isolated success. One of the most seamless collaborations underway this first quarter is a four-way effort between Left Foot Charley, Ethanology Distillation, Bos Wine, and Trattoria Stella. Everyone involved is busy, running small businesses and real lives—but more importantly, their teams are people you can trust to execute thoughtfully and to standard. That’s the real measure of collaboration.
We’ve seen this model work repeatedly. At a The James Beard Foundation dinner at the Country Club of Detroit, over one-hundred Michigan wines were vetted by Madeline Triffon, Taylor Johnson, and me alongside knowledgeable and credible sommeliers and buyers for an evening showcasing some of the best of Detroit, hosted in a venerable house with an exceptional staff who understood exactly what the moment required.
Last year also brought two meaningful dinners: one at Artisan as part of Traverse Food & Wine, and another at Modern Bird benefiting the Women’s Resource Center. Both featured all-women chefs with me quietly(ish) doing my job as sommelier and letting the food and purpose speak for themselves.
Another example of this ethos in practice is Frontier Winemaking, hosted by Eagle Eye Brands. Rather than treating the event as a closed loop, Eagle Eye took a clear position: quality Michigan wine made from Michigan-grown grapes deserves to be seen, understood, and supported, regardless of who distributes it. Wineries represented by other companies were not only welcomed, but intentionally included, because the point wasn’t market share; it was education. Frontier Winemaking exists to help buyers across the state understand what great Michigan wine actually is, how to recognize it, and how to get it. That kind of leadership strengthens the entire ecosystem, and it’s exactly the sort of signal an industry sends when it’s ready to be taken seriously.
In my own house, last year also saw the launch of Peninsular Prodigality, a series I hosted that combined our mandatory bi-weekly classes for service, bar, and management staff with a broader educational initiative that included winemakers, cellar teams, and tasting-room staff. The goal was simple: Raise the floor for everyone by learning together. I was pleasantly surprised—though perhaps I shouldn’t have been—when two people independently approached me at the Northwest Orchard & Vineyard Show this week to ask when we were starting it up again. Not if. When. The assumption alone told me the benefit had extended beyond our walls.
Following naturally from that work, we quietly launched our Monday Salons, informal gatherings designed for buyers and staff from area restaurants and bottle shops to sit down together, taste, talk, argue politely, and generally sharpen one another through convivial exposure. No panels, no podiums, no performative expertise. Just good bottles, thoughtful people, and the radical idea that shared knowledge makes everyone better. The goal is simple: if we’re going to call ourselves a food and wine town, we should probably act like one, collectively and consistently. (Also, I’ve always suspected I was meant to be Gertrude Stein with slightly better snacks.)
Equally important are the collaborations that don’t come with a press list. Supporting Molly Stretten, MPA of Devil’s Dive Vineyard, and her tireless work on Old Mission Peninsula, and working toward transparency with the Citizens Coalition of Old Mission, means showing up consistently alongside growers, residents, planners, and other stakeholders to improve the long-term climate for farmers. This work is slower, less glamorous, and far more consequential.
At the center of much of this is Intentional Agriculture, now heading into the fifth annual Dirt to Glass™, launching the inaugural Third Coast Wine Seen™, and continuing to connect agricultural research and education with the market forces that make economic viability possible.
Looking forward, The Loamstead Project will expand our research footprint, provide critical job training in both agriculture and hospitality, and contribute meaningfully to what is becoming a shared playbook for the future—one grounded in realism, quality, and long-term thinking.
We’ve made 2026 the year of collaboration not as a slogan, but as a practice. With restaurants. With farmers. With educators. With distributors in New York and Chicago. With Master Sommeliers. With partners like Traverse Connect, Traverse City Tourism and Pure Michigan. With teams who show up prepared and stay engaged when things get complicated.
All of this points toward a larger, quieter ambition: representation that actually reflects the work. As land-use decisions, agricultural policy, labor realities, and market access are increasingly shaped at the state and federal level, the people asked to represent these industries should be those who have demonstrated competence, collaboration, and follow-through, not just visibility. My hope is that the examples we’re setting become the reference point when leaders look for voices from agriculture, hospitality, and tourism: people who understand that farming and food are inseparable, that small businesses run on trust as much as capital, and that good policy, like good wine, comes from restraint, rigor, and knowing when not to intervene. If we’re going to be at the table, we should at least know how to set it.
