Trattoria Stella Owner And Partners Buy Shady Lane Cellars, Plot 'Transformational Rural Development Initiative'

A seasoned Traverse City restauranteur and partners are buying the Shady Lane Cellars property in Suttons Bay, with visions of creating “a transformational rural development initiative rooted in regenerative agriculture, sustainable wine production, and community education.” The project will retain the branding, identity, and team of the winery while also adding new components all around it, including a commercial kitchen, a culinary classroom, 8,500 square feet of new meeting and event space, and more.

The concept, dubbed “The Loamstead Project,” is the brainchild of Amanda Danielson, best known as founder, co-owner, and sommelier at Traverse City’s Trattoria Stella. Described in press materials as a “four-year, $10 million capital project,” the Loamstead Project calls for transforming “over 100 acres of Leelanau County vineyards and historic outbuildings into a working campus that connects researchers, students, farmers, and visitors from northern Michigan and beyond.”

It’s the latest piece of the puzzle for Danielson’s outside-of-Stella work, which in recent years has become increasingly focused on elevating northern Michigan’s reputation as a culinary and hospitality destination, winegrowing region, and agricultural utopia. In 2022, she teamed up with Michigan State University Extension to create Dirt to Glass, an annual winegrowers conference focused on “understanding the critical relationship between better farming and world class wine.” That same year, she launched a vineyard project on Old Mission Peninsula, using the property as a “field lab” to test out the effects optimal soil health, crop diversification, rootstock grafting, and biodynamic farming could have on wine grapes. Tying those projects together is Intentional Agriculture, a nonprofit that works to promote better farming practices.

“I always had this idea to show a better way forward for agriculture, for hospitality, for all of these things that are so intertwined in my professional life,” Danielson says. “Because, historically, the jobs in both sectors are not considered to be high-quality jobs. Yet, we have people working in those jobs locally that are doing very well. So, how do we create a playbook? That’s what I started doing with my restaurant, and I wanted to do the same thing with the vineyard on Old Mission, in terms of how to farm better and the message of ‘better grapes, better wine.’ And when Shady Lane hit the market, I thought it would be a great opportunity to prove out all the concepts I’ve been espousing all these years.”

Shady Lane and its 145 acres went up for sale last year for an asking price of $5 million, following the 2022 death of owner Richard Fortune. In listings for the winery, Fortune’s family cited a desire for the business “to have a more involved owner.” Danielson has an “executed purchase agreement” to become that owner, and is currently “in the due diligence process” of the sale, with hopes that the acquisition will be fully complete by fall.

Once the purchase is finalized, top priorities will include restoring the large barn on the Shady Lane property, relocating the tasting room into that restored space, and then using “the coop” – where the tasting room is currently situated – as a retail operation for winery bottle sales, merchandise, and more. The small stone house on the property, meanwhile, will be utilized for “small tasting experiences,” whether in the form of wine club events, private bookings, exclusive luncheon-type functions, or the like. Longer term, Danielson’s plan calls for several new buildings on the property, including a dedicated event center and a structure to house the culinary classroom and commercial kitchen aspects of the vision.

The teaching kitchen, Danielson stresses, is not intended for typical hobbyist cooking classes, but for actually developing workforce-ready culinary talent. “We want to teach a generation of people the skills to be able to maximize their income off of items that come from farms,” she says. Examples might include sommelier classes, butchery and charcuterie courses, and more. “We can turn out people who have the skills to walk on to the growing number of high-quality restaurant kitchens in this region, and serve as a pipeline to meet the employment needs of the hospitality industry.”

The changes will continue outdoors, where Danielson plans to work on “the optimization of farming and agriculture” by adopting biodynamic farming practices such as increased crop diversity. “You’ll see the grass go away, and see more agricultural products replacing that grass,” she says. “We’ll obviously have to prep the ground to be able to receive the crops, but then you'll see a bit of a diversification of the agricultural products coming directly from the farm, including floriculture, other fruit, trees, herbs, other produce, and even in some cases, animals.”

What isn’t on the to-do list for the Loamstead Project is a full-fledged restaurant.

“People have asked, ‘Is it going to be like Farm Club?’ It’s going to be nothing like Farm Club,” Danielson emphasizes – though she does note there will be “an increased culinary offering” to complement the tasting room.

The evolution is intended to accomplish one grand goal: turning Shady Lane and the Loamstead Project into examples for what northern Michigan wines – and northern Michigan ag in general – can be.

“We want to focus on quality and focus on making wines from Michigan-grown grapes, so we can show that northern Michigan wines belong on any table in any restaurant or any home around the world – and that they stand up in terms of quality to wines from other better known producing regions,” Danielson tells The Ticker.

“We want to be able to say, ‘This is a way forward. This is a possibility for any winery or any small farm in the state,’” Danielson says.

Longtime Shady Lane winemaker Kasey Wierzba – who will be staying on with Loamstead as director of winegrowing and land stewardship – is excited about Danielson’s ambitious vision and what it could mean for the Suttons Bay winery.

“Shady Lane has tons of potential untapped,” Wierzba says. “We've done so much to give it a really solid foundation, with our viticultural practices, our commitment to sustainability, our farming. Every single decision behind our winemaking has an intentional thought behind it. So, I think we've really set this place up for some wonderful success, and I'm excited to see more of its potential come through.”

Beyond Danielson, the Loamstead Project team will include two other Trattoria Stella veterans: Sarah Bielman, Stella’s longtime business manager, as director of business planning and integrity; and Elise Curtis-Dull, the restaurant’s chef de cuisine, as director of culinary education (both, Bielman says, will also retain their roles at Stella). Also coming aboard are Melissa and Dawid Conradie, co-founders of Conradie Event Design, who will work together as co-directors of guest experience and design.

Pictured: The Loamstead Project team, photographed by Courtney Kent Photography. Standing/back row: Wierzba, Bielman, Dawid and Melissa Conradie; seated/front row: Curtis-Dull and Danielson.