Walk through the door of your average wine shop and you’ll likely get a soft spoken, “Hello!” Walk into the new Lighthouse Wine Shop off the corner of Red Arrow Highway and Glenlord Road in Stevensville and you might be just as likely to be greeted with a rousing bit of “Ho Hey!” from The Lumineers. If so, you will have been duly welcomed into the unique world of Cale Carmichael, wine connoisseur and music lover extraordinaire.
Cale recently swung open the doors onto his new Lighthouse Wine Shop enterprise which he says, “was born out of a passion for wine, a love for music, and a lack of access to high-quality, traditional, and organic wines.”
Cale says, “Wine and music just go together…they pair well, I guess you could say.” That’s why tucked in among the world-class wines you will also find music albums from his vast personal collection of vinyl kept right in the store with something always playing on the turntable.
Unlike many wine shops where the chalkboard bears tips, advice, or catchy wine phrases, “Instead,” Cale says, “We have a lyric wall chalkboard. I don’t have a bunch of wine sayings or wine advice on the wall, I have song lyrics, because that’s what I wanted to do, and that’s what I did.”
It has been an absolute labor of love for Cale, who started his build-out at 4084 Red Arrow Highway, right across from Coach’s Bar & Grill, in the summer of 2019 by painting, laying new floors, building out his kitchenette, and more importantly, custom building his amazing wine shelves, undoubtedly with the Beatles or Chicago accompanying his hammer and saw.
Those hand-crafted shelves now bear wines ranging from the Old World to the New World, currently featuring around 85 different wines from France, Spain, Italy, Chile, California, and beyond. However, by the time he’s done building out everything, he’ll likely have another 20 or 30 wines in the house. He says, “You can always find something in basically any price range that you’re looking for.”
From classic grape varietals from the Old World to New World wines, they are not only fully stocked with an extensive variety from across the globe, Cale loves nothing more than sharing his wealth of wine knowledge with you, the customer — so don’t hesitate to ask about pairings or recommendations.
Cale will also be the first to tell you, “Quality wines do not have to cost an exorbitant amount. Quality and price with wine don’t always come in on a one-to-one level. If you spend more, you will probably expect more from your wine, and it needs to perform to that level. With more value-priced wine, you don’t have big expectations, but what we have will exceed those. It’s a great place to come in and find what’s right for your palate.”
Cale Carmichael was born in California, raised in Texas, and his jobs took him increasingly further north. He met his wife doing traveling jobs, while she was attending St. Mary’s College, and eventually they moved to Union Pier in the 90’s and then up to St. Joe before settling in Stevensville.
Despite living along the Southwest Michigan Wine Trail, Cale’s love for wines didn’t strike until he discovered them in the Old World.
His job with IHS Markit, took him to Frankfurt, Germany where they lived for five years and he says while in Europe they traveled extensively. That’s when he says, “I really fell in love with French wine, not really knowing a whole lot about wine or French wine.”
Shortly thereafter, he decided that he didn’t want to continue in the corporate life, so he quit his job before moving back home, and says “I kind of looked around and decided that while wine was something that is prevalent in Southwest Michigan, and there’s a great wine culture here, it has not been necessarily a place for really good premium wines from the world.”
With a palate for his European discoveries, Cale wanted to develop a space, “where you can come in and learn a little bit, and find great wines. That’s what I wanted to create. A space where people could come in, be comfortable, and really learn something, find really great wines to take home and enjoy with friends.” Thus was born, Lighthouse Wine Shop, across from Coach’s Bar & Grill.
You’ll find a bit more than wine and music, as Cale suggests, “A good wine shop should have all of the additional things that you need like decanters, because red wine should be decanted, every time. Pour it in a decanter, I guarantee your wine will improve.” He also offers, corkscrews, travel accessories for wine, also smaller more pool friendly decanters not made from glass, gift baskets, boxes, and “things like that, because wine is also a great thing to be able to gift.” Lighthouse Wines can ship anywhere inside of the state of Michigan, but cannot export out of state under current licensing rules.
Meanwhile, back at the music. Cale says, “Music is a big part of the shop. I’m not a musician, I’m just a consumer of music, and I love it. I brought my entire vinyl collection here to the shop, I play records all day, and the albums are part of the décor, but are not for sale. We’re great friends with the team at 4 a Song Vinyl in downtown St. Joseph.” His vinyl collection is, as he writes, “Quite good, tending to veer toward Indie music (that’s independent music like Wilco, The Lumineers, The Jayhawks, Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile, Phoebe Bridgers & Waxahatchee) but we also have a solid class rock section as well (The Beatles, Chicago, CCR, Johnny Cash, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin).
You’ll find Lighthouse Wine Shop’s doors open currently on this schedule, beginning tomorrow, June 22nd, 2020:
- Monday: 3pm-9pm
- Tuesday: CLOSED
- Wednesday: CLOSED
- Thursday: 3pm-9pm
- Friday: 3pm-10pm
- Saturday: 3pm-10pm
- Sunday: 3pm-9pm
Longer hours will likely come in the future, but they’re also busy fitting out the rest of the building structure, so they need that time for display work, as they add more capacity, and a tasting room. Cale says, “Once winemakers are able to travel again, we will be hosting wine tasting events with the actual winemakers, and will try to do educational wine tastings in between those, where you can come in and learn about wine. If you don’t know how to taste, we can teach your how to taste and why we taste in the manner that we do.”
At Lighthouse Wine Shop, you can buy by the bottle or by the case, in which case you can earn a discount. Plus, if Cale says he can get anything that can be obtained in Michigan, “So even if we don’t carry it, let us know and we’ll find it for you.”
Cale Carmichael launched Lighthouse Wine Shop “when we could only find mass-produced ‘supermarket’ wine in packed liquor stores and supermarkets with nobody to help you,” quickly adding, “Not that there are not nice folks working in those stores, but not many who could help you find a great wine or tell you much about it. We saw an opportunity to change that.”
The change has begun, and the new shop has been very well received thus far. Check it out for yourself, and you might come away with a new favorite wine, and a catchy song in your head to pair it with.
