About
Another World Wines is a small wine producer based in southwest Michigan, the project of life partners Bailey Fortuna and Jason Young.We’re glad you found us.
The Wine
We work with Michigan growers from both north and south to produce wine with minimal intervention, maximal intention, and no dogma. We get out of the way where we can and step in where it matters. Working in service of place and season, we believe in expression over formula.
Sparkling wine sits at the center of our work because it rewards patience, care, and precision, and demands a long view. We aim to highlight the cool climate and agricultural abundance that the Lake Michigan shoreline provides by focusing on lower-alcohol, higher-acid styles that lend themselves to this region.
We’re starting small, and 2025 is our first vintage. We don’t have a tasting room, but we’re available for direct purchase, and can also be found in a growing number of regional shops and restaurants.
The Vineyard (To Be)
When moving to southwest Michigan in 2025, we purchased a small Concord grape vineyard that had been abandoned and overgrown for several years. Just 8 miles from Lake Michigan, with sandy soils and a south-facing slope, this little slice of land is ideal for grape growing. Our goal is to transform what was conventionally farmed for more than 40 years into a regenerative vitiforestry project, full of fruit and nut trees and native plants alongside wine grapes.
We are currently preparing to plant several acres of grapes in 2027 and 2028. With a little luck and a lot of care, we hope to make our first estate wines in four to five years.
More than 10,000 years ago, as the glaciers retreated, sand and gravel carried by meltwater accumulated here, forming the hill we see today. In the millennia that followed, a beech-maple forest flourished and was cared for by the Indigenous Potawatomi peoples. European and American colonizers then violently dispossessed them of their land, cleared the forest for timber and transformed it into farmland. The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi remain here today.
A magnificent tulip poplar tree, well over a century old, also remains on the edge of the property. This Ancient stands as a reminder of what was taken. We hope to honor the history of the land by rebuilding a deep relationship with it and to share its abundance.
The Team
Bailey Fortuna is the co-owner and winemaker for Another World Wines. Before moving to Michigan, they spent nine years working in wineries in Sonoma County, California. During that time, they grew a deep appreciation for making sparkling wine and working with lesser-known varieties. Prior to working in wineries, Bailey was a sommelier at the Grand Award winning Pearl & Ash restaurant in New York City.
Jason Young is the co-owner and future winegrower for Another World Wines. Originally from rural Michigan, he is excited to return to the state, this time closer to the wonders of the Lake Michigan shore. He still works full-time as a software engineer, but is slowly making the shift back to his family’s agricultural roots.
Another World is Possible
We believe the dominant modes of agriculture, labor, and business are destructive and decaying, and that another world must be made from within their decline. We work within that tension through a dialectical approach grounded in reciprocity. We farm, make wine, and sustain relationships built on care, obligation, and return, while moving deliberately toward something more just and enduring for future generations. We believe another world begins with the willingness to imagine it.