Wine Touring, tasting, and conversation
We’ll, we got over the flu just in time to get off on our “Wine Getway”. The first day of wine tasting was a little forced, we were over the flu, but, hadn’t really recovered our appetites or tastes for wine. We got a good nights sleep in the Chateau Grand Traverse Guest House. (had the whole place to ourselves, since it’s the off season). Then got off to an early start on Thursday morning.
We had a great time, taking it rather easy and spending time chatting with the wine attendants. We started off with Warren Raftshol, at his Vineyard. He was a bit short of varieties, but we picked up some “AnyPort”, and had a good chat. The we moved north a little bit to the new tasting room for Leelanau Cellars, on the shores of Omena Bay. There we purchased a bunch of wines and learned that they have a new (lady) wine maker. Nichole Birdsall, has replaced Shawn Walters, who has moved on to a new (yet to open) vineyard. We had a good long visit with Jann P., that day’s server, and really enjoyed the view from the new tasting room. We were pretty much the only visitors, in the tasting rooms at the times we were at them.
Our further stops were at Longview Vineyards, (low on inventory, but starting new batches soon) and Bel Lago. As always, we enjoyed the view, atmosphere, and the wine at Bel Lago. Notable, is the new bottle of ‘06 Late Harvest Pino Grigio that now sit’s in my wine fridge. (about as close to an ice wine as you can get, without actually being picked frozen)
The highlight of our day, and actually the entire trip was our last stop. While at Bel Lago, the server, suggested we check out Cherry Republic, he said the wines were good but the food was great! I told him that it sounded good, but we had one more must do stop, in the other direction, on the other side of Lake Leelanau, Boskydel Vineyard. (vineyard of the father of winemaking in northern Michigan, Bernie Rink) He told us that he had heard “through the grapevine” that Bernie’s wife had recently died. That set us back a bit, and my wife thought maybe we shouldn’t stop there, but I thought that if he was open, and he was there, he wouldn’t mind visitors, if he was open and wasn’t there, we surely wouldn’t offend him by buying wine.
As it turned our, Mr. Rink was open, and he was attending the bar. It was true that Mrs. Rink passed away back in October, (God Rest Her Soul). Bernie looked much the same as the last time we stopped in, maybe a little tired, but still Bernie. We pulled in about 3:30pm and stood there chatting with him and tasting his wines until closing at 5pm.
I like to think we cheered him up a bit, (makes me feel good to think that, but I have no proof). We talked about families, hunting, winemaking, and the work ethic’s of some of todays youngin’s. It was a very nice visit, and I loaded up on Boskydel wines, mostly reds this time. The Proprieter’s Reserve 2005, “de Chaunac”, comes highly recommended!! (Bernie say’s ” this is the first set of Proprieter’s Reserve stickers he’s placed, in Ten Years”!)
Our sympathies go out to the Rink family and we hope that Bernie sticks around a bit, to tend that tasting bar and brew up those great table wines.
Before we drove back to Old Mission Pennisula and our room, we stopped at the Tuscan Bistro on the north end of Traverse City, for dinner. Again, highly recommended. Excellent food, and not outrageously expensive.
Again, Thank You and Merry Christmas Mr. Rink, for your hospitality. I’ll try to do my next post about the first day of our “Wine Getaway”.
P.S. Check out Mr. Grey’s posts for a new annoucement!!!!!!!!!!!
>>GB