Leelanau Cellars
Week 7 - February 12-18, 2023
Leelanau Cellars has been around a long time. This is the region's definition of "not first rodeo."
Summary
In Omena, the tiny M-22 town with its stunning views of Old Mission to the south, Leelanau Cellars is the first town on the Leelanau side to enjoy the East BayWest Bay transition to become simply Grand Traverse Bay. Even though I've driven through Omena before, I've never actually been there. Knot Just A Bar, a regionally regarded dive bar, shares a building with Leelanau Cellars.
Two Wines
2020 Chardonnay (unoaked) 🍇🍇
2019 Baco Noir (What is Baco Noir?) 🍇🍇
TCWY Wine Ratings:
🍇🍇🍇Best of the region (top 10%)
🍇🍇As good as the rest of the region
🍇Not as good as the rest of the region
To learn more about our wine rating system, click here
Something to Love
Coming from Traverse City, there’s nothing like M-22, a rightfully famous and award-winning highway. M-22 is a bucket list road any time of year, including February. Leelanau Cellars is the best Leelanau bay-side tasting room winter M-22 views, as the one winery in Northport, north of Omena, is closed for the season (Dune Bird). Most of the drive up from Traverse City is along West Bay, a few meters away from angry whitecaps, visible through snow-dusted, barren trees and stark white, empty beaches. This drive passes through communities both corporate and tall ship (Grelickville), more wineries, Suttons Bay, the federally recognized Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians reservation of Peshawbestown, the 45th Parallel, and eventually the teeny town of Omena, where Leelanau Cellars rests overlooking Omena Bay in the building it shares with Knot Just A Bar. Sitting in the bay view windows, the tip of Old Mission Peninsula is in faint view, signaling that this is the part of the waters where West and East Bay flow into the greater water body of (simply) Grand Traverse Bay.
Something to Do
I can safely say I've not seen a winery in our region (or elsewhere) with Claw arcade games, and to be fair it rests in the lobby along with the restrooms, separating the dive bar & restaurant. This element gives a vibe of fun and laid-back, very unpretentious experience. Another option is to look through the extensive merch - I hesitate to call winery gear "fashion forward," but I admit to two things: 1) I had never seen branded joggers before and they are really cute, and so are the hoodies, and 2) I actually thought their logo was a Leelanau County (like, government) logo. It is definitely everywhere, but I suppose being around for almost 50 years will do that. Valentines Day decorations were simple and upbeat, and the table tents promoted an upcoming event, "Sunday Bunday." This winery is also a 4-minute drive (or a 1-hour walk!) to the Leelanau Sands Resort & Casino via M-22.
Something to Hope For
Leelanau Cellars knows who they are. Even in the dead of winter, even as one of, if not THE most-remote tasting rooms in the region among those actually open in February, there was a steady stream of semi-rambunctious customers tended to by the approachable staff. Michigan wine, especially outside of Michigan, still has a reputation of being only sweet, only fruit wine, only Riesling, only whites, less than, not as good as elsewhere, etc., and it's simply not true. I respect what Leelanau Cellars has done to establish this region as an AVA worth taking seriously. 50 years later, I can't help but wonder if monster wine lists like LWC do more harm than good to shedding this outdated reputation as a "sweet/fruit" wine region. I trust Leelanau Cellars to know their clientele and whether there is still a market for these sweet/fruit wines, and I don't want to exclude anyone from drinking what they want, but my hope is that our region is taken more seriously on a national and international level. It is not lost on me that I have described this tasting room as fun and imply an expectation for being taken more seriously, kind of like asking your craziest friend to help you study for the WSET.
Established in 1974, Leelanau Cellars makes a wide selection of wines, from dry to bubbly to fruit moscato. There were 38 wines on the menu this week.