A Special Connection

Ciccone Vineyard & Winery

Date Visited:  November 9, 2019

Stop:  #68

This was the first “official” day of the Toast of the Season wine tour through the Leelanau Peninsula.  It would only make sense to describe what this all entails before I get into each of our winery visits.  We bought two tickets a couple of months ahead of the event which gave us access to the 25 wineries on the Leelanau Peninsula participating in the wine tour.  You pick one winery to be your start point, and at 11:00 am on Saturday, you check-in at your start point and are given a gift bag that contains a wine tumbler and a few other small gifts – a bag of chips, discount tickets, etc.  Then, you get your small food sample and a sample of the featured wine paired with the food.  After enjoying the food and wine, most wineries will also include a couple additional pours of their wines - your choice (anywhere from 2 to 5 additional wine samples).  At that point, we typically buy some wine and then head on to our next destination.  At this point, you can go to any winery you want in any order.  Since our objective is to hit as many wineries as possible, we do not linger for long around any one winery.  This trip is not about the quality of our visit more than it is about the quantity of wineries we can visit and explore where we want to return.  Kathy and Christie meticulously map out the most efficient routes that allow us to maximize our winery visits.  The event covers two days – 11 am to 5 pm on Saturday, 12 noon to 5 pm on Sunday.  We have yet to visit every winery on the list, but we usually hit 23-25 over the two days, so the challenge is always to outdo the year before.

Our starting point for this weekend was Willow Vineyards.  However, we found out the morning of the event that, due to the horrible weather from the day and night before, Willow Vineyards would not be open for the weekend.  Ice buildup made entry into their parking lot impossible to navigate.  So, we were redirected to Ciccone Vineyard and Winery, which was just a short distance up the road.  Ciccone Vineyard and Winery sits atop a hill on East Hilltop Road with a beautiful view of the surrounding area, including the west arm of the Grand Traverse Bay.  Since the number of people now using Ciccone as their starting point was doubled, there was already quite a crowd when we arrived.  We got in line, received our gift bag, our featured wine, and headed back to the west room for our food pairing. 

If the name Ciccone sounds familiar, then you may have already figured out that the owners of this vineyard and winery are the father (Silvio “Tony”) and mother (Joan) of Madonna (one of 8 children raised by Tony and Joan).  The winery holds a special place in our hearts not only because of the great wines we’ve had there, but also the family’s connection to Rochester Hills.  In fact, some of the kids went to the same high school as one of our friends (and years later, our own kids). 

When Tony retired as an optical engineer, and Joan sold her business, the two headed north with hopes of fulfilling their dream of owning a vineyard and winery.  Tony, being a first generation American from Italy, had grown up making and drinking homemade wine.  In 1995, they acquired their current land and the Ciccone Vineyard and Winery was established.  The following Spring, the first five acres were planted by hand with Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and Gewürztraminer.

Tony and Joan have passed on the Ciccone tradition of making wine to their son, Mario, and their daughter, Paula.  Mario is the vineyard manager, making sure the grapevines are tended to and thrive, and Paula is the winemaker – one of only two female winemakers in Leelanau County.  Between the two of them, they have grown and produced many award-winning wines.

During prior “Toast the Season” events, we’ve enjoyed the opportunity to have a brief conversation with Joan as she personally helped serve. Being able to meet an owner and hear a bit of their story transforms a visit from a couple of sips of wine to a special occasion.  For our pairing today, we enjoyed a Chocolate Dessert from the Great Lakes Chocolate Company paired with the 2018 Grazie (a fruited vinifera).  It was a very good pairing, but we did miss Joan’s delectable Italian cuisine (she has the most amazing meatballs!) and conversations she always shared with us and her patrons.

Once we finished our pairing, we headed back into the main tasting room.  I really love this room – a very sturdy oak bar topped with large wood posts and a pergola, matching wood posts and beams supporting the vaulted ceiling, a stone fireplace with leather couch fronting it, an ornate metal cross hanging over the massive wood mantle to the fireplace, old wine barrels serving as tables, and just an overall cozy feeling on a very cold winter day.  However, the warmth in that room was probably due to the huge number of people gathered in it and not from the fire in the fireplace.  We had to wait a bit to move our way up to the bar.  On this day, the winery offered two additional free samples.  In short order, we chose the following:

Kathy’s selections:

1.     2018 Rosé

2.     2017 Dolcetto – A varietal from Northern Italy.

John’s selections:

1.     2017 Pacentro – Off-dry blend of Pinot Blanc and Golden Muscat.

2.     2018 Sweet Caroline – Concentrated sweet Chardonnay.

We enjoyed our samples – I was partial to the Sweet Caroline and Kathy favored the Dolcetto.  But, we had agreed that, due to the large quantity of wine we already had at home, that we would not go crazy this year buying up cases of wine.  Since we had limited samples to try, we decided not to buy anything this year from Ciccone.  In hindsight, I wish we had since the pandemic made a return trip to Ciccone in 2020 an impossibility and we have since depleted our inventory of Ciccone wines. We missed the ticket sales for Toast the Season this year, so we're going to have to look for another opportunity next year!

For REFERENCE, the following is the wine selection currently at Ciccone (as of October 13, 2021):

Estate Bottled White Wine

   2019 Pinot Grigio

   2020 Riesling

   2020 Chardonnay

   2019 Gerwurztraminer

   2018 Nectar (blend of Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay)

   2020 Pacentro (Off-dry Blend of Pinot Blanc and Golden Muscat)

   2019 Sweet Caroline (Concentrated Sweet Chardonnay)

 Estate Bottled Red Wine

   2020 Pinot Noir

   2019 Cabernet Franc

   2020 Novanto Dolcetto (Celebrating Tony's 90th Birthday, Novanto (90 in Italian) is dry, tannic, and wonderfully smooth)

   2019 Ridge Red

   2020 Tramonto Red (Unique blend of our signature Dolcetto, and four different French Hybrids.  Off-dry)

   2020 Lee La Tage (Bordeaux Blend Cab Franc, Cab Sav, Merlot & Malbec)

   2020 Dolcetto (Varietal from Northern Italy)

Estate Bottled Rosé & Blush Wines

  2020 Blush

   2019 Rosé De Pinot Noir

   Soirée (A classic Champagne blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir)

  2020 Romato

   2020 Frankie (Ice Style Wine made from Cabernet Franc Grapes)

 Specialty Wine

    Grazie (Pinot Noir, Cherry and Apple)

   2017 Starboard (Port-style wine. Fortified blend of Chardonnay, Balaton Cherries, and peach)

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The Newbie in the Region

Boyne Valley Vineyards

Date Visited:  November 8, 2019

Stop:  #67

Kathy, Randy, Christie, and I continued our quest through the Petoskey wine region, leaving the Resort Pike Cidery and Winery and heading to our final destination of the day, Boyne Valley Vineyards.  It was 4:45 pm when we pulled out of the Resort Pike driveway, and according to our GPS, we were 4.8 miles away from Boyne Valley Vineyards.  We made a left hand turn out of Resort Pike and headed back to US-131 via Williams Road.  Once there, we made a right and drove about 3.4 miles to the entrance to the vineyard, which was located on the west side of US-131.  The driveway to the tasting room was a winding, uphill drive totaling 1,100 feet.  From the outside, it was easy to see that the building was very new.  Just how new, we would soon find out.

This was absolutely a beautiful place.  Sitting on top of a hill, the tasting room was long and tall – at least two stories high – and is a “monitor barn”-style architecture.  It had a couple of clear garage doors that could be opened up during nice weather to allow customers to move easily between the indoors and the outdoor seating areas.  There was also a smaller, window-sized garage door that was above a counter top that, when opened, could allow a party of eight to sit with four people inside and four people outdoors across the counter top from one another.  Very cool.  The outside area also included a large lawn area surrounded by flower gardens, and their property borders a 113-acre nature preserve.

The inside was very big – 1,500 square feet in all.  The building is comprised of two halves.  The front half extended the full two stories to a peaked ceiling, all made of wood with lots of wood beams providing support, and serves as the tasting room.  The sides of the room were all wood from the base of the windows up, and corrugated metal from the base of the windows down to the concrete floor.  The back wall of the room was comprised of stone from the floor to the halfway point up the wall, and then wood from that point to the ceiling.  There was a metal staircase at the back wall that led to a second floor supported with very large wood beams.  This was the back half of the building and this is where things are going to get even cooler.  Customers can walk upstairs to a balcony where there’s a door that currently leads to nowhere — for now. The plan, which is already in motion, is that the door will lead to an outdoor tree house tasting room, 600 square feet in size, nestled amongst three maple trees behind the building, and scheduled to open in August, 2021.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME???  How awesome will that be?

Continuing with the tour of the main tasting room, there were cushioned chairs and coffee tables in the front and right side of the room, and tall tables and stools on the left side of the room.  The bar was three-sided, wood on the bottom, and a black (possibly marble) countertop.  I kept imagining how fun this place must be in the summer time when all the garage doors and windows are open, with people moving between the outdoors and the indoors. 

There were only a couple other people in the tasting room at the time, so we were able to get seats at the bar.  We were greeted by Christi, who just happened to be one of the four owners of the vineyard.  She and her husband, Tom (Mahaney), and Tom’s twin sister Mary Anne and her husband Marc (Lippe) are the owners.  They bought the vineyard property in 2015, planted grapevines in 2016, and produced over 1000 gallons of wine in their first year.  Currently, they have nearly 6,000 vines planted on two of the Boyne Valley Vineyard properties - a 14-acre parcel in Boyne City with 6 acres of Marquette and Petit Pearl vines, and four acres planted on the property adjacent to the tasting room, where Marquette, La Crescent, Itasca, and Frontenac Gris are grown.  Boyne Valley Vineyards does not currently make their wine onsite.  The actual production of their wines takes place in Boyne City. The Mahaneys and the Lippes plan to move wine production operations to the tasting room property in 2022, at which time public tours will be offered.

Christi told us that the tasting room had only been open for 4 weeks (opening in October, 2019).  Christi told us that, like so many winery owners we have met, she, her husband, and the Lippes turned their passion for wine into a business after holding careers in totally unrelated fields.  Christi told us that she was an environmental engineer for 20-plus years.  Mary Anne managed a restaurant, golf course, and banquet center for more than 25 years.  Now, the two of them manage the day-to-day operations of the vineyard, winery, and tasting room.  Their husbands are still working at their careers in medical sales, but they handle all the construction projects on the property.

Christi handed us their wine menu and explained that a tasting included our choice of 4 wines, and at the time of our visit, they had seven wines on their menu.  So, to make the wine selection easy, Kathy and I decided that I would order the white wines (of which there were 3) and she would order the red wines (also, 3 different kinds) and we both would order the Rosé.  With that major decision out of the way, here was our selections:

Kathy’s selections:

1.     2018 Short’s Hill Red – This fruity dry red wine is a blend of Frontenac and Chancellor grapes grown in northwest Michigan.  The wine has aromas of red currant and fresh strawberries and has a smooth finish with low tannins.

2.     2018 Marquette – This dry and medium-bodied red wine is the first estate-grown vintage of Marquette grapes from our Aggie Vineyard in northwest Michigan.  This wine is lightly oaked and has notes of cherries, black currants, and blackberries with a hint of pepper.

3.     2018 Foxhole Red – This sweet red wine was made with Marquette grapes grown in northwest Michigan.  Fresh raspberries and blueberries on the nose develop into a juicy and sweet finish.

4.     Sunset Rosé – This pleasantly pink semi-sweet rosé has notes of sweet maraschino cherry and finishes with a hint of sugar.

John’s selections:

1.     Cayuga White – This dry white wine has notes of lemon zest and green melon with a pleasantly acidic finish.

2.     2018 Frontenac Gris – This seme-dry white wine, made from grapes grown in northwest Michigan, tastes summery and fresh and has notes of honeysuckle and fresh oranges.

3.     SnowCat White – This sweet white wine was made from Vignoles grapes and has notes of honey and ripe tropical citrus.

4.     Sunset Rosé – This pleasantly pink semi-sweet rosé has notes of sweet maraschino cherry and finishes with a hint of sugar.

Overall, Kathy and I enjoyed all of the wines offered at Boyne Valley.  We decided we needed to take home at least one bottle from each type of wine.  My favorites, of course, were the sweeter wines.  I think Kathy would have been happy with any of them (seeing as she has a more mature wine palate than I do), but she agreed to get the sweet wines.  So, we got a bottle of Foxhole Red, a bottle of SnowCat White, and a bottle of Sunset Rosé.  We took advantage of the 10% discount per bottle being offered that day and cashed out 15 minutes before closing time.  I would definitely rate this place one of the top wineries/tasting rooms we have ever visited.  The atmosphere was out of this world, the service was exceptional, and the wines were fantastic.  It was hard to believe that they had only been open for 4 weeks.  But I could imagine the incredible potential this place possesses, especially when the weather is warmer and we could take advantage of the outdoor space.  They currently have entertainment every Saturday night, which just adds to the ambience of the place.  Throw in the Treehouse tasting room and bar coming later this year, and one would have to think, this will be one of the most popular places in the northern reaches of Michigan.  I truly cannot wait until we can come back and visit.

But for now, we needed to concentrate on making our way down to Traverse City.  It was about 5:45 pm and we had an hour and 15-minute drive ahead of us.  Besides needing to check into our hotel, we also needed to grab some dinner.

The drive down was uneventful, which was good compared to the last couple of years.  We got ourselves checked in at the hotel so now it was time to decide on dinner.  We noticed a place not too far from where we were staying, so that became our choice.  The restaurant was the Smoke & Porter Public House, which specializes in wood fire cooked foods.  In fact, their website says they wanted the theme to be based on cooking meat over a wood fire and the restaurant would smell like a late-night campfire.  Which, it did.  They had repurposed an old fast-food restaurant, so our challenge was to guess what fast food restaurant used to be here.  They had an atrium in the front, which kind of narrowed our choices – Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Big Boy.  My money was on Wendy’s but Randy nailed it – the restaurant used to be an Arby’s – at least that is what our waitress told us.  In any event, they had a full bar and carried several craft beers, one of which was called Pilsner Urquell, a beer made in the Czech Republic just a few short miles from where our daughter’s fiancée grew up.  So, of course, that was my beer of choice – probably the easiest choice I had to make all weekend.  Overall, this was an excellent experience.  The food was truly fantastic (and smoky), and the service was awesome.  And, of course, the beer was pretty darn good, too.  It’s always a bonus when you stumble upon pleasant surprises, and that is how I would describe our visit to the Smoke & Porter Public House.

We drove back to the hotel and took nearly a one-hour break before the four of us reconvened to play some cards.  We were all pretty tired, so we could barely muster playing one game of UNO.  Why UNO?  Well, that is a story for another day, but we have been playing this game with Randy and Christie for 40 years, so it’s become a tradition to try and sneak in a game anytime we have a chance to get together, no matter where we may happen to be.  

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This is Carbonation Country

Resort Pike Cidery and Winery

Date Visited:  November 8, 2019

Stop:  #66

 Once we (Kathy, Randy, Christie, and I) piled into the truck after our visit to the Mackinaw Trail Winery and Brewery – Petoskey, the big question on our minds was whether to stick to our original plan and head to Boyne Valley Vineyards, our last scheduled stop for the day, or take a flyer and visit Resort Pike Cidery and Winery after the recommendation we got from Laurie Stabile, the co-owner of Mackinaw Trail.  After looking at the time and doing some quick logistics calculations, we decided to take the challenge and squeeze in a trip to Resort Pike.  I am really glad we did.

We turned left out of the driveway to Mackinaw Trail Winery and made a quick right onto Williams Road.  Less than two minutes and 1.4 miles later, we turned right into the driveway leading to the parking lot in front of Resort Pike.  The building is relatively new, small, and sitting on top of a hill overlooking the beautiful countryside.  Walking inside, I was instantly smitten with the place.  I really enjoy the intimacy of smaller wineries and tasting rooms, and Resort Pike fell right into that category.  The first thing you see when you walk in is the three-sided, all wood bar, which dominates the room.  The wall behind the bar looked like the side of a classic red barn, and prominently painted on that wall was a large U.S. flag.  Under the flag was a lineup of hard cider taps – 20 by my count.  We were under an all-wood slat and wood beam vaulted ceiling, and a large marker board dominated the left wall of the room with a complete list of all hard ciders, specials, and wines available for that day.  Behind the bar was Tim, who greeted us and invited us to sit at the bar.  We were the only customers in the place.

Tim was very cordial and welcoming, and we were fascinated to learn that he was a film director by trade.  An independent film-maker, he mentioned that he was wrapping up his most recent project and was excited about its upcoming release.  Tim also filled us in on the history of Resort Pike.  The tasting room itself opened on July 11, 2017, but this was basically Phase 2 of a two-phase project.  Phase 1 was focused on preserving the farmland, with an emphasis on completely restoring the historic barn that sat on the property.  The date on the barn says 1889.  Once the barn and the surrounding land was restored, the owner, Dustin Stabile, decided that he wanted to create something a little special, and what better way to do that than to share his passion for carbonation!!!  In fact, their byline at Resort Pike is “This is Carbonation Country.”  Since wineries are plentiful in the area, including his family’s Mackinaw Trail Winery just 1.6 miles away, Dustin focused his craft on hard ciders and sparkling wines.  Back when we visited, Resort Pike was offering 12 hard ciders, 6 sparkling wines, and 6 still wines (non-carbonated).  Today, according to their website, their menu consists of 9 hard ciders, 7 sparkling wines, and 3 still wines.  So, as you can see, the menu fluctuates over time. Also, at least when we were there, they had a couple of special ciders and wines that did not appear on their menu at the time.  It was like limited editions and experimental concoctions were made available to let customers try some interesting new flavors.  I would guess that if they got enough positive feedback, these wines and ciders might find themselves in larger production batches and on the main menu.

So, Tim gave each of us a menu and we set about trying to make our selections from the numerous available ciders and wines.  We could each get a flight of 5 samples for $10.  The following is what Kathy and I settled on:

Kathy’s selections:

1.     Sea Salt and Lime – A special blend not on their menu

2.     MK’s Ultra – Brown sugar, caramel apple hard cider.  This project is straight from the CIA mind control experiments in the ‘50s.

3.     William’s Elixir – Cinnamon molasses apple hard cider.  Tastes just like apple pie!

4.     Pink Frizzante – A semi sweet sparkling pink wine made from the winemaker’s proprietary blend of grapes.

5.     Marquette – Dry red aged on French oak.  Made with grapes from Gabriel Farms in Petoskey Michigan.

John’s selections:

1.     Cherry Popper – A 75% apple 25% Cherry cider blend.  Tart with just the right amount of sweet.

2.     Honeycrisp Iced Cider – Made using 100% Honeycrisp apples.  This cider is decadently sweet.

3.     Riesling – A semi dry sparkling Riesling.  Crisp acidity with ripe tangerine aromas.

4.     Pike Demi-Sec – A still semi sweet white wine.

5.     Peach – A still wine that was not on the regular menu.

The Sea Salt and Lime Cider was very unique – to me, it was like drinking a carbonated margarita.  The MK’s Ultra and William’s Elixir were very good and probably our favorites, but the Cherry Popper and Honeycrisp Iced Cider were very close behind.  Honeycrisps are my favorite apple, so tasting a hard cider made of that apple was a treat.  I also enjoyed their Peach wine, but then again, I have not met a peach wine that I did not like.  At the end of the day, all of the choices were good, but we definitely had our favorites. 

Kathy and I decided we needed to take some of the MK’s Ultra home with us, so we put in our request for a bottle of that hard cider.  A check of the time told us we needed to get on the road if we wanted to get to our next stop while they were still open, so we cashed out, waited a few minutes for Randy and Christie to do the same, and then thanked Tim for his hospitality.  We all agreed that it was worth the trip, and I would love to revisit Resort Pike during warmer weather when we could order a nice cold glass of hard cider and sit outside enjoying the scenery and the weather.  Maybe someday!!!

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