Leelanau Wine Cellars Tasting Room
Date Visited: November 9, 2019
Stop: #72
Kathy, Randy, Christie, and I enjoyed our visit to Silver Leaf, where we experienced a more intimate atmosphere with a much smaller crowd milling about. But that was about to change as we headed to our next destination – Leelanau Wine Cellars. Located on the shores of Omena Bay in downtown Omena, Leelanau Wine Cellars is one of the more popular and commercial wineries in the state serving over 40,000 customers annually. Bottles of their wine can be bought at many retail stores around the state, including the Kroger’s grocery store just down the street from us. Every time we have been to this Tasting Room, there have been large crowds, and today would be no different.
We parked in the lot along the shoreline and entered the
tasting room from the rear entrance, scaling a flight of stairs. The Tasting Room is in the shape of a large
L, with a magnificent view of the bay. The
wine tasting bar runs the full length of the south wall. The rest of the walls (not including the
windowed walls) are loaded with racks of wine.
The food-and-wine pairing table was set up along the bank of windows, so
we at least got to enjoy the view as we waited for our servings.
Leelanau Wine Cellars was founded in 1974 by the Jacobson
family. They originally set up shop in a
cherry orchard. Nearly 50 years later,
the Jacobson family still owns and runs the winery, with Bob Jacobson being its
current president. Their website
includes a couple of photos of their tasting room from their early years.
As mentioned earlier, the place was packed. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing it so
busy. We had to wait a significant
amount of time to get our food and wine pairing, which consisted of a Smoked
Salmon and Caper Hors d-Oeuvre paired with their 2016 Merlot. It was a challenge as we jockeyed for
standing room in order to enjoy our tasty treats. After managing that, it was time to find a
spot at the bar to get our complimentary tastings. This was a challenge as well, as every opening
quickly filled and you had to be quite agile and somewhat strategic to get a
spot. We finally managed to do so,
although Kathy was really the only one at the bar as I was kind of standing a
bit off to her side and behind her. It
took several more minutes before I could fully stand at the bar.
The selection at Leelanau Wine Cellars is huge. On this day, there were 49 different wines to
choose from. We had been here in the
past, so we already had the pleasure of trying many of their wines. The tough part was remembering what we had
already tasted so we could enjoy something new.
Here were our final choices:
Kathy’s selection:
- 2017 Bubbly Rosé
- Tall Ship Bubbly Rosé
- Great Lakes Red Bubbly
- 2017 Vintage Port (an estate wine)
John’s selections:
- 2013 Late Harvest Vidal
- 2018 Vignoles
- Raspberry Dessert Wine
- 2016 Apricot Pear Dessert Wine
Of the 3 bubblies that Kathy tried, we both agreed that we
enjoyed the Great Lakes Bubbly the best.
I really enjoyed all of my choices, but my favorite was the Late Harvest
Vidal. We also both liked the Vintage
Port, so when it came to taking home some bottles, our choices were easy – we
took home one of each of our favorites.
Over the years, Kathy and I have bought at least 19 bottles
of Leelanau Wine Cellars wine – at least, 19 bottles that I have recorded in
our wine inventory. I surmise many more
bottles never made it to the list since I did not start keeping a list until
2018 and we had visited Leelanau
Wine Cellars at least once in 2017. This
also does not include the countless bottles Kathy has bought for our nieces as
Christmas presents and the ports we have bought for my Dad. In fact, Kathy bought me a bottle of their
Winter White Peach Chill wine for Christmas this year, my favorite amongst all
their wines. So, to say that we like
Leelanau Wine Cellars wine would be a gross understatement. We have visited here at least 5 times, with
all of our visits being memorable for one reason or another. We have been there for three Toast the Season
events. We visited Leelanau Wine Cellars
in August of 2018 when my daughter, Sarah, and her then boyfriend (now fiancée)
Martin stopped in for tastings while vacationing in the area. It happened to be a very warm day, so we
spent as much time on the shore, sitting in Adirondack chairs and wading into
the shallow waters just off the shore as we did inside at the wine tasting
bar. But we have not returned since the
onset of COVID. Lucky for us, we can
find bottles of their wine at our local retail stores, but we really hope we
get the chance to visit again very soon.
Be sure to visit the Leelanau Wine Cellars website for more
information:
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