We were really anxious to check out some of the businesses in the former Traverse City State Hospital (i.e. insane asylum), since the area wasn't fully occupied with business on our last trip. Most vineyards don't open until 11a or noon, so we started the day with a trip to Higher Grounds Trading Company. This fair trade and organic coffee business has been around for awhile, but we wanted to check out the new location.
The hospital was pretty and gothic and teeming with people, even early in the morning. Higher Grounds is located in one of the buildings behind the hospital that used to be the laundry building. The coffee was good and all the milk was local (only whole and skim), but I was dissapointed that they were out of creamer and skim milk and only had whole milk to offer that day. The coffee was good though and I enjoyed looking out on the grounds of the facility.
We headed next door to the Left Foot Charley winery, which sources it's grapes from several local vineyards. The wine list was pretty much entirely white, but all of the wines were crisp and nice. The 2008 Rose was very dry and crisp and happened to be the featured wine of the week (=$$ discount), so we purchased a bottle and moved on.
We have been dying to check out this new brewery in Traverse City called Right Brain Brewery. If you check out their beer list on the website you will see why...it is off the wall! They seem to be great experimenters and have 12 beers on tap on any given day. Some of the beers are pretty fun in terms of ingredients and names (Scarborough Fair had parsley, rosemary, sage, and thyme and was billed as "a great marinade" on the menu). The guy working there was extremely enthusiastic, helpful, and friendly and we did a sampler of a variety of the beers on the menu. I think we got to try almost every one. It was hit or miss in terms of what we liked, some were just ok, some were pretty good, but the fun was in sampling. One disappointment was that there were no IPAs or highly hoppy beers on the list. I was told they were too popular right now to keep on tap for long. It is definitely worth a stop and it should be noted that they sell growlers to go, in case you want to pick up some of the Scarborough Fair for a marinade. My husband is a home brewer and loved the ideas that they were putting into their beer here...very creative.
Now we had to get our bearings about us, so we stopped for lunch at North Peak Brewery. The food was good and we did a sample of the beers on tap. Though I am partial to pale ales, the Steelhead Red is my favorite here. I think our tasting suffered a bit from the heat on the patio, but from past experience, the beers are decent. They have been there forever, so they are doing something right.
We did some wine tasting on the Leelanau wine trail that afternoon, too, but after all the beer in the morning, we had to be pretty selective about where we went. L. Mawby is one of our favorite places in this area and is entirely sparkling wine. There is a huge variety to meet anyone's taste. One of our oddball favorites last year was their Redd. I have had sparkling reds before at Whole Foods and my understanding is that they are not all that popular anywhere except in Australia. We were lucky enough to find a wine shop in Chicago last year (Provence in Lincoln Square) that carried L. Mawby Redd, so we had some backstock. When we asked about it this year, we were so surprised to hear they no longer make it! I guess it is true that it just hasn't taken off in the U.S. The girl at the tasting room at L. Mawby said it just never really sold, but as soon as they pulled it from the list, they found a lot of people came in looking for it and seemed disappointed.
There were no other vineyards of particular note this year, but again, we really skimmed the list and left off many of our favorites (incluing Forty-Five North Vineyard and Winery, which was closed by the time we got there). We tried Circa Winery's tasting room, which is newly opened. The tasting room is very impressive in terms of decor and ambience and the staff was friendly. We will definitely make a stop at this tasting room a priority for our next trip. We bought a bottle of 2007 Requisite here made from Blaufrankisch - a German red grape also known as Lemberger. I saw this grape on the wine list at Shady Lane's Vineyard on this trip, also. I hadn't previously heard of it. Wikipedia tells me the grape is known as "the Pinot Noir of the East" because of it's spread and reputation in Eastern Europe.
Finally, I will mention another new addition to the Leelanau Wine Trail this year - Tandem Ciders (also found on the self-guided foodie tour). I like hard cider in the autumn and I usually stop to pick some up at Uncle John's Cider Mill in St Johns when I am in Michigan. Tandem had a nice setup and the owner, who was previously a home brewer of beer himself, had a nice discussion with my husband about how making cider was more akin to wine than beer. He was a great guy and happy to talk to us about his business. The ciders are good...much more subtle than I am used, too. My favorite was the driest variety, but I believe the owner said the sweeter ciders on the list tend to be more popular. He also let us know about the Great Lakes Cider and Perry Festival taking place at Uncle John's Cider Mill on September 12th and 13th.
The final stop of the day was dinner at Jolly Pumpkin Brewery on the Mission Peninsula. The food here was very good. We had a buffalo sloppy joe (which wasn't very sloppy) and a pizza special with peppers and sausages. Both were great and I wished we had stopped here more frequently to eat and before all our energy had been spent on our grand tour. They also offered a sampling of a variety of beers (9 to be exact) from their brewery and North Peak. We also purchased a bottle of Maracaibo Especial and Oro de Calabazo to take home to Chicago with us.
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