The Best Wineries In Traverse City, Sorted By What Each Room Does Best

Two wine trails meet at the base of Grand Traverse Bay, and together they produce over 60 percent of Michigan's grapes, according to Traverse City Tourism. The Old Mission Peninsula trail publishes a count of ten wineries on its own trail map; the Leelanau Peninsula trail says "over 20 award winning wineries" on its homepage. Any article that ranks those rooms one to ten is making a decision no source supports. What the record does support is a sorting: which rooms have the view, which have the food, which want a reservation, and which pour the deepest Riesling lists in northern Michigan.

What Makes A Winery The Best In Traverse City?

The honest answer is that "best" splits into at least five defensible criteria: the view, the food, the reservation policy, the depth of the Riesling list, and how well a room suits a first visit. The wineries named on the two trails' own sites and in live tour itineraries are the only ones this guide will name, and each earns its place by one criterion, not by a rank.

That sorting matters because the two peninsulas behave differently. Old Mission is a narrow spine, no more than three miles wide at any point, running roughly 19 miles north from Traverse City, with all ten trail wineries strung along it. Leelanau is bigger and its 23 trail members are spread across a whole county, which is why most visitors either pick a cluster or let a tour operator arrange the route. Our Old Mission Peninsula wine trail guide covers that geography in detail, and the Leelanau Peninsula wine trail guide does the same for the west side of the bay.

The other thing to settle early is what a tasting costs. The Magic Shuttle Bus, which runs scheduled tours on both peninsulas, publishes per-winery prices on its own listings, and those numbers are the best public record of what you will pay at the bar.

Fees on Old Mission generally run $5 to $10 per tasting and $5 to $15 on Leelanau, per the operator's own published list. Whether those fees are in your tour ticket depends entirely on which operator you ride with, a distinction covered in full in our wine tour prices guide.

Which Winery On The Old Mission Peninsula Is Considered The Best?

Chateau Chantal is the room most often named first on Old Mission, and it earns that on three counts: the inn and tasting room sit high above East Grand Traverse Bay, the wine list runs deep including a zero-alcohol sparkling and a Cabernet Franc ice wine, and the room takes reservations so the pour is unhurried. Brys Estate and Mari Vineyards are the strongest challengers, each better than Chantal on one specific criterion.

Chateau Chantal's case is not just local opinion. At the 2025 TEXSOM International Wine Awards it earned Judges' Selections for both its zero-alcohol sparkling brut and its 2023 Cabernet Franc ice wine, and in the USA Today 10Best Readers' Choice Awards for 2025 its inn took second place among wine country hotels in the entire country, behind only the Inn at Black Star Farms, as reported by Meetings + Events. The top two wine-country hotels in the United States that year were both on these two peninsulas, which is the single strongest outside endorsement the region has.

Brys Estate argues back with a hilltop patio and a Frosé that has become a signature pour at $10, plus a wine country snack box at $9 that turns a tasting into a sitting. Mari Vineyards argues with volume: an Italianate estate, a broad list with glasses from $8 to $15, and a tenth-anniversary expansion that includes an on-site bed and breakfast overlooking the vineyards and East Grand Traverse Bay. If your criterion is "the most wine under one roof," Mari wins; if it is "the longest sit with the best view," Brys and Chantal win.

The five-hour shared Old Mission tour from The Magic Shuttle Bus is the most reviewed way to see these rooms, rated 4.9 across 2,666 reviews, from $79 per person with tasting fees extra. The semi-private Escalade option from Movie Stars Wine Tours covers Old Mission Peninsula in 4.5 hours from $69 per person with samples and a complimentary bottle included, which changes the arithmetic when tasting fees are the variable.

Where Can I Find The Best Wine Tasting In Traverse City?

The best single tasting experience in Traverse City is a reservation-pour at Chateau Chantal or a full flight at Bowers Harbor Vineyards on Old Mission, or a seated tasting at Black Star Farms or Shady Lane Cellars on Leelanau. The best overall tasting day is whichever of those rooms a route connects without more than 20 minutes of driving between stops.

The reservation question deserves its own explanation, because it is the one thing that quietly ruins itineraries. Chateau Chantal pours its flight of three wines or a glass by reservation, per the operator's published list. Bowers Harbor's flight runs $22 to $28 for five pours or the equivalent of two and a half glasses, the largest published pour on either peninsula. Bonobo includes a souvenir glass with its $9 to $13 pour. None of these rooms is objectively "best," but each is the best at something: Chantal at the booked sit, Bowers Harbor at the volume of the flight, Bonobo at the take-home glass.

On the Leelanau side, the trail's own member page lists 23 wineries, and the rooms named in live tour itineraries are Black Star Farms, Shady Lane Cellars and Rove Winery at the Gallagher Estate. Shady Lane took Double Gold medals for its 2024 Gruner Veltliner and 2022 sparkling Riesling at the 2026 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, per a Michigan Wine Country compilation of the results, so its flight is the safest bet on the west side of the bay for medal-grade pours.

If the decision you are actually making is whether to drive this yourself or ride, the comparison is simple. A shared shuttle from $79 or a semi-private SUV from $69, both per person, versus your own car and a tasting fee at every bar. The wine tour transport guide works through that trade in full, including the Michigan open-container law that governs who may legally drink between stops.

The View Rooms: Where The Tasting Is Also A Lookout

The best views belong to Chateau Chantal and 2 Lads on Old Mission's east side, Brys Estate at the peninsula's high point, and Black Star Farms and Shady Lane Cellars on Leelanau. Every one of these rooms puts the bar or patio above vineyards that run down to open water, which is the region's defining landscape.

Old Mission is essentially a ridge between two bays, so nearly every room on it has some water in the frame, but the east-side rooms look across East Grand Traverse Bay toward the Leelanau hills and get the afternoon light. Chateau Chantal's inn sits on one of the highest points on the peninsula. Brys Estate's hilltop patio is a deliberate viewpoint, and its Frosé at $10 has made the patio itself the product on warm afternoons. 2 Lads Winery, at the peninsula's northern end near the lighthouse, is the quietest of the three and the one most often named by visitors who drove the full 19 miles.

On Leelanau, Black Star Farms pours at Suttons Bay and on Old Mission, with tasting room hours of 11am to 6pm Sunday to Thursday and 11am to 8pm Friday to Saturday at Suttons Bay, per its own site. Shady Lane Cellars sits in a bowl of old vines north of Suttons Bay. Our dedicated wineries with views guide ranks the lookouts in detail, so this section will not repeat the full list.

One planning note that changes with the view: the sunset. A room facing west over Lake Michigan, on Leelanau, gives you the colour; a room facing east, on Old Mission, gives you the light on the water instead. The sunset wine tours guide covers which operators time their routes for it.

The Food Rooms: Where You Can Eat As Well As Taste

The best winery food near Traverse City is at Black Star Farms, though with a caveat: Bistro Polaris now runs as a culinary event venue and pop-up bistro rather than a regular full-service restaurant, so you cannot simply walk in for dinner. Bonobo Winery is the other food answer, with a downtown sushi-bar tasting room partnership at 115 Franklin Street in Traverse City.

The Bistro Polaris change is the kind of detail most guides get wrong. Black Star Farms' own site describes the venue as special events, weekly dining events, pop-up brunches, seasonal cooking classes and private dining, which is a real food programme but not a restaurant with nightly service. If dinner at a winery is the point of your evening, check the Bistro Polaris page before you build the night around it.

Bonobo's move downtown is the fresher story. The winery, run by the Oosterhouse family, targeted a July 2026 grand opening for an off-site tasting room and sushi bar in partnership with Dojo Sushi at 115 Franklin Street, with indoor seating for 25 to 30 and outdoor space looking over Grand Traverse Bay, as reported by The Ticker. That puts an Old Mission producer's pours within walking distance of downtown hotels, which no other trail winery can claim.

The other honest food answer is the snack box. Brys Estate publishes a wine country snack box at $9, and most rooms on both trails sell cheese or charcuterie plates. The Magic Shuttle Bus tours allow snacking on board, which turns the drive itself into lunch. For a fuller treatment, including which rooms on Leelanau serve food, see the wineries with food guide.

The Traverse City Wine & Dine tour from Movie Stars Wine Tours is built exactly for this criterion: tastings at two Old Mission wineries followed by food stops downtown, 4.5 hours from $79 per person. It is a newer listing, so no reviews are published yet.

The Escalade tour suits the food-inclined too, since samples and a complimentary bottle are in the ticket and the SUV keeps the route flexible across 4.5 hours.

The Reservation-Only Rooms And The Walk-In Rooms

Chateau Chantal is the one room on either peninsula whose published listing states its tasting runs by reservation. Most other Old Mission rooms, including Bonobo, Hawthorne and Bowers Harbor, pour for walk-ins, and tour operators make appointments rather than full reservations at the wineries on their routes, per the operators' own listings.

That distinction between an appointment and a reservation is real and it is the kind of detail that only surfaces in the operators' own listing text. When a shuttle tour says it arranges appointments, it means the room knows a group of up to 20 is coming; it does not mean every stool is booked. When Chateau Chantal says by reservation, it means the pour itself is scheduled. Solo visitors should read that as: call Chantal, walk into the others.

Group size changes the math everywhere. A party of eight or more should book ahead at any room on either trail, and the private options exist partly for this reason. The Magic Shuttle Bus runs a private winery or brewery tour for up to 14 people from $699.99 per group, rated 4.9 across 37 reviews, with the route chosen by the group. Movie Stars Wine Tours runs a private Old Mission tour for up to two from $369 per group, mixing wineries with a distillery stop. The bachelorette and group tours guide compares them in full.

The Rooms With The Deepest Riesling

Riesling is the most-planted wine grape in Michigan at roughly 670 of the state's 3,375 wine-grape acres, and the rooms that take it most seriously are Chateau Chantal and Mari Vineyards on Old Mission, and Shady Lane Cellars and Leelanau Cellars on Leelanau. French Valley Vineyard on Leelanau just won Best of Show at the 2026 state competition with a Dessert Riesling.

That last fact is the one to plan around. French Valley Vineyard's 2024 Dessert Riesling scored 97 points and a Platinum medal, taking Best of Show out of 214 entries from 44 wineries at the 2026 Taste Michigan Governor's Cup Competition, per the Michigan Wine Collaborative's own results release. Blake Lougheed of Bel Lago Ventures, which oversees Bel Lago, French Valley Vineyard and Dune Bird, was named Winemaker of the Year at the same competition. If your criterion is "the best Riesling within driving distance of Traverse City," the 2026 evidence points at Leelanau.

Shady Lane Cellars backs its Riesling case with a Double Gold for its 2022 sparkling Riesling at the 2026 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Leelanau Cellars took Double Golds there for a 2023 late-harvest Riesling and a 2024 late-harvest Pinot Grigio, among others. On Old Mission, Chateau Chantal's 2023 Cabernet Franc ice wine earned a Judges' Selection at the 2025 TEXSOM awards, and ice wine is the format where Riesling's frozen-harvest cousin lives. Ice wine grapes here are picked frozen from late December into January.

The statewide context is worth one paragraph because it explains why Riesling dominates the lists. Michigan counts 279 wine producers and 13,346 vineyard acres in total per the 2025 WineAmerica study, with wine grapes specifically at 3,375 acres across 775 family-owned farms. The cool-climate varieties that carry the north are Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc, and roughly 70 percent of Michigan vineyard acreage is now Vitis vinifera. The two Traverse City peninsulas produce over 60 percent of the state's grapes, so the deepest Riesling lists in Michigan are, for practical purposes, here.

The Best First-Visit Wineries On Each Peninsula

For a first visit, the defensible short list is Chateau Chantal, Bowers Harbor and Brys Estate on Old Mission, and Black Star Farms and Shady Lane Cellars on Leelanau. Those five rooms cover the view, the flight, the patio, the food programme and the medal list, and a five-hour tour can reach three or four of them without rushing.

The reason to sort rather than rank is that a first visit has a budget of stops, not opinions. Three Old Mission rooms in five hours is a full afternoon; four is the practical maximum. The Magic Shuttle Bus runs exactly that shape of day, from $79 per person, rated 4.9 across 2,666 reviews, with tasting fees of about $5 to $10 per stop paid at the bar. On Leelanau the same operator runs a five-hour, three-estate tour from $79 per person, rated 4.9 across 427 reviews, with appointments arranged ahead at each stop.

The fee arithmetic between the two operators is the sharpest distinction in this market and it belongs in any first-visit decision.

Read that table as the real price comparison. A $69 SUV ticket that includes samples and a bottle can undercut a $79 shuttle ticket plus three tasting fees, and a $369 private driver in your own car is a different product entirely. The wine country on a budget guide works the arithmetic stop by stop.

How To String The Best Rooms Into One Route

The best route on Old Mission is north to south or south to north along Center Road, hitting three rooms in four to five hours; the best Leelanau route clusters Suttons Bay rooms such as Black Star Farms and Shady Lane; and the best two-peninsula day is not recommended in one afternoon. The bay crossing takes real time and the wineries deserve it.

Old Mission's geography makes the routing almost automatic. Center Road, the M-37 spine, runs the length of the peninsula with no alternate route, so every itinerary is a line: start at the town end or at the lighthouse end and work back. Chateau Chantal, Brys Estate and Mari Vineyards sit toward the north; Bowers Harbor, Bonobo and Hawthorne sit closer to town. A five-hour tour that starts north and works south ends within minutes of downtown dinner, which is why the food-and-wine combinations work so well here.

Leelanau rewards clustering over ambition. The trail's 23 members spread across a county, and the Suttons Bay cluster, Black Star Farms, Shady Lane and their neighbours, is the one most tours reach. The self-guided wine tour guide and the wine country map guide cover the driving distances and the timing in detail, so this section will only add the seasonal note: tasting rooms are busiest in October, when harvest and fall colour overlap, and the best time for wine tasting guide explains why the bay keeps the peninsulas' colour going later than inland Michigan.

For a Leelanau day, the five-hour shared tour from The Magic Shuttle Bus is the most reviewed option on that side of the bay, from $79 per person with appointments arranged ahead at each of three estates.

One legal note that applies to every route, guided or not: Michigan's open-container law, MCL 257.624a, bans open alcohol in a vehicle's passenger area, with an exception in subsection (4) for passengers in a chartered vehicle authorized by the state transportation department. That exception is why the shuttle and SUV operators can advertise drinking on board, and why a hired designated driver at the wheel of your own car cannot rely on it. Every listing in the roster also states the tour is not suitable for under-21s, matching the state's drinking age.

However you sort the rooms, the honest summary is this: ten wineries on one trail and over 20 on the other, every one reachable from town in under an hour, and no ranking among them that any source actually supports. Pick your criterion, book the one room that demands it, and let the route settle the rest. The tours below cover all three of the shapes of day this guide describes, and this whole site, Traverse City Wine Tours, exists to make that one decision easier.

The six questions below are the ones visitors actually ask, and each answer names rooms by criterion rather than by decree, because no source supports a single ranked list. Tasting fees, reservation postures and award results come from the trails' own sites, the operators' published lists and the competition results already cited in this guide.

Common Questions About The Best Wineries In Traverse City