Bonobo Winery on MI’s Old Mission Peninsula is now open for business. This is owned by Carter Oosterhouse and brother Todd. Carter, originally from Traverse City, is well known for TV shows remodling houses and his wife Amy Smart (actress) reside in CA but Todd still lives in T City and is the GM at Bonobo. The building is very nice and sitting high in the middle of OMP has an excellent view of West Bay looking over their vineyards. The tasting room is 6,000 sq feet and has several comfortable areas to sit and enjoy the wines.
There are currently seven wines available for tasting. I tasted five and found the 2013 Pinot Gris and 2013 Pinot Blanc to be very good. This will become a destination winery for folks visiting NW MI (and a place for us locals to simply enjoy !).
Thanks for the heads-up. Just to place it relative to the competition, what are your other favorite NW MI wineries and where would you place these guys?
Here’s six of my personal favorites along with one or two of their wines I like best;
Left Foot Charley - Pinot Blanc, Riesling seven hill vineyard
Chateau Grand Traverse - Riesling Lot 49, Gruner Veltliner
Bel Lago - Auxerrois
Shady Lane - Sparkling Riesling, Blue Franc (Blaufrankish)
Willow - Chardonnay
Black Star Farms - Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc
Some of the red’s (Blaufrankish, Pinot Noir & Cab franc) are getting better and darn good in better years but I still drink mostly reds from S Rhone and Languedoc.
After tasting for the first time at Bonobo I won’t attempt to place them but will be surprised if they don’t make ‘my list’.
Cheers, Gary
I was going to ask a similar question.
But, I do have your first four listed wines in my cellar and they would REALLY surprise many here if they tried them.
Cool, thanks.