Our first winery of the day was L. Mawby, and I completely shot ourselves in the foot by not bringing along detailed directions. The place proved to be impossible to find. We drove all around the lower half of Leelanau for at least an hour, stopping to ask for directions and at one point passing within 500 feet of the entrance without realizing it, until we finally arrived by a combination of unmarked, barely paved roads and sheer intuition. I'm glad we persevered. Mawby would be a rarity in most wine-growing regions. To find it in Michigan was downright shocking. They make nothing but sparkling wines, the vast majority of them using the traditional mèthode champenoise, where the wine is fermented in bottles, rather than tanks or barrels. The bottles are arranged on racks and turned periodically to ensure even distribution of yeast. It is an expensive and arcane method of winemaking, but it is what makes Champagne Champagne. In addition to the traditional sparklers, Mawby makes a line of tank-fermented wines under the M. Lawrence label.
The tasting room was small and sparse, with a small deck in the back, and although you could not see the bay, the views of gently rolling hills covered with rows of vines still made for an idyllic location. The tasting is normally paid, and geared towards helping the visitor select their favorite wine, of which they would then buy a glass and enjoy it on the deck. G., however, gently brought his industry connection to bear, and we were able to taste through most of the wines free of charge, poured by the very knowledgeable and pleasant but refreshingly unsalesmanlike middle-aged woman whose name I'm kicking myself for not having asked. The wines were delicious and stood up admirably, in my opinion, to anything from the West Coast. We focused on the traditional wines, though our hostess did talk us into trying one of the tank-fermented ones. The two lines seem to serve radically different markets. The traditional wines are carefully labeled with the French designation of their sweetness (Brut, Sec and so on) and are named either after their types, Champagne-style (Blanc de Blancs, Blanc de Noirs), or with some appropriately hoity-toity sounding moniker (e.g. Cremant Classic). The sweetest of the bunch, Jadore, is fairly sweet, but still balanced and would not be out of place on any dinner table that would take an off-dry Riesling. The tank-fermented wines, on the other hand, all have gimmicky names intended to evoke stereotypical sparkling-wine-drinking occasions (Us, Fizz, Wet, etc.) and are one-dimensionally sweet. The one we tried is the perennial favorite that is actually called Sex. It is a rosé, cloying, with an off-putting, unintegrated finish. It sells like crazy, according to our hostess, for a whole bunch of wrong reasons (the fact that no one wants to say "I don't like Sex" out loud is only the beginning). The pun in the name is no doubt lost on the vast majority of buyers.
Raftshol Vnieyards Our next stop was going to be Forty-Five North, but we arrived to discover that it was closed, so we moved on immediately to Raftshol Vineyards. We arrived to find a large, dilapidated barn with a small concrete tower, and adjacent to it, a prefabricated single-story structure that claimed to be the tasting room. The interior was a single large room, and it was in complete disarray. A high counter, something you might find in a cut-rate reception hall, to be used by itinerant bartenders, ran alongside one wall; this would prove to be the tasting area. Across the room from it, something akin to an office - desk, a computer, some bookshelves, peeked from behind a mountain of empty cardboards boxes. Various other objects were strewn about, dominated by a bottle labeling machine in one corner. During my research, Raftshol caught my eye because they appeared to emphasize red wines. Reds are notoriously more difficult to make than whites, and the room we were now in did not exude the sort of discipline required to make good reds. A few people were milling about by the counter, but left shortly after we arrived, leaving us in the presence of an elderly gentleman in suspenders and a flannel shirt, sporting a Lincolnesque beard. This turned out to be Warren Raftshol, owner, vine grower and winemaker. He was so self-effacing as to appear almost uncaring. His answer to many of our questions was a shrug of the shoulders followed by "I wasn't paying much attention." Never have I met anyone in the wine world who had so little need for the trappings of wine commerce and the image that frequently goes along with it.
I would have loved to report that the wines were spectacular, smashing once and for all the myriad myths associated with winemaking and wine drinking. Sadly, they were not. The Pinot Noir, which we tasted from dusty, mismatched glasses, was exceedingly light in color and flavor, murky (bottled completely unfiltered, if memory serves) and tasted home-made. The Bordeaux blend (to think that a place like this even made one!) was not a wine I would reach for expectantly, but was at least convincing, the unmistakable flavor combination of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc detectable, even if muted. When I asked whether Mr. Raftshol has had much luck with Cabernet Sauvignon, his reply was a non-chalant "Not really." The straight Cab Franc, not surprisingly, aquitted itself the best, and at $9, was a bargain. G. and I bought a few bottles between the two of us, and Mr. Raftshol labeled them for us on the spot, putting the foil over the necks of the bottles and setting it with a hair dryer before handing the bottles to us and asking us to let them sit for a couple of weeks as he had bottled them only a few days before our visit.
Our long search for L. Mawby had thrown us off-schedule, and we were now well into the afternoon. While at Mawby, we learned that one of the grapes they grew was Vignoles, an obscure French blending grape that seemed to do well in the local climate. Furthermore, we found out that another local winery, Leelanau Cellars, made a varietal Vignoles. Their tasting room was in the village of Suttons Bay, which happened to be only a couple of miles away, so we headed there to try it. They turned out to have not one but two Vignole-based wines. We found the basic, dry, table Vignoles to be good, though not really unique - crisp, but with a decent body and good fruit. A solid, everyday white wine. It was well worth stopping in at Leelanau Cellars for other reasons, though - the winery features a large tasting room, strikingly finished with maple planks on the interior, with an enormous panoramic window overlooking the bay. It was a lovely place to spend some time, and the wines we tasted from Leelanau's enormous portfolio were in tune with the quality of the wines we had been tasting. The biggest surprise turned out to be the other Vignoles - a botrytis dessert wine. Botrytis - a fungus which, under the right conditions, can remove enough moisture from grapes to concentrate the sugars without killing the grape altogether, is, of course, what makes Sauternes, probably the world's most famous dessert wine, Sauternes. Making a botrytis wine is an enormous amount of work, but Leelanau Cellars pulled it off. While I could not describe the flavor with any precision, it was delicious and enormously complex. There is a bottle in my fridge, waiting to be revisited.
At this point, the afternoon was starting to bend towards evening. We relaxed for a while on the deck of the restaurant next door to the tasting room, enjoying a glass of wine and mesmerizing views of the bay, then got on the road and headed South, for we had one more place to visit before returning to Ann Arbor.
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