Local Guide
The Old Mission Peninsula Wine Loop
One road, eleven wineries, and a lighthouse where the pavement runs out. This is the wine day we hand guests when they only have one afternoon.
One Road, Both Bays
Old Mission is the peninsula you see running straight north from downtown: nineteen miles long, never more than three wide, splitting Grand Traverse Bay into two arms. Center Road rides the ridge up the middle, and because the land is so narrow the view keeps trading sides, east bay out one window, west bay out the other. Every winery on the peninsula hangs off this one road or a short spur from it. There are no navigation decisions to make. You drive north, stop when we tell you to, and turn around at a lighthouse that claims to be halfway between the equator and the North Pole.
Where Leelanau rambles, Old Mission composes itself. The tasting rooms here are estates with their history on the label, and the oldest of them planted the first serious European wine grapes in Michigan back when every expert said the climate would kill them. Water on three sides proved the experts wrong: the bays hold summer heat deep into fall and blunt the worst of winter, which is why riesling, gewürztraminer, and pinot grigio ripen here on the 45th parallel. The federal government made it Michigan's smallest wine appellation in 1987. The wineries have spent the decades since arguing, convincingly, that it is the best one.
One thing most visitors never learn: the reason the drive still looks like farmland is that the people who live here pay for it. Since 1994, Peninsula Township residents have taxed themselves to buy development rights from their farming neighbors, and more than half the land earmarked for agriculture is now permanently protected. The orchards and vine rows you pass between tastings are a thirty-year civic project.
How a day actually runs
Our pacing for a four-pour day with a lighthouse break. Times assume a 12:45 pm start and dinner at Jolly Pumpkin.
- 12:45 pm Pull out of the Observatory
- 1:05 pm Bonobo, first pour in the barn
- 2:10 pm Chateau Grand Traverse, the Riesling ladder
- 3:20 pm Brys Estate, deck first, lavender after
- 4:30 pm 2 Lads, last tasting before they close
- 5:35 pm Old Mission village, then the lighthouse
- 6:50 pm Jolly Pumpkin for dinner at Bowers Harbor
- ~8:45 pm Down Peninsula Drive, home along the water
Four tastings is the full-send version. Most days we drop one, and which one depends on the group. The route works the same either way.
The Wineries, Stop by Stop
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Bonobo Winery
Start in the barn. Bonobo belongs to Todd and Carter Oosterhouse, brothers who grew up in Traverse City, and Carter, the carpenter from Trading Spaces, built the bar and the fireplace himself with lumber salvaged from collapsed barns. It sits on the cherry farm he worked as a kid. Seating is first come and you don't need a tasting fee to settle in with a glass. Order the traditional-method OV Brut Cuvée, three years on the lees, and the smoked whitefish dip from the open kitchen. Dogs get the lawn, which looks out over West Bay.
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Chateau Grand Traverse
Two minutes up the road, and the reason any of this exists. Ed O'Keefe Jr., a former Green Beret who had also worked as an undercover narcotics agent in New York, moved a million cubic yards of earth in 1974 to sculpt a south-facing slope for riesling after Michigan State and UC Davis both told him it couldn't be done. The town called it O'Keefe's folly, and the folly now makes most of the riesling in Michigan. Taste the ladder: Dry Riesling against Late Harvest, then the Whole Cluster if it's pouring. If there's ice wine on the list, buy it; a bottle of their 1987 was served at a presidential inauguration. The walk-in tasting is $10 and the patio looks over the hill Ed built.
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Brys Estate
Book the Upper Deck ahead on summer weekends; it hangs over the vines with East Bay behind them, and we haven't found a better seated view on this side of the peninsula. The tasting comes as a tower of five pours, and each tower earns $5 toward a bottle the same day. Their Gewürztraminer and dry riesling are the benchmarks; the Naked Chardonnay is the one guests keep shipping home. Then walk downhill to the Secret Garden, a twelve-acre lavender valley the family planted in a frost pocket too cold for vines. It blooms from late June through July, when u-pick bundles run a few dollars and the shop scoops a lavender flavor of Moomers ice cream.
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2 Lads Winery
The anti-chateau: a glass and concrete box set into a hillside near the peninsula's quiet north end, gravity-flow inside, with the tasting counter aimed straight down the vine rows at East Bay. The two lads met working the bottling line at Chateau Grand Traverse, which makes this a second-generation stop. We order the bottle-fermented Sparkling Pinot Grigio and their Cabernet Franc, the single best argument that Old Mission can do serious red. Flights are $15, first come only. One more local thread: the building was designed by architects whose office sits two doors from The Observatory at the Commons. Note the clock here, because they pour until 6 and mean it.
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Detour: Old Mission & the Lighthouse
A wine pause: the village of Old Mission is three miles from the tip, and the General Store there traces its roots to an 1839 trading post. Inside it's half museum, with pickles from a barrel, a grill counter, and a porch built for eating a sandwich slowly. Local lore says Babe Ruth once ordered a dozen hot dogs and hit balls into the bay. At the end of the road, Mission Point Lighthouse has kept watch since 1870, and the famous sign out front claims you're halfway between the equator and the North Pole. It's wrong twice, charmingly: the real 45th parallel runs a few hundred feet offshore, and the true halfway point is another ten miles north. Climb the tower before 5 pm ($8, closed Tuesdays), or just wade the sandbar, which stays knee-deep for a couple hundred yards on a calm day.
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Jolly Pumpkin, for dinner
Come back down the spine and turn west to Bowers Harbor. Jolly Pumpkin does dinner in the Stickney summer mansion, rebuilt in the late 1920s, and yes, there's a ghost story about the mirror in the hall; a local historian has since debunked its grimmest details with the family's own records, which is somehow the better story. After a day of wine the move here is beer: they built their name on oak-aged sour ales, and the truffle fries deserve their cult following. Then take the long way home, south down Peninsula Drive, with the evening sun on West Bay the whole way.
Host's take
One ridge road, water on both sides, and wineries that have had fifty years to figure out exactly who they are.
Old Mission or Leelanau?
Guests ask us the Old Mission vs Leelanau question constantly, and the honest answer is a scheduling question. Old Mission starts fifteen minutes from our door and runs on one road; the tastings, the lighthouse, and dinner all fit in a single afternoon. Leelanau is three times the territory, two dozen wineries scattered across farm roads, plus Fishtown and the beaches, and it deserves a full day of its own. Wine-wise, Mission is riesling country with real estates behind it, while Leelanau runs looser and cares more about the sitting spots. Do both if you have two days and you'll taste the difference yourself; with one afternoon, drive this loop. Our Leelanau wine loop guide covers that route the same way we cover this one.
Planning a trip?
The Observatory is our loft in the Grand Traverse Commons, fifteen minutes from the first stop on this loop. Left Foot Charley pours in our building, so you can taste the local style the night you arrive.
Check Availability →Reservations, Dogs, and the Drive Home
The reservation culture here is stop-by-stop, so know it going in. 2 Lads takes no reservations at all; Chateau Grand Traverse and Bonobo seat walk-ins; Brys is the one to book ahead, especially for the deck on a summer weekend. Groups of six or more should call every winery a week out in summer. One reason the details keep shifting: a federal court threw out the township's decades-old winery rules in 2025 and awarded the wineries about $49 million, the case is on appeal, and tasting rooms are still working out what they're now allowed to be. Hours and food menus are in flux, so check the winery's own site the week you visit. For once that boilerplate advice is real.
On this peninsula dogs are patio-and-lawn guests; Bonobo and 2 Lads both welcome them outside on a leash, and the lighthouse park welcomes them outright. We bring Poppy to the park and leave her home for the tastings. Kids do better on this loop than you'd guess, between the sandbar, the tower climb, the lavender, and the penny candy at the General Store.
On driving: Uber and Lyft will get you out here and then strand you, to the point that the wine trail's own website warns against them. A designated driver, small pours and a slow pace, or a licensed wine tour with downtown pickup are the three plans that work. And if nobody wants to drive at all, remember the tasting room downstairs from our loft; the peninsula will still be there tomorrow.
Questions Guests Actually Ask
How many wineries are on Old Mission Peninsula? Ten on the official wine trail, plus Bonobo operating outside it. Call it eleven tasting rooms, most within a five-mile stretch and 15 to 25 minutes from downtown Traverse City.
Do Old Mission Peninsula wineries take walk-ins? Small groups can walk into most rooms. 2 Lads is first-come only, Chateau Grand Traverse and Bonobo seat walk-ins, and Brys is the one to book ahead in summer. Six or more, call everywhere.
How many wineries can you visit in one day? Three or four. Budget 45 minutes to an hour per stop. Nobody remembers the fifth tasting fondly.
Is Old Mission or Leelanau better for a wine day? Old Mission for a single afternoon, one road and no navigation. Leelanau for a full day of rambling. The comparison above has the longer answer.
Can you take an Uber back from the wineries? Don't count on it; drivers take you out and rarely come back for you. A designated driver or a licensed tour with downtown pickup is the plan.
What about the wineries you skipped? There are good ones we left off this route. Mari Vineyards grows nebbiolo in hoop houses and ages it in tunnels dug into the hill, Peninsula Cellars pours in a one-room schoolhouse from 1896, and Bowers Harbor names wines after its dogs. This loop is the day we drive, not a ranking.
When does the lavender bloom at Brys Estate's Secret Garden? Color from late June, peak through July, u-pick in July. The garden is free to walk.
Best time of year? May through October, and September might be the sweet spot: harvest energy, warm bays, thinner crowds than July. Fall Saturdays get party buses at the big rooms; go midweek if you can.