Our camping vacation was in Traverse City, Mich., which in my opinion is the pretty place on Earth. The area is known for it’s cherries, clear waters, resorts and wineries. While we were up there, I took a winery tour with my brother and his wife and another couple. (Don’t worry, my husband and children were living it up at an air show.) We got a taste of each winery through their samples and atmosphere. Over the next few days, I’m going to share those with you.
While Traverse City is gorgeous, it doesn’t have the history and elegance of Paris, France. But I felt like that’s where Chateau Chantel was trying to go.
Aside from the Rue de Vin address, very little reminded me of France actually. Gorgeous views of the Grand Traverse area and the surrounding vineyards surrounded the winery. I don’t know why they would want to be known as anything else than a Michigan winery, because they were fantastic at that.
We entered and were directed to the wine tasting portion of the building. Chateau Chantel has a bar area and a menu. They highly encourage you to select wines in order down the list. Whites, reds, sparkling, etc. For each wine you sample, you receive a wooden token. Each token is $.50. The first three are free. That gives you nearly limitless access to the wine menu for all the tasting your body can handle.
Chateau Chantel had a good selection of wine (quite long actually), but I didn’t really know where to go on the list. Our server appeared to be more bothered that he had to work than what we were sampling or explaining to us what we should be tasting. I don’t believe this is a general trend since friends of ours had the guy next to us and said their server was fun and engaging.
The wine tasting area was really large, one of the largest we visited. It was busy and bustling the entire time we were there. There were plenty of wines to taste, eat and also tours of the wineries.
The winery offered an area where you could drink by the glass on a beautiful patio with sweeping views of the lush, Michigan peninsula. They had small bites to eat as well. The store was also well stocked with wine chillers, corkscrews, fancy bottles to take wine to picnics, etc. There were also special wooden boxes in many sizes for storing your wine. But for us cheap-os, going with a free cardboard box was a better option.
If that isn’t enough, you can stay in one of their rooms or suite.
I purchased two bottles of the cherry wine.
If you are looking for more information on the wines from Chateau Chantel, you can check out the Chateau Chantel website. And I’ll check back in when I get to opening the cherry wine. It was great in the tasting room so I’m hoping it will be just as great in my living room.
Greeting, and thank you for your posting regarding Chateau Chantal! I’m pleased to hear you enjoyed most of the experience, and sorry that your server at that moment wasn’t at their best, I do apologize.
Just a little history about the French motto around the winery; the founding family, my parents, Bob & Nadine Begin, travelled around France to gain inspiration before opening their Michigan winery. Bob’s parents were from Quebec, hence the inspiration to name me Marie-Chantal, and hence the winery Chateau Chantal.
Hope to see you back again, Au Revoir, Marie-Chantal