'Ello chaps! The Traverse City area is a hidden gem for wine lovers. Most people think of Napa Valley for the best of the best, but boy are they missing out. There are dozens of wineries in the Traverse City area, each offering their own signature wines, grown in the local vineyards. Peninsula Cellars is a member of WOMP (Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula); a trail of 9 wineries, each with their own character. This is one of the smaller wine tasting locations, their vineyard is elsewhere, but coolest ones as well. They converted an old one-room school house into this tasting room. They charge $5 for a sample of five wines. Sorry, no souvenir glass to be kept here. read more

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Peninsula Cellars has a range of wine from affordable to a few more expensive options. Glasses range from $8-$10, and bottles range from about $22-$50. Staff goes above and beyond to find something you will like. Tasting room is very endearing. read more

This is my favorite winery to visit! It's a smaller location than some of the surrounding locations. But definitely not one to overlook! My favorite yet is 2016 late harvest Riesling! Every time I go to Traverse City since my first tasting here I HAVE to stop and get a few bottles to bring back home. The staff is very friendly and will help you find a wine to touch your palate the way you want! The patio outside is very nice to sit and relax on and enjoy a tasting, they also have a cute little photo booth area inside to take fun photos with friends/loved ones. I also recently found out they have their website that you can order wine on and have delivered as well as a semi annual subscription to have multiple bottles delivered to your door, (has 3 different levels to chose from) If you love wine and haven't been here yet is is a must! I have yet to find a wine that I dislike from here! read more

We love visiting different wineries and this particular winery has been our favorite for close to 20yrs now. Friendly, informative staff, amazing wines and a fun atmosphere. Highly recommend read more

After 2 seperate wine tours and visiting nearly all the different tasting rooms on Old Mission, Peninsula Cellars remains my favorite. It epitomizes the ultimate boutique tasting room experience! The tasting room is located in a historic wood schoolhouse surrounded by lush vineyards and orchards. The staff are friendly, knowledgeable, and engaging. You get 6 complimentary tastings. No bells and whistles here because they don't need any to impress! My party ended up loving the award winning Peninsula Cellars Gewurztraminer. It was incredibly reasonably priced (I think around $15 for a bottle). I wish I had bought more. We brought this bottle to a byob Vietnamese place in Chicago and it was a hit amongst the group at our table. T.C. never fails to impress! read more

Peninsula Cellars - Wine Tasting Room Near Me - Traverse City, Michigan

My wife and I were there on Sunday 2/19/2023. As always we stop here when we are in the area. the wines are good and the atmosphere of this place is awesome. we will definitely will be coming back. read more

The schoolhouse provides a unique backdrop to a cozy little tasting room featuring great service and a host of very tasty wines.

The wine selection there is fantastic. Detention, Homework, Late Harvest Riesling... it is all phenomenal. And if you want a real treat, try out the Hot Rod Cherry! Set away in a little school house that was converted over into a wine tasting room, its just a unique experience from the beginning to end. I cannot say enough about this place. A lot of people might give it crap, but it is a very special place to me. I asked my wife to marry me in their vineyards... so it will away hold a special place in my heart. :) read more

Peninsula Cellars - Walking up to Peninsula Cellars on a cold and snowy afternoon. - Wine Tasting Room Near Me - Traverse City, Michigan

A small little school where they truly have studied the art of making wine. Wonderful service and some of my favorite wine on the peninsula.

Michigan holds a rather well-known, breathtaking secret. The Old Mission Peninsula, blushed by the moderating influence of Lake Michigan, separates a deep bay between the ring and middle finger in the "mitten." Vineyards coat the rolling hillsides once you escape the suburbs of Traverse City, a charming town of roughly 20,000 souls. Stepped terraces cut into the stony backbone overflow with trellises and, from spring until autumn, the brilliant jade and forest hues of grape vines. Varietals supported in the OId Mission area favour whites, especially rieslings, the sort of sharp, tart flavours produced by grapes similarly scattered through Washington State, Austria, Germany, and northern France. Those places probably conjure up images of bucolic stone farmhouses and sprawling estates, occasionally framed in snow-capped mountains rearing in the distance. Few people outside the Great Lake State might conjure up the dappled autumnal glory of maple forests in full flame, and yet here, the delights of leaf-peeping catch up to the refinement of a winery tour and aquamarine shorelines that defy belief. I've set the stage. Now Peninsula Cellars, tucked away on the winding state highway linking up Traverse City to the very end of the road, a lighthouse on the northern promontory jutting into Traverse Bay. Might as well call this route M-1NE or the Wine Highway for all the cellars and wineries scattered liberally on either side. Peninsula Cellars cannot be missed, given the tall wooden schoolhouse sits directly on a crest overlooking the road with the hills gently surrendering to cultivation behind it. I became a grown-up Anne of Green Gables off to pick up a bottle of Homework. Peninsula Cellars can also not be missed for the charming effervescence of the staff and the warm, welcoming interior. The tasting area takes up the floor of the schoolhouse in a broad barrel. Belly up, seek your fortunes in one of the many red, white, or roses they have. Keep a special eye out for their seasonal fruit wines, a deviously hard find anywhere in Michigan. The pear, cherry, and apple fruit wines really knock it out of the park, especially if you want a wine and not a syrup. If you want to come to be seen and swan around a glorious cellar that visually belongs in a Bond movie, Peninsula is not for you. However, someone learning about their tastes and out to absorb some cheekiness will definitely feel at home. Staff don't rush you through the process, though my very crunched schedule did not allow for a tasting. Boo work and four hour drives home! Their wines carry labels related to their schoolhouse setting. Homework is obviously a highly popular option, and their rieslings and Gewurtztraminers strike top notes too. Detention will appeal to those who want a strong red table wine and a bit of lush mouthfeel to go with your bad luck repeating lines on the chalkboard. Prices sit around $20, and it says something when you watch four people in a row walk out with a case of Homework or Detention. I sampled a bottle of each instead, given the restrictions on my travels. That said, the experience really warrants taking a little longer. Sip the wines, find your savory heart. My palette may not be the same as yours, but there's quite a bit available here to suit those who prefer dry and crisp or full and acidic, ripe with berries and tannins. read more

Fantastic, tasty wines. Very friendly, helpful staff. I loved the apple wines as well as Homework. The tasting was a fun experience. I was SHOCKED by their prices however. It should be a crime against humanity to charge $18 for a bottle of this wine. They also have little gifts and souvenirs to purchase. A lot of cute items from Primitives by Kathy. If you're new to wine drinking or prefer sweet wines, this is a great place to start! read more

Hot Mulled Apple Cider Wine is a great warm up here! Big fan of the cherry cider served in a mason jar also. The tap handles are "schooly" with rulers and pencils instead of traditional handles, take a look. And don't miss the opportunity to take funny pictures with the signs they have by the board. This is a smaller space so if you have a big group either call ahead so they can make sure they are spreading out big groups or come on a low winery traffic day. Super cute and historic for the Old Mission Penninusla! This is one of my must stops on the peninsula now with out of towners :) read more

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I am going to attempt to review each of the nearly 40 wineries in the Grand Traverse area. In an effort to remain as objective as possible, I will be reviewing the wineries based on how well they live up to their vision of winemaking. Peninsula Cellers is a great example of why I am using the ranking system I devised. Personally, I am not a fan of this winery. They do not make the kind of wines I like, and frankly I find them gimmicky and overpriced. However, that is exactly what they are going for. They want people to come into the schoolhouse, giggle at the funny named wines, and feel welcomed by the totally unpretentious nature of their tasting room. They also know that these characteristics appeal to those that like the sweet stuff, so they produce some of the sweetest wines around, especially on the red side, to the point that it should be criminal. But again, if that is what they are trying to do, it doesn't make them a bad winery.... it just makes them a bad winery for me. I do want to note though, two problems I have with this winery. First off, it is possible to be unpretentious and welcoming without being silly. There are plenty of tasting rooms up here that don't take a snotty attitude towards the customers, but still make world class wine. Likewise it is also possible to make sweet wines that don't focus on the sugar, especially with the grapes we have available to us up here. Of course, if their goal was to just make some boons farm nonsense that would be fine and dandy but that leads us to the second problem. If they want to focus on the sweet stuff, and not care about the quality, they need to expand because right now these are easily the most overpriced wines up here. $25 a bottle for late harvest Riesling is insane, regardless of the quality. You can get FAR superior Rieslings for $16 or less. Similarly their white blends should be at most $12, but they are $16-18. Their reds are better priced, but not for the quality. This pricing insanity led me to knock 2 stars off the ranking. I am sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that they are on Center Road and get a lot of traffic; but they really need to start sourcing stuff if they are going to run out, because the crowd they are clearly trying to appeal to isn't going to care that much if 50% or more of the product is from out of town. Peninsula Cellers will appeal to you if you want sugar, and don't care to learn anything about wine. But even if you do fall into that category, there are better places out there. read more

amazing stop! if you're in the area, you should absolutely come here. the employees were very kind and knowledgeable about the wines they serve. the prices were amazing and we even bought a bottle to take home! read more

Peninsula Cellars - Wine Tasting Room Near Me - Traverse City, Michigan

Beautiful landscape and amazing service. Try the old school red! Or if you're a sweet wine drinker, the white cherry is that weird and delicious wine you're looking for! read more

Super cute old school house setting. The staff was friendly. They have a lot of sweet options, which I really like. This is a good stop for a tasting. read more

We ordered a flight and sat outside on the patio. The service was very friendly and professional. Cat and Seth were awesome! The one room school house is unique and worth the stop. Ask about the history if you want some back story. There's options to sit on the patio or in the vineyard. We will definitely be back in the fall to see the leaves change color! read more

Delicious root beer and great sweet reds! Will be back next year! Try "Homework" if you're into sweet reds!! read more

Peninsula Cellars - glasses of wine on a table - Wine Tasting Room Near Me - Traverse City, Michigan

This is a super cute spot for a tasting room, the building is old and very charming. The wine we had here was excellent, we ended up buying a bottle. They have wines I've never seen in the store, which was a nice change. The lady serving the wine wasn't exactly the most friendly, but other staff seemed to be nicer. There is a cute patio area off the back which is super nice. We ended up getting a flight of wine and were very happy with all our choices. read more

Oh, Peninsula Cellars, how I love you. I once went on a wine tasting at a TC winery where the snobby wine-pro described what I was drinking as a "bold, flirty wine perfect for tailgating." Now...perhaps she was trying to impress us because we were both wearing Michigan State gear, but she should know that MSU tailgate pros do NOT drink "bold, flirty wines" at tailgate. We drink Bud Light. Then we went to Peninsula Cellars - the complete opposite of that douche-tastic winery. Set right on the side of the road, PC is a one room building packed to the gills with delicious wines. They offer 4 free tastes with optional upgrades if you want. The people there are friendly and knowledgable, and never douchey. Last year we fell so in love with the Homework that when we went to get more and it was sold out, I nearly cried. So I vowed not to run out this year - and we just bought a case yesterday!! I highly recommend both the Homework and the Old School White if you like slightly sweeter wines. Don't come here if you're looking for ridiculous adjectives and snooty people....this is a down-to-earth winery that knows what they're doing!! read more

The wine here is more on the fruity side. I also recommend this tasting room to anyone who have to take their kids to go wine tasting, they have coloring books and small toys on the side to keep the little ones busy so that parents can take a break and enjoy their glass of wine. read more

We came here on this past Saturday and enjoyed the tasting they had going on. Only $3.00 per person and you got to try 5 different samples. The sangria they had was a nice mix of a few different varieties and it was excellent. We had a great time and we look forward to enjoying it again this summer when we are back in the area! I was at our local wine shop and they had some of their "detention" wine. Looking forward to sipping on it! However it will sit on my wine shelf for a bit before I crack it open! This is good enough to save for an enchanting evening! read more

Consistently my favorite winery on the Old Mission Peninsula for at least 10 years of exploring wine country around Traverse City. If you stop at one winery on the Old Mission Peninsula, it should be here. The tasting room is simple & unique, being located in an old 1-room, country schoolhouse. But more importantly, their WINE IS GOOD. The trend I'm noticing recently in the Old Mission and Leelenau Peninsulas seems to be style over substance. I've checked out some other wineries that would make beautiful backdrops for wedding party photo shoots, but that have crap wine & terrible service. Peninsula Cellars is a very simple venue architecturally, but the wine is actually drinkable & the staff are knowledgeable. My favorite is their Detention sweet red, which you can also buy in many down-state stores. The cherry port is also very good & reasonably-priced. read more

I love some of the names they've given their wines: Detention and Homework, for example -- very fitting for a winery that has its tasting room in an old school house. Also liked the chalkboards. However, none of the wines were that great in my opinion. But this being our third stop, I had honestly had enough wine....and coming here after Bowers Harbor Vineyard just seemed like a let-down. read more

Peninsula Cellars - Wine Tasting Room Near Me - Traverse City, Michigan

Wonderful wine tasting experience. Second stop on our afternoon wine tasting tour and we were so happy we turned around and stopped in. Carissa was so friendly and helpful in picking out wines to sample. It's in an old schoolhouse and the wines have names like Detention, Homework, Pop Quiz. Great wines - stop in. We'll definitely return. read more

To me, Peninsula Cellars *alone* is why I would even drive up the Old Mission Peninsula. That and the central-European esque views of rolling hills dotted with fruit trees (cherries, apples, peaches) and grapevines. I do not say this lightly when I say that Peninsula Cellars is the BEST winery in Michigan. Their Rieslings have won first prize at International Wine Festivals and competitions (even beating out German Rieslings), largely due to the perfect growing conditions on the peninsula. The altitude and being surrounded by water on all sides renders the "micro climate" that just happens to be perfect for growing Riesling grapes: a lil warmer in the winter and a lil cooler in the summer. I learned that when I went on a tour at one of those other, less-worthy wineries. While I believe every wine offered here has merit, I do have some favorites. Their late harvest Rieslings are always perfection (sweeter white wines with notes of peach and apricot). The Detention Red is a fabulous red table wine that goes with just about anything food-wise, and can also be easily consumed solo (too easily!). A tad sweet and not at all bitter. the prices for the wine are very reasonable ($12-24) depending on The amount of production and whether the wine won an award (award winners tend to go quick and are a lil pricier). One year I bought a case of the Riesling and I believe I received a 10% discount. The staff is also WAY less pretentious than those other wineries, too. They are always willing to wax with customers who are tasting, and not once have I encountered that snooty wine attitude here. Just really great wine, really great service in a really cute old schoolhouse. One last note- they serve the best little wine cracker balls for the tasters! They are slightly sweet and are in the shape of butter mints only they are crackers. Very unique! They also sell them by the box. Visiting Peninsula Cellars is a must when in the TC area. read more

This may have been the smallest physical winery we stepped into today, but one you have that should be on your list. The old school house is perfect setting for this winery. They have plenty of wines to sample, and your sure to find one or many to take home with you, but the Hot Rod Cherrie will take the stuffiness out of wine tasting. Out of the five wineries we stopped at today, this was the friendliest. read more

Detention is an awesome wine, & their sangria is aaaaamazing. 4 stars because the pours of the tasting are stingier than uncle Vernon Dudley giving Harry a birthday gift. read more

I have tasted at a few other places on the Old Mission Peninsula in my 4-5 years living up in T.C. I hadn't been to this one until today, I had a friend visiting from out of town, CA by way of NYC. I was super-duper excited to show her this area. The Old Mission Peninsula and the Leelanau are just such beautiful places, it blows my mind. I love this schoolhouse setting, and some of the names of the wines are way cute. Homework, detention, et al. Just a quality kind of place, a few complimentary tastings and some that you can play like a dollar for. Love Michigan for that. Do yourself a favor as you head back towards town on M-37 and turn right on Grey/Gray? rd. and look for the Alpacas on your right. I adore my camelids! So adorable. read more

We came here as part of our Mission Peninsula Wine Tour. I tasted a number of different wines. This was in an old school house building and looked very fun. They have some creative names for their wines, including 'Detention' The tasting room is free, just like some of the others in the area. read more

This winery is so great! There is a wide variety of wines to try. The staff was so friendly and overall had a great time! Defiantly a great place to stop while out wine tasting! read more

By far the best winery on the old mission peninsula in my opinion, the tasting room is inviting (an old school house), the staff knowledgable, I especually like the Late Harvert Reisling & the Pinot blanc. read more

Peninsula Cellars - The Old School house tasting room - Wine Tasting Room Near Me - Traverse City, Michigan

This place was such a pleasant surprise. You walk up to a small schoolhouse building and are greeted warmly upon arrival. Friendly staff generously offers you five tastings for $3 of splendid wines. The dark chocolate read more

Being a tourist in the middle of winter in a winter wonderland can be "iffy", but my day started on a happy note when I happened upon the little schoolhouse. It was earlier than their open hours, but the proprietor was so gracious when he saw me drive into the parking lot, and let me in with a positive, laid back energy. Now to the wine...wonderful. I'm really not much of a drinker, and actually never know what to order, but I know what I like when I taste it and taste I did. Fun and relaxing. read more

Peninsula Cellars is a must stop when I am on the Old Mission. I really love Homework (blush), which is usually only available at the schoolhouse because it is so popular it sells out. If Homework is sold out, I get the Old School white or the Detention (red). They also have a number of cherry wines which are pretty good. The tasting room is laid out well and the staff is wonderful, as well. read more

Very relaxed and fun place to visit! Well-priced with tons of wines to try. Staff were also very helpful and friendly.

Nice place to do a tasting. Really liked their Detention (red) and Old School White....both are priced right and will be great when I want to just "pop open a bottle" and support Michigan wineries vs. Australia or California. read more

On Vacation in Michigan, we were just out for a drive up the peninsula when we spotted this place. We were drawn in because it's in one of the many one room school houses that still exist in Michigan and we wanted to see inside. The staff was extremely nice - not only about the wine tasting but also helping us plan our vacation in the area. The wine was amazing. We bought some Old School White and Detention (which was stored in the corner - appropriate :-). We honestly wish we had bought more - hope they ship to Georgia. read more

We are not "trendy hipsters" but they made us feel comfortable coming in for a wine tasting. It was only $3 for 5 tastes! They had fruit wines, whites and some sweeter Reds and we even found one that we had to take home with us! They all have cute names based off school since it is in an old school house. We like "Homework" best! I would really recommend stoping by this place if you like the sweeter wines. read more

Peninsula Cellars - Homework anyone? - Wine Tasting Room Near Me - Traverse City, Michigan

So I wanted to love this place but I didn't. The school house theme is very very cute. I loved it. The names of some of the wines too are super cute and on point with the theme. The space is very small though and you are either waiting in line or squished at the bar. While at the bar trying the wine you almost feel rushed because of all the people in there. Something I didn't feel at the other wineries we went to. The staff was very friendly though. As for the wine they have a lot of sweet wines. I am more of a dry person who drinks an occasional sweet wine. They were for the most part just ok. Their wine "Detention" I think is the only good one on the list. A seasonal they had called "Summer Vacation" was also pretty good but it was really sweet to have more than a glass of. read more