You May Know Them For Cake, But Now You Will Know Them For Wine!

So as always, I decided to plan something last minute! And by last minute I meant 4 days before Mother’s Day. I decided not to do my monthly Courtney Covers Cleveland meet up on Mother’s Day weekend, and opted to spend time with my family. Of course that meant I needed to have some good plans, and what’s better than a winery and wine tasting!

So let me tell you the first reason why I love this place… it’s not too far from home CLEVELANDERS! While I enjoy Geneva and the options to visit many wineries at once, I also like the idea of staying closer to home and having a full experience at one place. What does this mean? I like the option of having a winery tour, a wine tasting and complete meal in one setting. Not just a cheese tray or charcuterie board, but a hefty- I’ll be full after this meal! So I was happy when I called (and sent an email to be persistent) asking if this particular winery would accomodate my party last minute. They were full but were able to squeeze us in early afternoon and I was elated!

See, when they opened last summer (2018) I was pregnant so I had to wait it out to enjoy. I have known this family company for years because of their famous bakery! They did my wedding cake, my baby shower cakes and usually anything big that I’m planning– I order from this family business. So I had very high hopes of this winery and boy oh boy did they meet them.

So you enjoy a nice little drive off the highway to this venue, my mom said she felt like she was out of town. You pull up to a beautiful building with ample parking. You walk into a very large, open room filled with natural light. There’s a little market where you purchase wine upon entrance, a bar full of people directly in front, a bakery to the left and tables to the right. I see the hostess and meet our guests at our table. We are centrally placed in the room, with cards on the table that say reserved with my name. It has the time of your reservation and the time of the one after, so it’s a nice but gentle reminder of how much time you have at your table. Our reservation was for 2:30 and the next wasn’t until 7pm so we had more than enough time to enjoy without feeling rushed.

We were greeted shortly after being seated and asked to select our wines for the tastings. Each person was allowed to pick four wines. There were four whites to choose from, and six reds. I thought it was cute how they write on chalkboards! When selecting they write each persons name and the name of each wine selected. I love this because so often you have to try to remember what you’re drinking or what wine you sipped and put back on the tray. The labels definitely HELP HELP HELP… they totally enhance the wine tasting experience! When I travel places for tastings it drives me wild to say wait what am I tasting? Urgh everyone should do this… anyone else feel me? LOL, anywho, I love dry red wines so I selected the  2016 Pinot Noir, 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Red Mountain Wildflower, 2017 Sauvignon Blanc Clear Lake, and 2017 Reisling (as did everyone else lol considering they love sweet wines). My favorite ended up bring the Pinot Noir to no surprise!

Once we all had our wines, we enjoyed our first glass and conversation. Once we poured our second, we were greeted by the General Manager to start our tour of the winery. This is what I was most excited about. I love touring beautiful spaces. I’m always thinking what can I host here so people can enjoy this same awesome experience! The General Manager, Antimo Bovenzi giving us our tour was another thing I loved! Who better to guide you through a tour than the GM himself. This makes you feel like everyone is fully engaged in the property.

During the tour we viewed two patios, one smaller  with a fireplace and tables, the other much larger with various conversation pits of couches, chairs and tables actually looking at the vineyard. On the far end of the large patio was a private space, that was hosting a communion so I couldn’t go in to see it, but we were told it’s often booked for receptions and showers. Back inside we viewed a private room for a dinner party, the room that housed the barrels aging the wine, and the tanks where the wine was fermented and clarified. I actually feel like I learned a lot on our tour about the wine process and what exactly happens each season. We also got to see their high tech machines where they bottle the wine. Fun fact: they can bottle 1500 bottles in one hour! Another thing I thought as super nice during our tour, was that there was a long dinner table set in between the tanks for a surprise dinner party. It was so cute, see the picture above!

After our tour, we went to the bakery counter and ordered our food. They give you a number for your table and it’s brought to you once ready. We had such a hard time deciding what to order. During the tour, we learned everything from the pizza to the pasta was made from scratch each morning! Almost everyone ordered some kind of pasta, I ordered the pizza, and the crispy brussel sprouts, my sister had the crab cakes and blackened mahi mahi tacos. There was literally not one complaint about the food and it came out rather quickly. We literally loved everything we had and had extra to take home! On the way our those with a “sweet tooth” grabbed desserts. As much as I wanted some, I had no room in my stomach!

I also thought the pricing was more than fair! The food was reasonable $8-$20 for appetizers, salads or entrees, the tasting itself was only $25 a person. The bottles of wine depending on what you liked, was also reasonable. I spent $25 for a bottle of Reisling for the table with our meal (although everyone was still drinking their flights) and spent $100 on food for myself, my mother in law and aunt. I was more than pleased with pricing.

So in closing this place is AMAZING! It was a great place to take my mom and mother in law for Mother’s Day. We also invited my sisters bestfriend and her mom, and our Aunt Yvonne. They ALL literally had a blast from start to finish. Ohhh… it’s the perfect setting for the summer! OMG… like I can’t wait to take my husband and go back. It’s also a great place for a girls night, and even though I wouldn’t bring my kids… it’s definitely family friendly and there were kids there while we were there. This place is just good for anything, whether you’re looking to have a nice dinner, planning a large event or you actually want to enjoy a wine tasting. I would recommend it in a heartbeat! So I encourage you to visit Michaelangelo’s Winery and tell them you heard about them on #CourtneyCoversCleveland.