Tastes of Black Star Farms in Traverse City, MI

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Telephone:	+1 231-944-1349
Website:	www.blackstarfarms.com
Address:	800 Cottageview Dr Ste 35, Traverse City, MI, 49684
Nearby public transportation stops & stations:	380 ftBuilding 50
Categories:	Beer, Wine & Spirits

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Bussiness info

Accepts Credit Cards	Yes
Parking	Private Lot

Bike Parking

Yes

Today

Today	11:00 am – 7:00 pm Closed now
Local time (Traverse City)	00:41 Thursday, 12 June 2025

Business hours

Monday	11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Tuesday	11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Wednesday	11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Thursday	11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Friday	11:00 am – 9:00 pm
Saturday	11:00 am – 9:00 pm
Sunday	12:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Description

Specialties

The tasting bar and bistro offers samples and retail sales of Black Star Farms’ wines and brandies in addition to vodkas and whiskeys from Grand Traverse Distillery.

Matterhorn Grill dinners are available in addition to the appetizers and desserts, and wine can be sampled by the glass. The Matterhorn Grill Dinner is a simple and traditional European-style meal of Leelanau Cheese Company’s award-winning raclette cheese melted and poured over a selection of table-top grilled ham, sausages, potatoes, fresh vegetables, apples, and hearth-baked bread.

History

Established in 2007.

TASTES of Black Star Farms is housed in one of North America’s largest and most innovative redevelopment projects, the Village at Grand Traverse Commons. Only a mile from downtown Traverse City, this project preserves history and green space while promoting a community of businesses and residences.

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11 reviews of Tastes of Black Star Farms

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Kristin H.

Place rating: 4
Menlo Park, CA

We had a wonderful Matterhorn Grill/raclette dinner here. Such a great time with great, fresh food. We love eating in this leisurely fashion and our server was wonderful and informative and the raclette cheese itself was marvelous. It came with a pairing of three white wines. We’ll be doing it again next time we’re in town.
My only complaint is that I wish our little alcove with our grill and gorgeous wood table had some sort of barrier between us and those coming in to taste wine at the bar. People kept sticking their heads into where we were sitting to look around and see what was going on and then realized they were interrupting a couple’s dinner out. Even a filmy piece of fabric or beaded curtain just as a separation would be great.

Daniel H.

Place rating: 4
Manhattan, NY

Wine tasting, 5 for $ 5. Amazing deal, especially compared to Napa valley. Not gonna bore you with individual wine reviews, not gonna pretend to be an expert anyway =). The Pinot Gris and house white are worth a try though.
Got the cheese plate and was introduced to two new variants that I’ll be looking out for going forward, fait gras (a white cheddar that’s on the parmesan-y side) and friesian blue (a milder form of the standard blue cheese).
The staff was super nice and attentive.
Location’s not as nice as some of the other vineyards, inside a quaint little shopping center, but worth a stop.
Bonus! Got to take home the tasting glasses, part of the tasting package =)

Erin Q.

Place rating: 5
Noblesville, IN

This place is so much fun! I’ve been twice and the first time I did a tasting the second time I ordered a cocktail and a cheese plate to share before our dinner plans. The cocktail was strong and hit the spot. I like that you can order what cheeses you would like to try so I convinced everyone to add the Raclette. They were not disappointed! One lady also ordered the pickled veggies and to my surprise, I enjoyed those too. It went well with our drinks. Great place to check out!

Kirk S.

Place rating: 5
Belleville, MI

This place rocks! My girlfriend is introducing me into the wine world, in which she is a rookie also. We came here for wine tasting, and it was $ 5 for 5 tastes, which is a great value. You also get a souvenir glass, and when u return to any of the black star farms locations, you get 5 free tastes. The 2 different clerks working there on the 2 separate days we went were very knowledgeable on the wines in depth. We ended up buying 3 bottles of wine from here, and were excited to here that their wines are distributed around michigan!

Mark D.

Place rating: 4
Grand Haven Charter Township, MI

First off, buy a wine tasting glass from them for $ 5. You can get 5 tastes, plus the glass is good for 5 tastes whenever you go back there. This also works for their other two tasting rooms in the area, so it is a great deal — just take the glasses with you and use them at any of their three tasting rooms.
They also have local distilled spirits (brandys) and wine/brandy mixes. Very good stuff!
This place is in the old Sanitarium in TC on US31. They have done a great job remodeling here with all the café’s and stores (and condos) in this former insane asylum.
This is a very small tasting room which some Unilocalers are getting mixed up with one of their other two tasting rooms at the Mission Peninsula winery or Suttons Bay, so be aware of that.

Joe B.

Place rating: 4
Ferndale, MI

Black Star was the first winery I had ever been to so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Our little foursome walked into the tasting room and found it to be wide open with a large oval shaped wooden bar in the center of the room. Along the back wall were tall windows that allow you to look into the Leelanau Cheese Shoppe’s cheese making room. Around the bar and shelved on the walls were all kinds of small wine specific knick knacks (corkscrews, bottle stoppers, etc.) along with small item specialty foods. After our tasting, which was delightful, we meandered around looking at all the merch. I stumbled on a shelf with stacks of organic and specialty chocolates which piqued my interest. They had a myriad of other accoutrements like fruit spreads and compotes too.
I liked Black Star. It was an interesting new experience but one that I would save for warmer weather if I were to do the wine tour thing in it’s entirety.

Amy B.

Place rating: 3
Boston, MA

Black Star Farms offers a wide variety of wines to taste and buy, as well as cheeses and other foods for purchase to enjoy at home with your wine. The tasting area is large, with two separate tasting bars, and quite lovely. I also really enjoy the beautiful vineyard vistas outside the building, and have taken some great photos here, especially in the fall.
Unfortunately, Black Star Farms has a few features that prevent it from being one of my Leelenau favorites. First, it’s almost always very crowded. Combined with the size of the tasting room, it makes Black Star feel rather industrial and impersonal compared to some of the smaller family wineries in the area. Secondly, I simply haven’t found a wine here that I love. The wines are not bad, and there are so many varieties that you can certainly find some you’ll like, but there is no one Black Star farms wine that I simply must have when I visit.
I do recommend childishly mounting the artificial cow on the lawn.

Diana R.

Place rating: 3
Chicago, IL

This was a stop on our Sunday Funday Wine Tasting tour. The tasting room is impressive. There is a huge round bar in the middle, wine racks all around it filled with bottles for purchase and big glass windows that peer into the room containing the steel wine drums.
My favorite part of this winery was the experience. The bartenders are very knowledgeable and inform you really well about each tasting and what to expect.
It’s $ 5 for five tastings, which includes one tasting of their premier wines (a.k.a expensive). From all the wines I tasted, my palate had a taste for the premier… but at $ 30 a bottle, I had to pass on it :(
The other wines (all reds) did not really impress me. The pinot noirs were light in color and more sour than rich with flavor. I wish I could have done five tastings of that premier wine. I wasn’t too impressed with their white selections either… however their cherry wine was pretty good.
On a side note, they let you keep the tasting glass. :)

J H.

Place rating: 5
Riverside, CA

A fantastic tasting room in the former state asylum that has great rustic atmosphere with friendly bartenders that are willing to work with you to find the perfect pours of Black Star Farms wine. You can get a sampler for $ 5 which includes the glass and you can pay more for specialty pours. They also have two «full size» pours and snacks to go with. I recommend checking out the Village at Grand Traverse Commons and capping off your visit to this vino sanctuary within!

Ted H.

Place rating: 4
Northville, MI

Inside this tasting room is also a swiss /french style raclette restaurant called the Matterhorn. It is sortof a Hibachi-meets-cheese thing. They only have 3 rooms where you can have a private party. Cost is $ 50 for two people which includes 3 glasses of wine along with the meal.
They bring you out a plate of ingredients (onions, potato slices, asparagus, ham chunks, sausage pieces, peppers, zuchinnis, etc).
You cook the stuff up on the little grill, then melt a slice of cheese in this separate little pan thing. Once it is bubbly melted, you pour the cheese all over your grilled food and eat it up.
It is not like this is the best food in the world or even the area. If you want really good food, go next door to Stella’s. This is a unique experience, which was also very very private.

Caroline M.

Place rating: 4
Chicago, IL

This is a very interesting Black Star Farms tasting room housed in the former State Hospital/Insane Asylum. An intriguing (and morbid!) way to preserve history, this redevelopment project of the former State Hospital also houses restaurants, boutiques, and condos.
The tastings are not free. I had to pay around $ 5 for a small selection of sample pours. The employee behind the tasting bar let us keep our tasting glasses which was nice.
An eery concept, the Black Star Farms tasting room in the Village at Grand Traverse Commons (former State Hospital) is definitely worth the exploration.

Tastes of Black Star Farms

Traverse City, United States