Maker: Boskydel Vineyard, Lake Leelanau, Michigan, USA
Grape: Vignoles (at least 85%)
Place of origin: Boskydel Vineyard, Leelanau Peninsula AVA, Michigan, USA
Style: Semi sweet white wine.
ABV: unknown
Purchased for $12.75 at winery.
Appearance: Light gold.
Nose: Mango, papaya, peach, vanilla.
Palate: Dry, medium-bodied. Thyme, navel orange.
Finish: Dry. Fades to lemonhead candy.
Parting words: Vignoles is one of the better white wine hybrid grapes grown in the Northeastern US. It’s associated with the Finger Lakes wine country, but is grown fairly widely in the region and even a little bit in Ontario. It’s mostly used to make fragrant dessert or sweet table wines, but can be used for dry too.
Boskydel founder Bernie Rink (b. 1926) is a Michigan wine pioneer. A librarian by trade, he was the first to establish a vineyard on the Leelanau peninsula and, after a few years of experimentation, in 1971 he planted his twenty-five acre plot with the hybrid wine grape varieties he thought performed best, including Vignoles. He intially sold his grapes, but in 1976, Boskydel opened up as the first bonded winery in Leelanau, producing 639 cases that year. As the Leelanau wine industry grew around him, Bernie kept doing the same thing he had been doing all along, producing affordable table wines from Franco-American hybrid grapes. By the 1990s and 2000s Boskydel had become a bit of a time warp. Other than putting up new newspaper clippings, the tasting room with its piles of paper and formica had not changed. In the ’00s, Bernie became as famous for his gruff, forgetful persona as for his pioneering work thirty years prior. When I visited in 2017 Bernie was not working in the tasting room. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get the first hand Bernie experience I had heard so much about, but the tasting room and winery building were a refreshing change after a day of drinking in tasting buildings that looked like upscale condominiums.
It was announced in the summer of 2017 that Boskydel would end its winery operations and the tasting room would be closed effective December 24. It was announced that vineyard operations will continue so maybe we’ll see a Boskydel single vineyard bottling from Left Foot Charley or another winery soon! It would be a fitting tribute to Bernie Rink and his groundbreaking winery. In the meantime, this wine is a pretty good tribute itself. It’s affordable, light and sweet but not dull. Very food friendly too. The winery is closed but ask around. Maybe someone you know has a few bottles squirreled away in a spider webbed cellar. Boskydel 2015 Vignoles is recommended.
For more information on the history of Boskydel, see here: https://www.michiganwines.com/docs/About/history_boskydel.pdf
Some journalistic tributes:
http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detroit/July-2017/Last-call-for-Leelanaus-oldest-winery/
Sipology 
Yeah, I heard about Bernie’s decision to pull the plug (bung?) on Boskydel. Too bad. I have some fond memories (from a lot longer ago than I care to say) about his early years and some very fine wines I tasted and bought there. The memories linger; but the bottles are all long gone. Too bad.