On a quiet back road in the middle of Leelanau Peninsula, a few miles from the nearest town, there is a small winery that produces sparkling wine the way it's done in Champagne. Not inspired by Champagne. Not in the style of Champagne. The same process, the same meticulous attention to secondary fermentation in the bottle, the same years-long commitment to developing the fine bubbles and complex flavors that distinguish serious sparkling wine from the carbonated approximations that fill most American grocery store shelves.
L. Mawby Vineyards has been doing this since 1978. Larry Mawby — winemaker, poet, and one of the more singular personalities in American wine — started growing grapes on this Leelanau Peninsula property before most of his neighbors thought Michigan could produce wine at all. He decided early that sparkling wine was his calling, and he has spent nearly five decades refining exactly what that means in this particular corner of the world.
The result is a portfolio of sparkling wines that has earned national recognition, a devoted following among American bubbly enthusiasts, and the kind of quiet, unassuming confidence that comes from decades of doing one thing exceptionally well.
Understanding Méthode Traditionnelle
To appreciate what L. Mawby does, it helps to understand what makes Champagne-method sparkling wine different from the alternatives. Most sparkling wine — Prosecco, Cava at the entry level, most American sparkling wine — is made by one of two shortcuts: either the wine is carbonated directly (like soda water), or it undergoes its secondary fermentation in a large tank rather than in the individual bottle. Both methods are faster, cheaper, and produce acceptable results for casual drinking.
Méthode traditionnelle — called méthode champenoise when the wine is actually Champagne — requires the secondary fermentation to happen in the bottle that the wine will ultimately be sold in. After that fermentation, the yeast cells die and remain in the bottle, resting against the wine for months or years. This extended contact with the dead yeast cells (called "lees") is what produces the toasty, brioche-like, nutty flavors that distinguish great Champagne from everything else in the sparkling wine world.
The process is slow. It requires specialized equipment, significant cellar space, and a commitment to tying up inventory for years before it can be sold. It's why so few American producers attempt it seriously, and why those who do — L. Mawby among them — occupy a distinct position in the American wine landscape.
The L. Mawby Portfolio
Mawby produces wines under two labels, each representing a different expression of his sparkling wine philosophy.
L. Mawby Label — Premium Vintage Sparkling
The flagship L. Mawby wines are vintage-dated, made from estate-grown fruit, and aged extensively on the lees before release. These are serious, cellar-worthy sparkling wines — complex, structured, and capable of development in the bottle. The flagship "Sex" Brut — yes, that's the name, which Mawby has been cheerfully unapologetic about for years — is the winery's signature wine and one of the most distinctive bottles in American sparkling wine. The name is a marketing provocation, but the wine inside is not a joke: fine, persistent bubbles, autolytic flavors of toasted bread and hazelnut, and a finish that carries on for minutes.
M. Lawrence Label — Accessible, Fruit-Forward
The M. Lawrence wines are the approachable face of the Mawby portfolio — still made with care and traditional methods, but earlier-drinking, more immediately fruity, and priced to encourage everyday consumption. The Blanc de Blanc and Talisman rosé are excellent introductions to the Mawby style for visitors who are new to serious sparkling wine. These are the bottles that have built the winery's following among Michigan wine drinkers who return year after year.
The Leelanau Terroir for Sparkling Wine
The decision to make sparkling wine in Leelanau was not accidental. The varieties used for traditional sparkling wine — Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier — require a cool climate to produce the high natural acidity that makes great bubbles possible. In warmer regions, these grapes ripen to full table wine sugars with declining acidity, making the secondary fermentation balance harder to achieve.
Leelanau's cool nights, moderated by both Lake Michigan to the west and Grand Traverse Bay to the east, allow the grapes to ripen to appropriate sugar levels while retaining the sharp acidity that will carry through fermentation and aging. The result is a base wine with the structural foundation that méthode traditionnelle demands.
Mawby has farmed the same estate vineyards for nearly five decades, developing an unusually intimate understanding of how each block performs across different vintages. This viticultural knowledge — which vines tend to retain acidity best in warm years, which blocks need longer hang time in cool years — is not something that can be learned quickly, and it's a significant part of what distinguishes L. Mawby's wines from those of newer sparkling wine producers working with purchased fruit.
Visiting L. Mawby
The tasting experience at L. Mawby is deliberately intimate and appointment-based. This is not the winery for a spontaneous drop-in on a Saturday afternoon during peak season. Call ahead, make an appointment, and arrive prepared to spend time rather than rushing through a quick flight.
The setting rewards the slower approach. The property is beautiful in a quiet, working-farm way — not the manicured showpiece of some larger estates, but a place that has clearly been about growing grapes and making wine for a very long time. Larry Mawby himself is occasionally available during tastings, and a conversation with him about the history of sparkling wine in Leelanau, his poetic influences on label design, and his views on where Michigan wine is headed is among the more memorable experiences available in the region.
The winery maintains limited hours through the winter, which is actually one of the best times to visit. A January afternoon tasting méthode champenoise sparkling wine in a quiet Leelanau tasting room, with snow covering the dormant vines outside, is a specifically northern Michigan experience that summer visitors simply don't get.
L. Mawby in the Context of American Sparkling Wine
American sparkling wine has historically been dominated by California producers — Schramsberg, Iron Horse, Roederer Estate in Anderson Valley. These are excellent wineries making serious wine, and they deserve their reputations. But the conversation about great American sparkling wine is incomplete without L. Mawby.
The winery's scale — small, family-operated, focused entirely on one category of wine — means it will never have the distribution or name recognition of a large California producer. But among the community of American wine professionals who pay close attention to sparkling wine specifically, L. Mawby's reputation is genuine and earned. Wine critics who make the trip to Leelanau consistently come away surprised by what they find: sparkling wine of real refinement, made with integrity and deep craft knowledge, in a place they hadn't expected to find it.
Add L. Mawby to Your Itinerary
Plan a Leelanau Peninsula wine day that includes L. Mawby alongside the peninsula's other standout producers.
Plan Your DayLarry Mawby has spent nearly fifty years proving that world-class sparkling wine can be made in northern Michigan. The proof is in the bottles — complex, layered, age-worthy sparkling wines that stand alongside serious Champagne in blind tastings and hold their own. That this is happening on a quiet back road in Leelanau County, made by a poet-winemaker who started farming when his neighbors thought the whole enterprise was impossible, is one of the better stories in American wine. Go taste it.