View our Traverse City Food & Wine Event Calendar Here
Traverse City’s first-ever Food & Wine Festival debuts this August, bringing together the region’s renowned wineries with a curated lineup of acclaimed chefs from across the country—including James Beard Award winners, Food Network personalities, and rising national talent—for a five-day celebration of culinary craftsmanship in Northern Michigan. Taking place August 20–24, 2025, the event is organized by Traverse City Tourism in partnership with the Traverse Wine Coast—a collective of more than 40 wineries across the Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas.
Guests can explore a packed schedule of wine tours, tasting events, chef collaborations, and live entertainment across the region, including ticketed signature experiences designed to showcase Northern Michigan’s growing influence on the national food and wine scene.
At Chateau Grand Traverse, we’re proud to participate as a founding winery of Old Mission Peninsula and longtime advocate for cool-climate winemaking. As part of the festival, we’ll be offering a curated lineup of events that highlight both our legacy and innovation.
Experience the winery – behind the scenes
Offered exclusively during the Traverse City Food & Wine Festival, this 90-minute guided experience at Chateau Grand Traverse is a rare opportunity to journey through the full arc of cool-climate winemaking at its source. Merging elements of two of our most sought-after offerings—The Art of Riesling and The Private Barrel Room Tasting—this tour begins in the vineyard, where guests are introduced to the unique soils, slopes, and lake effect that define our Old Mission Peninsula estate. From there, you’ll move into the cellar for tank tastings and vertical comparisons that illustrate the nuance of our flagship varietal. As The House of Riesling, we showcase this grape’s incredible range through expressive styles, each paired with thoughtful, seasonal bites that enhance your sensory understanding. The experience concludes in our working barrel room, transformed for the day into a seated, intimate tasting salon. Here, surrounded by French and American oak, guests will enjoy a curated flight of six estate wines—including limited-reserve and cellar-only releases—led by a senior guide and paired with small bites crafted by our executive chef. Along the way, expect meaningful education, behind-the-scenes access, and a deeper appreciation for the craftsmanship behind every bottle.
Culinary meets Wine
The centerpiece of our participation is the ‘Lunch in the Vines’ series—a 20-seat, open-air culinary event set within the estate vineyard. Each lunch features a different nationally celebrated guest chef—Omar Anani, Sayeh Tavangar, and Debbie Gold—collaborating with winery Estate Executive Chef Keil Moshier to create a multi-course, family-style meal. Each course is paired with wines from our current releases, fan favorites and cellar-aged reserves, offering a rare, immersive food and wine experience.
Meet the Chefs
Chef Sayeh Tavangar
Chef Tavangar is an Iranian-American chef, food writer, and culinary creative based in Washington, D.C. Her cooking blends traditional Persian flavors with a California-style sensibility—bright herbs, preserved lemons, saffron, and thoughtful plating rooted in seasonal abundance. Her work explores food as a form of identity, and she is celebrated for her storytelling through both recipes and shared tables.
Chef Tavangar’s flavor-forward, heritage-inspired cuisine is a natural complement to CGT’s aromatic whites and structured reds. Her focus on hospitality and layered, family-style dining harmonizes with the intimate, open-air format of the Lunch in the Vines series. Wines like Late Harvest Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc Reserve highlight the tension and complexity in her dishes, bridging cultural and culinary boundaries—much like the winery’s Old World vines grown in New World soil.
Chef Debbie Gold
Chef Gold is a James Beard Award-winning chef with a deep background in French and modern American cuisine. She earned her culinary credentials at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and rose to prominence through celebrated restaurants in New York, Chicago, and Kansas City, including The American Restaurant. She has appeared on Top Chef Masters and is recognized for her refined technique, seasonal focus, and mentorship in the culinary world.
Chef Gold’s elegant, classically inspired approach aligns with CGT’s most structured wines—like the Proprietor’s Red and Sauvignon Blanc Reserve—which reward nuance and balance. Her thoughtful, composed plates showcase restraint and technique, creating a seamless dialogue between food and wine. Her stature and experience bring prestige and polish to the vineyard table, reinforcing CGT’s position as a pioneer of Michigan winemaking.
Chef Omar Anani
Chef Anani is the James Beard-nominated chef and owner of Saffron De Twah, a modern Moroccan bistro in Detroit that blends North African flavors with French technique and a community-forward ethos. He has appeared on the Food Network’s “Chopped”, and was named 2020 Chef of the Year by Hour Detroit. Anani is also nationally recognized for his leadership in food justice and sustainability, earning accolades for both his culinary creativity and his commitment to equity in hospitality.
Chef Anani’s bold, spice-forward cuisine is a natural match for the expressive white wines and cellar-driven reds of Northern Michigan. His use of preserved citrus, warm spices, and vibrant herbs pairs beautifully with CGT’s Whole Cluster Riesling, Pinot Blanc, and Gamay Noir Reserve. His community-minded, collaborative spirit also mirrors CGT’s own values as a family-owned winery rooted in place and purpose.
Keil Moshier, Executive Chef at Chateau Grand Traverse
Chef Keil blends classical French technique with Northern Michigan sensibility, drawing inspiration from his early training at the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont and formative years in the vibrant kitchens of New Orleans’ French Quarter. His approach is rooted in scratch cooking, elegant balance, and seasonal expression—shaped by decades of experience in fine dining, menu curation, and kitchen leadership across Michigan. At the winery, he’s reimagining the relationship between food and wine with a deep respect for terroir and craft. When he’s not in the kitchen, Keil enjoys biking, kayaking, and walking the beach with his wife Kristina and their dog, or elbow-deep in a garage project reviving one of the family’s beloved cars.
A Summer to Remember
At Chateau Grand Traverse, our commitment to wine has always gone hand-in-hand with a passion for the plate. As Northern Michigan continues to emerge as a destination for serious culinary talent, we see these chef collaborations as a natural evolution of our mission: to craft expressive, cool-climate wines that not only stand alone, but elevate food in all its forms. With a portfolio that spans crisp whites, elegant reds, dry varietals, and fan favorites like our Whole Cluster and Late Harvest Rieslings, our wines offer both versatility and identity—each bottle shaped by the unique terroir of Old Mission Peninsula. These lunches are more than a celebration of wine and food—they’re a reflection of where we’ve been, and where we’re headed: a winery rooted in tradition, but invested in redefining what it means to pair exceptional wine with exceptional experience.
Whether you’re a collector, a connoisseur, or simply a curious explorer of flavor, we invite you to join us for a celebration of craftsmanship, culture, and cool-climate wine at its source.
Full festival details available at: www.traversecityfoodandwine.com
