Leelanau Cellars’ Witches Brew Pumpkin Spice wine was featured this week during an NBC Today Show segment for “National Pumpkin Day,” with lifestyle expert Katherine Buccio doing a tasting live with her Today Show hosts. Her take? That it “tastes like a European Christmas market,” which elicited an off-the-cuff reaction from host Al Roker.

Northern Express’s contributor Anna Faller also reviewed it this week, in our sister publication’s annual ode to all things haunted. “Far from its OG Witches Brew brethren, itself a rich mulled red steeped in a cauldron of secret spices, this adult adaptation of our collective pumpkin spice obsession is a wizard of a foil: ripe, juicy, and fire bright, thanks to a base of all-natural apples (not apple “flavors”) and a layering of warming autumn spices — cloves, ginger, and the like — that tastes magical hot or cold,” she writes.

Leelanau Cellars’ first Halloween-themed wine debuted in 1997 — a spiced red wine under the name “Witches Brew.” The Witches Brew brand has expanded to include Spiced Apple and, new in 2021, Pumpkin Spice with distribution now expanding beyond the Midwest as far west as California and as far south as Alabama. All three Witches Brew wines have garnered awards from the San Francisco Chronicle International Wine Competition. Pumpkin Spice earned the highest honor with a double gold medal in 2021.