Hunter and her newer, spicier brother, Big Game Hunter

To recap on mead for any newer readers, it’s an alcoholic beverage made from honey. It tends to have a slightly higher alcohol content than grape wines and is often sweet, but can be made in a wide variety of styles. Thousands of years of history provides a lot of time for regional variations to emerge, after all! Like wine, mead is traditionally aged in oak barrels; it isn’t distilled like spirits, which results in a finished product that is easily enjoyed with or without food. In fact, as we learned in the tasting room, traditional mead styles from eastern Europe were often used as a substitute for wine in regions where climate made production of wine grapes difficult or impossible. This was, of course, before the advent of modern hybrids and cultivation techniques.

Orchid Cellars focuses more on these traditional eastern European meads more often found in places like Poland, which are a bit richer and heavier than Irish-style meads that are more common in the US. But, with about a dozen different meads on the list, they still offer choices for both cold winter nights (serve it warm from a crockpot) and lazy summer evenings.

Some highlights from my tasting notes:

Archer: this 1,500-year old traditional recipe is made with holiday spices, with a soft finish reminiscent of cloves and nutmeg. It’s also a multiple award winner, taking home a gold AND best in class medal from the 2012 Winemaker’s Choice Awards.

Blacksmith: a new release and an example of a fruit mead, made with blueberries and raspberries. A little less sweet, but would be absolutely brilliant poured over ice cream.

Big Game Hunter: you’ve heard me rave about Orchid Cellars’ Hunter as far back as 2010, a spicy mead infused with hot peppers. After many fan requests, the Big Game Hunter is an even spicier version and maybe my favorite thing ever. It’s only available in the tasting room though!

Merlot: not a mead at all, but in fact their only grape-based wine. Made with eastern shore grapes harvested in 2010, it’s a little on the heavy side because of the hot summer that year. Not my favorite but will be curious to see if they continue experimenting with grapes in years to come!

Just on the other side of Frederick, the drive from Baltimore area is probably about an hour. A full mead tasting costs $5 per person and includes a souvenir glass. You can try the merlot for and extra $1. Let us know if you stop in! You can also find their meads at many area festivals, including the upcoming Maryland Wine Festival in Westminster, September 15-16, 2012.

Oh, this post was also supposed to be about Detour Winery, but they were closed to attend a festival that day. The same festival, by the way, where Orchid Cellars had a table. Of course we didn’t find out they were closed until we saw the sign on the front door of their tasting room. Turns out they’d posted a notice on the hours page of their website, but not on the homepage – which also lists their hours, so of course I didn’t click that link. Some other time, I guess…

I can’t plug these smaller festivals enough. There are at least fifteen wineries attending, and a cool little town – Middle River – to check out on the water. I really like the state-wide festivals, but festivals like tomorrow’s – or Eat Drink Go Local, or Sotterley Plantation’s – let you enjoy the wine and music in a little more relaxed way. And you get a sneak peek at what will be at the Maryland Wine Festival, coming up in four weeks.

Grape Encounters visits Maryland and, ahem, encounters Layton’s Chance Winery. (Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)

East Coast Wineries finally gets around to visiting Black Ankle Vineyards. I love the description of dragging one’s family around in the name of a personal hobby. Not that I’ve ever done it.

Maryland Life features Orchid Cellars and its meads. I can’t not recommend a tasting at their winery or their festival tent enough. They’ll be at the Bayside Blues fest this weekend.

Wine Compass profiles Old Westminster Winery, one of Maryland’s newest, as it bottles its first wines and prepares to use its own fruit in the next few years. I’ve chatted with the Lisa on Twitter, and I can’t wait to visit wen their tasting room opens up.

The Virginia Wine Palate visits Boordy Vineyards.

Paul Vigna checks out Basignani’s new outdoor patio.

Dave McIntyre describes Vino Volo, a wine bar opening its first non-airport location in Bethesda in the next few months. I’ve been to wine bars in airports, but never Vino Volo; has anyone else been?

(Where have you visited lately?)

David White of Terroirist reminds us to keep wines cool during these hot days – whether shipping, toting a bottle in the car, or storing.

East Coast Wineries describes enology, or the study of wine and wine making. A pretty cool read about a side of the business consumers don’t always see – the agricultural research and professional education aspect – of the wine business.

Tom Wark of Fermentation looks at how the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act affects the legal case for interstate wine shipping. Ever well-informed, he pulls out legal precedent – at the federal level – to support interstate alcohol distribution.

Yahoo recommends next month’s Maryland Wine Festival. Have you bought your tickets – or arranged to volunteer – yet?

Speaking of the Maryland Wine Festival, Endurance Maryland is inviting you out for a run before the festival starts. See, wine is good for you!

Saturday, June 17th was a beautiful, beautiful day to hang out with a little wine and a little food at North Beach for Eat Drink Go Local. A sizable crowd turned out for the Maryland Wine Association’s latest shindig in this little town just south of the county line into Calvert County. If you’ve never been – and Matt and I hadn’t been before Saturday – go. It’s a gorgeous little town right on the Chesapeake Bay, south of Annapolis and across from Tilghman’s Island. Saturday was warm and sunny, but we had a breeze off the water that kept it comfortable.

Disclaimer: We were lucky enough to receive admission from the MWA for this festival, although food and wine were on us. Thank you!

The festival’s tents were set up on the streets right next to the beach, and festival goers enjoyed the views between tastings. Like Eat Drink Go Local Silver Spring last year, winery tents were interspersed with vendor tents and with the four tasting tents, where local restauranteurs paired dishes with three local wines each.

The pairings were amazing, and pretty educational for someone who doesn’t really think through pairings (Beef? A sturdy white? Sure!). I highly recommend taking notes, since there are so many tents, and getting bottles of whatever you about an hour before closing (so you don’t miss anything that’s sold out!).

I post about this six weeks later, mostly because grad school intervened, but also because MWA usually coordinates Eat Drink Go Local in the fall, too. Also, with so many winery events going on right now in our state, I encourage you to go – even if it’s a small town you’ve never heard of before. You might just find a beautiful day.

About an hour takes you from where we are in eastern Howard County north through the city to Hydes. While this is country we’ve been through before on the Piedmont Wine Trail, DeJon didn’t have it’s tasting room open yet. We’d only seen them a bit at festivals, so this would be a treat.

And it was. The tasting room is just a large room on the property, but with space enough for an ample tasting bar and several tables to enjoy a bottle with friends. Even though staff were setting up for an event later that day, the owners came and chatted with us as we tasted. A local chocolatier had set up on one side of the tasting room, too.

We tasted the winery’s Vidal Blanc, Sweet Denise, Chambourcin, Festivus, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Just like the tasting room, the wines weren’t fussy but were just good: a crisp Vidal Blanc, a refreshing Sweet Denise (perfect for our recent weather; I wish I’d grabbed a bottle!), a tasty Chambourcin and Festivus, a light bodied Merlot and a denser, please-pair-this-with-steak Cabernet Sauvignon. After some deliberation, our friends chose the Festivus, and we came home with the Vidal Blanc and the Merlot.

All in all, we enjoyed it; I’ll definitely look for these wines at North Beach tomorrow. I recommend the wines, which are distributed through retail but not shipped yet, if you’re looking for something un-complicated with supper, although the Sweet Denise and Festivus would be great to sip on the porch. We enjoyed the quiet time we had there, as opposed to the crowds we sometimes see elsewhere; I’d be curious to see how much the atmosphere with the live music nights on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Have you been to DeJon, or tasted them at a festival? What did you think?

Enter my mother – and exit Matt, who went to visit family out of town last weekend. My mom was getting off work last Saturday afternoon and was in the mood for a meatlover’s pizza to take back to her sunlit patio.

This was the challenge: my mom’s had Maryland wines before, and hasn’t always been impressed, although she likes Black Ankle‘s wines. Further, she likes dry reds; while Maryland has been producing more in quantity and quality, she’s tasted some that she hasn’t cared for, and I couldn’t remember what the Kings Contrivance shop stocked. So I was looking for a dry red Maryland wine in a liquor shop which I don’t frequent often.

My mother and I noted a few dry reds on the shelves, and I saw that the shop has increased its stock of Maryland wine – there were even numerous bottles stocked on the floor. We saw dry reds from such wineries as Knob Hall, Woodhall, Black Ankle, and Basignani. Ultimately, though, we settled on a bottle of 2006 Fiore Cabernet Sauvignon.

It definitely rose to the challenge. My mom enjoyed it with the pizza; even as someone who likes sweeter wines, I liked it. The wine was a little more expensive than some of the imported or mass-produced wines she’s used to, but not prohibitively so. It was flavorful and dry enough to work with the pizza, but light enough it didn’t pucker our faces in the warm humidity of the evening, and remained quite tasty even after the pizza was gone. And I thought I saw her making a mental note to look for Fiore next time she’s at her local shop.

At this point, I’m happy to have tried something new – and pulled a family member along with me. Next up for us – Eat-Drink-Go-Local North Beach on Saturday. Who else is going? Anyone else try something new for Maryland Wine Week?

P.S. We also saw a couple bottles of Fiore’s Green Apple Riesling, and the clerk suggested we keep an eye out for the Pomegranate Zinfandel. They sound intriguing, although they weren’t on our menu for the evening. Has anyone else tried these?

Today kicks off Maryland Wine Week, when restaurants and retailers get in on the game and feature (finally!) Maryland wine. Local bloggers are pitching in with lists of participating restaurants and shops; the Maryland Wineries Association has their official press release here. Special events are going on all over the area, from tastings at wine shops to dinners at restaurants, and even promotional discounts on Maryland wine. The MWA suggests following along at MarylandWineWeek.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter. (The Annapolis Arts and Crafts Festival folks are even looking for volunteers, if you’d like to pour!) While a number of wineries are continuing their summer events series, winemakers and retailers are hoping the hype will get Marylanders to try something new – even if they’ve tried Maryland wine before.

I’m personally excited about Eat Drink Go Local North Beach on the 16th, since Matt and I had such a good time at the Silver Spring event last November. I’d also love to go to Drover’s in Mt. Airy; their thing is Maryland food and Maryland wine, and it’s a great dinner if you can get out there. The Maryland Wine Bar in Berlin is also opening today; follow along on Twitter.

Tell you what: in honor of trying something new for Maryland Wine Week, I’m going to actually *gasp* go to my local liquor shop and find a new Maryland wine to try. Matt and I almost solely buy wine after trying it at a festival or winery, so this will be something new for us. Who knows: if we’re really organized, we’ll have some friends over when we uncork that wine.

And if that’s not enough Maryland wine for you, you can always go on next year’s Maryland wine cruise. Any takers?

What are you doing for Maryland Wine Week? What will you be trying for the first time?

Great Grapes wrapped up Sunday at Oregon Ridge. I’m glad I went, and I liked many of the wines we tasted. We even got a chance to chat with the folks at a few of the wineries towards the end of the day. The weather even cooperated, a pleasant surprise after the tornadoes and thunderstorms the evening before. The British cover band had some good tunes. I heard other festival goers remarking positively on the wine they tasted.

However, they were also remarking on the long lines for everything, the stands running out of food and wine (I’m talking about three hours before the end of the day), and getting into the shade was nearly impossible. Matt noticed that not only were food vendors running out early (surprise! Marylanders like crab cakes), they were expensive and not that good. Most of the volunteers had no idea wha they were pouring, so neither did we. Even admission was a bit of a hassle: unusually for these events, tickets were cash-only, there was no notice beforehand, and the coordinators had put out one lonely slow ATM.

Contrast that with our experience a few weeks ago at Wine in the Woods. Yes, this event has become known for overindulgence, to put it nicely, but it’s well run. The vendors are local folks with good food, there’s a place to sit down in the shade, each winery has several tables so multiple parties can taste at once, and there was a festival program detailing all of the vendors, wineries, and locations.

It probably comes as no surprise to any regular reader that I’m a big fan of Regina McCarthy and the folks at the Maryland Wineries Association. They run a great festival. Nothing I saw Sunday changed that impression.

I should note that we’ve been to Great Grapes before, and it’s not one of our favorite festivals. It’s run by Trigger Agency, which is a for-profit company based in Baltimore, as opposed to the MWA. In the past, we’ve seen non-Maryland wineries pouring. We’re really glad that so many folks turned out for Maryland wine and enjoyed it. We’ll probably even go back next year. But it will be with hopes of bringing home a better report.

Some notes on the wines, to end on a good note:
Perigeaux Vineyards and Winery had not only some pretty good reds, but also the interesting juxtaposition of a filtered Pinot Gris and an unfiltered Pinot Gris. Much like the sediment sometimes found in the dregs of red wine, sediment sometimes is found in white wine. We actually liked the unfiltered better.
We liked Penn Oaks Winery for its wines made with German grapes. We also discovered a Montepulciano they’ve been making for a while.
We also enjoyed Slack Winery‘s white wines; the reds were a premium pour, a decision that isn’t without merit but left us without a taste of some great wines.
Terrapin Station poured Tartaruga Bianco, a white blend of seven grapes that was pretty good – and, gasp, it was in a bottle and not the winery’s signature box.
Solomon’s Island was out of nearly everything at 3 pm. Is the popularity of chilled fruit wine on a summer’s day really a surprise?
Royal Rabbit Vineyards had a longer tasting list than many – eight wines – and we noticed even the reds showed well in the sun, which is not an easy feat.
Boordy Vineyards’ whites were good, but the chambourcin merlot tasted completely different than at a winery tasting there three weeks ago (post coming soon on that one). I should note that at neither time did the wine taste bad; just different. I don’t have a picky palate, and I usually like wines that can hold up to different scenarios.

At the end of the day we took home Perigeaux’s unflitered Pinot Gris; Penn Oaks Cabernet Sauvignon and Piesporter; Slack Yellow Legs; Terraptin Station Tartaruga Bianco; Friday’s Creek Barbera; and Royal Rabbit Chatelaine.

What was your experience at Great Grapes? What is your expectation for festivals these days?

USA Today suggests checking out the four Harford County wineries that are part of the Piedmont Wine Trail (Fiore, Harford, Legends, and Mt. Felix. All recommended, and a beautiful drive while you’re there).

Paul Vigna of PennLive.com reports on Slack Winery’s new Wine Club. If blogging actually paid anything, it would go here.

Boordy Vineyards also launches a wine club – one focusing on their Landmark series, made solely with Maryland – if not estate-grown – grapes.

The Senate approves a plan to raise Postal Service revenue by allowing shipments of alcohol, including wine. So they can deliver those shipments from Slack and Boordy! This makes Dr. Vino happy, but the Academic Wino points out how transportation can affect wine.

What would make Adam Borden happy is wine in the grocery store aisles. Newsworthy because of the recent controversy over the Wegman’s liquor license, this issue is defined by Mr. Borden as “the next looming battle in consumers’ fight to modernize Maryland’s alcohol policy”. Hard to believe that, much like wine shipping, the powers that be would give up potential tax revenue.

For that matter, would you like to pick up your wine from Bed, Bath, and Beyond?

From the other end of the state, Grape Occasions reviews Frederick Cellars.

Speaking of visits, Thanksgiving Farm gets a visit from The Blarney Crone. Ironically, this is probably the closest of Maryland’s wineries to us, but we’ve never been. Yet.

NASA’s Elizabeth M. Jarrell profiles Goddard systems engineer Mark Cascia, who just happens to own a Maryland vineyard. A really well-written – and amusing – story of how to start a vineyard.

Basignani opens a piazza for tasting, eating, and enjoying the fine weather we’ve been having lately.

Carlo De Vito of East Coast Wineries a 2002 Boordy White Reisling and finds it holds up pretty well. Many whites aren’t aged, and Maryland wines usually aren’t thought of as cellar wines, so this is high praise.

History Press Blog features Regina McCarthy’s Maryland Wine: A Full-Bodied History. If you haven’t heard of her before, she’s the marketing director for the Maryland Wineries Association, and she’s awesome. She’s the person we talk to when we’re interested at volunteering at a festival, and does a lot of work on behalf of Maryland wine. I can’t wait to read this one.

Pouring in the winery tents is definitely a fun time, if different from pouring in the premium tent and from going to the festival as a ticketholder. I liked getting to know the wines of Friday’s Creek pretty well (I recommend the Barbera); usually, since I want to try everything, the festival is a bit of a whirlwind, and I really only remember what I bring home. Since I was working with the winery staff, I was able to point complex questions to them, instead of saying “Sorry, I’m just a volunteer”. (You guys ask such hard ones!) I was even able to help folks find a wine they liked among the line-up, given Friday’s Creek’s varied tasting lineup.

But I do have a couple tips, having seen this once, and since I’ll be volunteering again in a couple weekends:
1. If you like a bottle of wine, speak up when you’re at the table. It is a pain to carry it around, but that wine might sell out before you get back around to each winery. (Or you might lose out to last call, when wineries have to stop selling.) Purchase the bottle and get it sent down to the pick-up tent, where friendly volunteers will hold your wine for you until you’re ready to leave the festival.
2. If you don’t like a tasting sample, that’s okay too. Tell your pourer. I was able to recommend wines from the opposite end of the spectrum if someone said a wine was too sweet or too dry.
3. Drink water and eat food during the festival. The food vendors are often fantastic local outfits, and you’ll get to balance out all the wine. That means that, among other things, you’ll avoid #4….
4. Don’t hit on your pourer. At least, not with the expectation of extra pours, free glasses of wine, or samples poured after last call.
5. Speaking of last call, it really is last call. As one guest heard from Regina McCarthy herself, the marketing coordinator for the Maryland Wineries Association, friendly folks from the liquor board are in attendance and checking to see if alcohol is poured after last call. I’m not going to lose the festival its liquor license for one last sample. Go visit the winery!
6. Don’t get falling-down, car-crashing, profanity-spewing drunk. At that point, the festival’s no longer fun.

After last year’s experience, I was concerned about seeing a lot of #6, but I saw less of it, and the tents seemed more spread out. I did hear of a couple folks who, shall we say, got to know Howard County’s Finest pretty well at the end of the day. Perhaps the music, food, and artisans can be open for a little bit longer after last call?

For a different point of view, Costa Ventosa, Columbia Patch, Wine Compass, and On Tap Online all have write ups as well.

In any case, if you missed Wine in the Woods, there are still a bunch of events going on near you:
Friday
Running Hare holds a date night with music and wine; $5 cover.

Saturday
Linganore is hosting their Caribbean Festival, with music, artisans, tours, and, of course, wine. 12-6.
Layton’s Chance celebrates their birthday with a party for patrons at the winery.

Sunday
Detour kicks off its summer concert series.