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Welcome
to Russel's Ramblings™! This is the latest installment of my
addition to the website, which focuses on the various aspects of the
joy of the table- WINE! In this installment, I discuss Maryland
wineries in general and Federick County wineries in particular - most
notably Linganore Winecellars. Read on and click
here to send me your comments and questions.
In
the spring, Tonya and I took a brief (two day, one night) trip to
Frederick, MD. We were looking for a quick getaway that was near a
few wineries. We're big fans of the mini vacation. Initially we
thought about going back to the Finger Lakes or making a trip to the
new hot spot of Virginia. We decided those were too far for our tight
schedule. So we thought about places we had not been before with a
few wineries in close proximity and some place that was not too far.
It also helped to look at some wine sites of states nearby
(www.marylandwine.com and www.newjerseywines.com). Note, Delaware
only has two wineries and no wine website that I could find; although
you can purchase many different wines inexpensively in Delaware. But
in our research we noticed that there were four wineries around
Frederick, Maryland. So we loaded up the car and headed South in
search of the best wineries in Maryland. We learned a lot about the
regional history and we found some definite wine gems along the way!
Frederick
is a small historic town that counts as its former residents former
Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney and Francis Scott Key (Taney was
married to Key's sister). The town is not far from Baltimore and only
2.5 hours from Philadelphia. In addition, the surrounding area had
been central battleground in the Civil War, which means we have to
return on a history tour. It is easy to get around since Frederick is
your quintessential small American town and has a number of nice
restaurants, shops and bars. There is even a minor league baseball
team for those who visit in the summer. Only one of the tasting
rooms, Frederick Cellars (www.frederickcellars.com), is located in
the downtown area. The reason is they actually have two vineyards,
one in Annapolis and one in Middletown. The other wineries, Elk Run
Vineyards (www.elkrun.com), Linganore Winecellars
(www.linganorewines.com), and Loew Vineyards (www.loewvineyards.net)
are all located in the countryside within 15-20 minutes of downtown Frederick.
I
was not sure what to expect in such an unknown area but after doing
some research at the various winery websites it seemed that they had
not only been growing grapes for some time, they had also been making
wine - good wine. I am happy to say that this was a fruitful and
informative trip! There are some really good wines coming out of the
wineries. From some really interesting fruit and honey wines, to the
well known varietals, we enjoyed every minute of it! We were even
able to talk with the winemakers and even had a private tour and
reserve tasting at Linganore.
The
first winery we visited was Elk
Run Vineyards. They have a number of really nice wines.
We enjoyed the Maryland Merlot (with the accompanying Marilyn Monroe
picture), the Cabernet Sauvignon, the Cabernet Sauvignon reserve, the
Pinot Gris and everything else we tasted. What stood out most to me
was their Pinot Noir. They are the only grower of Pinot Noir in
Maryland. For those of you who saw Sideways or enjoy Pinot Noir, you
may know this grape is fickle. It is hard to grow in even the best of
circumstances and even harder to make into a good wine. I am glad
that Elk Run has tried and succeeded in doing the near impossible!
This is a must-have wine that you can only get from the winery since
it seems you can't ship anything from Maryland except crab cakes! At
least certainly not wine, much to our dismay. But back to the Elk Run
Pinot - it has a lot of flavor, fruit forward and balanced. It is
light and soft on the palate and not as high in alcohol as those you
might get from California or Oregon. It was very similar to a French
bottle that Tonya and I had the week prior. I think in a blind
tasting this wine would stand up to any of those made in the same
style from France, Oregon, California or anywhere.
Elk
Run also had three different styles of Merlot: 2003 Merlot, 2005 25
Bunch Merlot and 2005 10 Bunch Merlot. What they did with the last
two wines was cut the number of grape bunches per vine in order to
intensify the flavor. You can see it in the color and taste it on the
palate. These two are very, very tasty and can be enjoyed now or even
laid down for a while.
Thirty
seconds after leaving Elk Run, we made it to Loew
Vineyards. This was a very understated tasting room. When
we arrived, a gentleman was buying a bottle of wine to enjoy with his
wife on her birthday. They had been married for over 50 years and he
just wanted to surprise her with a nice treat. That boded well for
the experience. I figured if that was a treat for someone who has
been married for that many years, it would be a benefit for a guy who
has been married for almost five years. I really enjoyed the
Sauvignon Blanc, which was made with grapes purchased in California.
I was also very pleased with their twist on a Bordeaux blend, which
was a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Chancellor
(that replaced Merlot). It is a blend from 2002 that was oak aged. I
gave it a JOTT Rating of four out of five. In the whites,
Serendipity, which is made with Reliance, was very refreshing and
crisp. Twilight, a Riesling-Seyval blend, was also worth a second
look (or is that taste).
Loew
had two standout fruit wines, and although we are not big fans of
fruit wines I have to say we really enjoyed tasting them. The Country
Classic is a blend of red grape and blackberry, which can be chilled.
The blueberry wine, made from New Jersey fruit, was exceptional. I
highly recommend both of these wines.
The
next winery, Linganore
Winecellars, will get its own Rambling. Suffice to say,
this was definitely the shining star because of the volume of the
wines, both grape and fruit wines, and the passion of the winemaker,
Anthony Aellen. We made two trips to this winery! The second day we
tasted their reserve wines, which consisted of wines they had
reserved from past vintages.
