Drink Local Wine! Revisiting My Favorite Maryland Wines So Far This Year
This week I’m participating in a project featured on drinklocalwine.com. Headed by Jeff Siegel and Dave McIntyre, drinklocalwine.com was put together to highlight the “everywhere else” in American wine regions. Since “wine country” means west coast to so many wine drinkers, the project is going to draw attention to wines from where you are, be that Maryland, Michigan, or some other state with untapped wine potential.
Instead of rolling the dice on untested wine, I thought it better to revisit my three favorites so far this year so newcomers to my site and to Maryland wine will be off to a good start.
2006 St. Michael’s Winery – Riesling
First had this back in February to go with a stuffed chicken dish that I ended up making a mess out of. Here’s what I said in my first review:
Great citrus fruit in the wine, both on the nose and on the palate. The Riesling is barely off-dry, and definitely on the dryer side of the Riesling spectrum. A very enjoyable wine.
Summer makes a better pairing for chilled Rieslings than winter does, and this wine didn’t disappoint the second time around. Very clean, lemon and grapefruit aromas and a crisp finish. My favorite Maryland white so far this year, with Boordy’s Chardonnay coming in a close second.
2006 Deep Creek – Artisan Red
I remember this wine more fondly than I appeared to feel about it upon drinking. My original note read:
I’m happy to say that the wine delivered. It’s smooth and light and unpretentious, nice for paring with roasted broccoli and a veggie burger. The wine is a blend of mostly Cab Franc, with 20% Malbec and 10% Norton to fill in the gaps. The color and mouthfeel worked like a Pinot. Spicy cherry and plum fruits to taste. A good summer grilling wine. At $16 dollars it’s not going to light up the QPR meter, but the wine is in good standing if you’re going local.
Interesting that I liked the cheapest red that Deep Creek Cellars offers in their stable of reds. The 2005 is advertised for $8.95, five dollars less than their Watershed Red Reserve which I hated. I paid $16 for my bottle of Artisan Red at Chesapeake Wine Company, almost twice what the 2005 was listed for. That’s the cost of working through the distributor chain, I guess. Also of note is that the 2005 blend was completely different than the 2006.
2006 Boordy – Petit Cabernet
In July, I put this wine up against a California Cabernet in a blind tasting. The opponent, a 2004 Villa Mt. Eden Cabernet Sauvignon, is a wine I had drank several times before. I was surprised when the Boordy won out. Here’s what I said about the Boordy in the blind tasting
Heated but not too much. Nice plum color, sort-of translucent. Black fruit on nose, not much else. Got some oaky flavors as the glass finished.
Not sky-high praise but not bad. The Petit Cabernet is Cabernet Sauvignon, the “petit” comes from the lighter, fresher feel of the wine as opposed to Cabernet’s reputation as a bruiser.
That brings me to my point about Maryland wine, that most of the wines aren’t trying to be huge triumphant examples of blockbuster wines. This is a good thing, wines that aspire to this turn into alcohol and oak right in your glass (and head right down my sink drain). The few Maryland wines that did go big ended up going home, missing the mark badly. With others, though, Maryland wines are doing a good job of “punching their weight” in that they’re not trying to be what they are not. They are simple wines and decent prices. Some (too many, perhaps) aren’t very good but some are passable and some others are good.
The Maryland Wineries Association does a great job promoting the industry through festivals, promotions, and government grants. Their monthly newsletter is one of the few periodic emails in my inbox that I actually read because it is full of information from upcoming events to feature articles. If you’re in Maryland and you haven’t signed up, I recommend you do so here.
If you discover any other homerun wines out of Maryland, I’d love to hear about them. Feel free to email me (address here) or drop a comment to a future post. Check drinklocalwine.com for more Maryland wine reviews and have fun exploring local wines.
