Paul Vigna of the Patriot-News writes that Black Ankle, Serpent Ridge, and a number of other Mid-Atlantic wineries are investing in Iberian grapes, particularly the white Albarino. I can personally recommend Serpent Ridge’s Albarino, and I often see it in stores. The Spanish grapes are a nice change from the French grapes we commonly see.

In a separate article, Mr. Vigna reports about Knob Hall’s winning awards for its Chambourcin, another unfamiliar grape.

Speaking of Serpent Ridge, Carlo de Vito of East Coast Wineries notes the winery is profiled in Vineyard and Winery Management.

Mark Cascia Vineyards is expanding with the help of a state grant.

Mr. de Vito also reposts Dave McIntyre’s Best Regional Wines of 2011. I will confess to nearly squealing when I saw Slack’s Montepulciano on the list (Black Ankle’s Slate, the 2011 MD Governor’s Cup winner, is also on there). Montepulciano has always been a favorite, but a guilty pleasure because no one was doing it locally. Then came Slack. (And their Danny Boy Danny. But that’s another post entirely.)

CBS, ABC and WBAL (thank you, Terroirist) note that Maryland wineries are seeing more business now that shipping is allowed. Surprise!

The surprise, though, is that only the Baltimore Business Journal comes out and frankly says Maryland will benefit from the permit fees and extra tax revenue.

Baltimore Business Journal also does a nice write-up of the start of Old Westminster Winery.

I attribute to living in the DC suburbs, but I’m already sick of this year’s election. If you’d like a different take on things, check out Tom Wark’s analysis of how wine-friendly the Republican candidates are (although this came out before the Iowa caucases).

Not Maryland, but W. Blake Gray tries a DIY wine making product.

As always, check out the Maryland Wineries’ Association’s news site for even more items of interest. Maryland’s Office of Tourism also has a Wineries section, with events going on year round.

Local bloggers are celebrating Regional Wine Week, an outgrowth of DrinkLocalWine.com, itself started and spearheaded by Dave McIntyre of Dave McIntyre’s WineLine and the Washington Post and Jeff Siegel of The Wine Curmudgeon. As part of the festivities, Mr. Siegel and Mr. McIntyre are challenging you to write a 47-word essay on local wine; Wine Compass, Swirl Sip Snark, and others have already taken part. And “you” does mean YOU: bloggers, blog readers, wine enthusiasts, wine drinkers, wine curious, wine skeptical, etc.

That’s my 47-word essay, up at the top. Agree? Disagree? Are you chiming in with an essay of your own, or celebrating Regional Wine Week in other ways?

Richard Gorelick of the Baltimore Sun wrote at the beginning of August about Lot18 starting to ship to Marylanders. Save that link, because the discount website normally only allows membership through invitation, but provided direct registration through Gorelick’s article. The membership is free; I haven’t purchased anything, but the website will tell you if a wine (or cheese, or a wine map, which are also sold) is available to ship to your state. (Lot18 itself is not producing the wine, just arranging with wineries with Maryland permits to ship to you.) Most wines (of the, say, dozen on offer) appear to be from the West Coast or imported. The site is pretty informative, too, with reviews, tasting notes, and winery information. That alone is worth signing up, which is free. The article notes that Marylanders for Better Beer and Wine Laws was involved, but I gather it was more of approaching Lot18 to see f they could offer wines in our state.

The wine shipping box from our trip to Oregon

CellarBlog posted about District365 Wine, which builds on the Lot18 concept by ensuring every wine they offer is available in Virginia, Maryland, and the District. Each week, one wine from one winery is featured. Much like Lot18, the sale is only available for a limited time, so you need to either check in weekly or sign up for email notifications.  They are also planning events and to work with Maryland and Virginia wineries – I’m excited to see what District365 will come up with.

(If you get a postcard from California Wine Club, just toss it in the recycling.)

And of course, wineries themselves are applying for permits, despite the steep fee. Chateau Montelena blogged on CAWineVine that its permit has been approved. I was glad to see some larger names look at shipping. Last July’s trip to Oregon wineries was much more pleasant than other out-of-state trips, now that wine pourers didn’t have to go, “Maryland? No.” MBBWL posts on its own website about how to find out which wineries have permits for Maryland. I counted 306 active permits; some of these are Maryland wineries, and some are shipping companies operating on behalf of the wineries.

And if all that wasn’t making it easy enough, MBBWL tweeted earlier today about a U.S. Postal Service initiative to consider delivering wine and beer in standard USPS vehicles. (Dr. Vino

blogged the New York Times article saying the same thing.) Quite frankly, given the battered-up (and even opened!) state in which my mail has periodically arrived, I wouldn’t trust my Chateau Montelena to the postman.

So have you had wine shipped to you yet? Have you had Maryland wine shipped to out-of-staters? What method did you use?

ECoast Wines reviews Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard’s EVOE! at the 2011 Wine Bloggers’ Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was drawn to the label but stayed for the wine.

Also at the conference, VA Wine Diva of Swirl, Sip, Snark enjoyed another Bordeaux-style red, the Black Ankle Vineyards Crumbling Rock, and decides he needs to get up to Frederick soon.

Running Hare Winery, down in southern Maryland, earned a gold medal at the Riverside International Wine Competition (via East Coast Wineries).

Bordeleau Winery, Elk Run Vineyards, Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyards, Romano Winery and Vineyard, did well at the Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association’s 2011 competition (Word document).

Layton’s Chance Winery gets a visit from the Governor.

Carrie Ann Knauer of the Carroll County Times reports Distillery Lane Ciderworks will be debuting at the Maryland Wine Festival next month (you signed up to volunteer, right?).

Or drink some chilled white wine. Anecdotally, I can tell you it’s what many folks are drinking as this summer shatters heat records across the country. Matt and I have Keswick Vineyards Viognier (VA) in the fridge right now. Friends served Basignani’s Elena the other evening. Then again, we also have a bottle of Serpent Ridge Basilisk (a red blend) open on our shelf.

At one point, I thought weather affected wine in two ways: the whole growing-season thing, which obviously depends on the right amount of rain, soil, humidity, sun, clouds, cool temperatures, warm temperatures, and midnight voodoo; and the controversy over sticking to chilled whites versus indulging in reds every so often (with, possibly, a heretical ice cube). Many folks on the local wine blog  circuit mentioned the latter, saying the Wine Bloggers’ Conference last month in Charlottesville, Virginia was too hot to really enjoy the red wines available.

But it turns out weather affects oenophiles in other ways, too:

First, now that we have our beloved shipping law passed, it appears we’ll have to wait until fall to get wine shipped. It makes total sense to me now, and I wouldn’t have left wine in a hot trunk, and our wines are kept in the driest, coolest corner of our house. But I never thought about wine cooking on its way to me: from winery to shipping center, in planes or trucks, and from shipping center to my house. Dr. Vino has thoughtfully researched more about this, and even suggests a label addition to show temperature exposures.

Second, if you’re at all as pale as I am (my students once asked if I was a vampire), bottoms up! The Terroirist reports a study finding that “flavonoids in grapes can stop the chemical reactions that cause skin cells to die”.

Also, the Wine Curmudgeon suggests several ways to stay cool using wine.  I’m happy to report that I’ve tested all of them (someone had to do it!) and can recommend all but the first one. Ice your wine if you want to – I just don’t care for the dilution that comes as the wine melts; I don’t even ice my lemonade. If I don’t do it, I can’t really recommend it myself.

And another reason to detest the season’s stink bugs: they don’t just feed on grapes, but they… um… flavor the wine. The Washington Post’s Darryl Fears writes about this in the context of a search for a predator for the little… ahem… buggers (farmers and grape growers are mentioned on the second page). To do my journalistic best and present the other side of the debate, WMAZ’s Cody Rhodes paraphrases University of Maryland‘s Joe Fiola as saying stink bugs “don’t [a]ffect the taste or smell of wine”.

Have you noticed a stinky odor to wine – or had your shipped wine cooked? How are you enjoying your wine this summer?

Okay, it’s not Maryland or wine, but it’s still pretty cool. Click on Dr. McGovern’s link above; as the website says, “he is known as the Indiana Jones of Ancient Ales, Wines, and Extreme Beverages”.

Many thanks to East Coast Wineries and their post about the endeavor, which had a write-up in the August 2011 issue of Smithsonian Magazine, which brought this through my inbox.

Richard Leahy reports that the first-ever Virginia Wine Week is coming up starting March 22. Kinda cool how whenever the tourism office wants to promote something, then just make it a week. Wine sales down? Wine week! Local farmers complaining? Buy local week! State legislators in the pockets of Alcohol lobby? Shark Week! Restaurants need some love? Restaurant week! Funny that here in Baltimore, Restaurant Week is actually twice a year, each time extending for over fourteen days. Restaurant month, perhaps?

Richard has all the details in his post on Virginia Wine Week.

Andres Stover, a sommelier at two (nice and fancy, I’m sure) D.C. restaurants is on a Quixotic mission to bring in wines from every state that he can. Would be nice to sit down and open up a wine list and see some variety. Dave McIntyre has a brief post and a less-brief Washington Post article about it.

Swirl, Sip, Snark blogs about the merits of Linden’s Hardscrabble Chardonnay. Couldn’t agree more, it’s one of the best whites in Virginia and can stand toe-to-toe with Chards from out west.

The Other 46 finds merit in a Malbec. Not surprising until you hear that the Malbec in question cost $29 and was from Idaho.

The ’06 Viognier Reserve is a spectacular wine. What’s really strange is that it’s an all-stainless steel wine, yet I really got the flavors of tropical fruit… on a Danish.

Side note, when I started this blog, I pictured it to be very similar to the stuff that Swirl, Sip, Snark is putting out. I’d visit wineries every weekend, introduce myself, chat with the owner and winemaker. Write up glowing (but fair) reviews in my blog which would become the bellwether for Virginia’s burgeoning wine industry. I’d sit on panels and say interesting things about the late weather in 2007 and its effect on the Cab Franc harvest in Charlottesville. The audience would nod, because they don’t know any better. Wine samples and invites to events would pour through my mailbox causing my UPS delivery person to crumble under the weight of my awesomeness.

Things didn’t quite bounce that way, evidently. I still like visiting wineries, but I realized a few things since I started:

1) Virginia is far, and anything involving travel on 495/66 should be forgotten. You may as well take a flight from BWI to Dulles and rent a car.
2) Most wineries are the same. There hasn’t been a lot of impetus to get off the couch and drive down there to taste.

Snark that!

Anything Wine posted an update on Virginia Senate Bill SB1445 which seeks to clear some of the confusion surrounding exactly when wineries can solicit for memberships in a wine-of-the-month club.

From the bill summary:

Clarifies that the holder of a wine shipper license or beer shipper license may solicit and receive applications for subscription to a wine-of-the-month or beer-of-the-month club at in-state or out-of-state locations for which a license for on-premises consumption has been issued, other than the place where the licensee carries on the business for which the license is granted.

Everyone got that? Me neither.

An overlooked casualty of Maryland not allowing direct wine shipping is that Maryland wineries can’t operate wine-of-the-month clubs. These clubs can be big hits with loyal customers, but are often bigger hits with the wineries themselves. Wine clubs provide something approaching a steady monthly revenue stream for wineries who don’t have distribution deals and have trouble getting their wines in front of a consumer. Without them, small wineries have to rely on tasting room visits, word of mouth, and selling wine to distributors for half price. Which, frankly, is exactly how the distributors want it and why they spend the big bucks to keep it that way.

Anyway, down in Georgia, Dirty of Dirty South Wine posted a video of him interviewing Jeff Bundschu of Gundlach Bundschu. Gundlach Bundschu (Gun-lock Bun-shoe) is on my short list of wineries that I recommend whenever people ask me which wineries they should visit on a Napa/Sonoma trip. They run a nice operation, all friendly people, and pour some good wines in the tasting room. They run a pretty good wine club too. Dirty and Jeff discussed old wines, sustainability, and not destroying the Earth. Jeff posted a bit about it on his blog as well.

Caught the trailer for Bottle Shock last night when it ran before The Dark Knight. I joke that I’m a wine snob even though I’m not but I am a full-blown movie snob in every sense. Bottle Shock looks good and I’m pumped for it. Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman, and Dennis Farina usually turn in good stuff. Look! Napa! Before it was popular!

Other goings-on from around the local wine blogosphere because I’m too lazy to write a proper post:

Food and Wine Blog with tips on ordering wine from a restaurant. I’ll use them tonight when we hit Baltimore Restaurant Week.

1WineDude on Project 89, some bleeding heart winos saving 89-point wines from the depths of obscurity. I actually like them in obscurity because they cost less and are often as good or better than the 90 pointers.

Wannabe Wino visits Virginia’s newest wine addition: Barrel Oak Winery.

Virginia Vine Spot hits up Barrel Oak Winery and Miracle Valley Vineyards. How’d we ever win eight? It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle…