$25 to get into the Federal Hill Wine Festival with 12 tickets. Each ticket worth one taste of wine. My numbers-based brain kicked into gear.
- Local wines for $2 a taste, really?
- In liters, how much beer could be purchased in Cross Street Market for $25?
- Which would be a better value?
In these economic times, one must weigh one’s options carefully. A legitimate argument was made to go into the Market, watch the Maryland game, and punt the whole afternoon. Despite this, we forged into the festival where, I found, we had been working under assumptions that proved to be incorrect.
First, the festival didn’t feature any local wines, a fact that all in our party greeted with a semi-satisfied shrug and a nod. It was as if we were prepared to pay for pour after pour of local favorites out of duty rather than hedonism. In a way, we’d been pardoned. California, Chile, Argentina, France. Stuff from everywhere.
Second, a “taste” is an imprecise measure of quantity. Nobody’s measuring cup has “taste” marked on the side. Typing “tastes to ounces” into Google isn’t going to get you far. Out in Napa, asking for a “taste” will get you an ounce of wine, a nose full of oak and a bill for $15. Not so in Baltimore. Your ticket may say “one taste,” but you may get something more in your glass. As the festival went on we sure did.
Logistically, the festival was a smashing success. Not too crowded. The band wasn’t so loud that you couldn’t think straight, but was just loud enough for you to smile and ignore. Enough tasting tents were there so that if one was crowded, you could bounce down to another. When we got tired of wine, we could pop into a bar, grab a frosty draft beer and watch some college football. Back outside, tons of variety in wines: each table had a portfolio of everything, not just one varietal or region.
Except one table: the beautiful “Sparkling Table.” No fussy decisions to deal with here, just golden bubbly or pink bubbly. As things got saucy later in the evening, we found that this was the best place to post up.
All the good wines were poured by the VIP tent which charged four tickets per taste. They ran out of stuff quick, like the Brunello and something else that I wanted. We settled on a Cakebread Cab and a Merlot or something. By this point in the day, anything that wasn’t written down wasn’t getting remembered.
Great event, looking forward to it next year.
Further coverage from Young and Married in DC.
Washingtonian outlined four great winery trips in Virginia and Maryland.
The Kent County office of Economic Development is looking to help you get started on the road to owning and operating your own vineyard. MarylandWine.com put out a story last month on their ambitious program for vineyard expansion in Kent County. The County is doing it the smart way, with money.
A vineyard loan program of up to $300,000 was established, to assist in the establishment of new grape acreage within Kent County. The amount was based on establishing 50 new acres by providing funding assistance of up to $6,000/acre.
The last bit there, about the funding assistance, is where the groundbreaking part of this comes in. The County has set up a fantastic loan program to assist new vineyard owners in getting off the ground. Given an estimated cost of $12,000 an acre to set up a new vineyard, Kent County is going to assist in financing $6,000 of that per acre on a five-acre minimum plot. The loan terms are pretty mouth-watering:
- Loan rate is 5%, six months interest free
- Repayment would begin after 36 months, allowing a new winery to establish some cash flow by selling their wine
The goal is the creation of 50 new vineyard acres in Kent County, divided into ten vineyards of five acres each.
Allowing a grace period before paying back the loan is a crucial component to the plan. Boutique custom crush facilities, such as Crushpad in California, advise clients that you sell your first vintage before it is bottled so that you can afford to finance your second vintage. Revenue from the second vintage would go to the third, and so on. Wineries of any scale, from micro custom crush producers to bigger commercial projects, need that initial financial push to get going. The cycle is then self-perpetuating (as long as the wine is drinkable).
I got a chance to speak with Kent County Director of Economic Development Jack Steinmetz by phone about the program. Mr. Steinmetz reports that there has been “significant legitimate interest” even at this early stage and that their office is “very pleased with the initial reception by the public.” Ultimately, says Mr. Steinmetz, a broader reach could be seen by the project, moving from their initial 50 acres into a possible 150 acres of new vineyards reaching into neighboring Cecil and Queen Anne Counties.
This is a great program because it puts good financial terms in play with a good opportunity in a growing wine state like Maryland. New ventures could take advantage of the perks, but also established wineries have an excellent chance to expand their vineyard holdings within the state.
Link to story
Purchased for $20 at The Wine Market. Golden yellow color, looking think and viscous in the glass. Smelled almost like an Alsatian Pinot Gris at first, but that gave away to lots of oak after a few minutes. Sharp, biting acidic taste which is out of character for a Viognier (vee-ohn-yay) so maybe it was something else. A little back jaw pucker in there too. The sharpness and puckering gave way after the first glass. A pleasant bottle, not worth $20 though.
Link to product page.
…makes me happy to live in Baltimore. No snooty wine terms here, hon.
Cinghiale, the Italian Osteria sitting out on Lancaster Street in uppity Harbor East in Baltimore, has some good specials running this month.
Monday nights in October they’re doing Monday Night Flights. $49 gets you a antipasti, salumi, and long flight of wines based around a specific region in Italy. October 13th is Piemonte, the 20th is Alto Adige (which I know nothing about) and the 27th goes to the old workhorse Chianti.
But, that isn’t the best part of Cinghiale this month. Tuesday Night Cellar Raid features 50% off full bottles of wine from 5-7pm in the Enoteca. The deal is so boggling that I had to confirm with an employee that it is indeed 50% off ANY bottle in their encyclopedia-like wine list. There are a lot of winners in there, won’t be hard to pick one out for half price.
I’ve been to Cinghiale twice and I LOVE their wine bar. When I couldn’t decide between a glass of Brunello or a glass of Barolo, the bartender poured me a taste of both without even being asked (I decided on the Barolo, fantastic). The reds are chilled just so and the glasses are selected based on the type of wine you select. My wife reports that the cappuccino is very good as well.
Cinghiale
822 Lancaster Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
http://www.cinghiale-osteria.com/
Link to CityPaper review
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.
Sloughing our way through Dulles airport to our gate to take off to Frankfurt, I was happy to see a Vino Volo tasting bar sitting right next to our gate. Vino Volo began a push into airports in 2006 is up to nine locations including one each in Baltimore Washington International and Washington Dulles. Interesting to not e that they are only in airports (In Dulles, they’re located in Concourse C aka the United concourse). Instead of getting some “lite” version of a restaurant (Chili’s To Go!), you’re getting the real deal. Take a seat in a comfy chair and have a glass of wine or go through a flight before you get on your flight.
They offer some eclectic dishes (available in small and large) that stretch the usual airport meal options. Their suggestions for the California Kings wine flight were: Broccoli Mushroom Pastry, Chickpea and Sausage Chili, Cab Sauv Braised Pork Tacos. Pretty mouthwatering fare to show down on while your listen for yet another update on your delayed flight.
They did a nice job with the decor. You don’t feel like you’re sitting in some cheap knockoff airport bar drinking overpriced beer. You feel like you’re in a nice wine bar, passing some time before being herded onto a United flight with no legroom and no seat back TVs. Just make sure you get through your glass before the final boarding call.
The answer came to me as I drank down my Wine Blogging Wednesday selection, the Sofia Sparking Wine. The answer also came from Dirty of Dirty South Wine, posted in the comments of my review of Bottle Shock.
Thanks to both Jamie and Jon for posting while I was gone. Go check out Complaint Hub for your D.C. related blogginess and Marketing, Finance, and Obama for your effervescent marketing analysis.
For the past two weeks I’ve been gallivanting through Central and Eastern Europe with The Wife. Our trip took us through Prague, Budapest, and Vienna.
Prague, as many know, is quite a drinking town. You can get half-liter mugs of beer for 10 Czech Crowns (around 60 cents). Compared to most other European nations, there isn’t much of a wine industry to speak of. You’re not going to find Wine Spectator scrambling to update their vintage charts on Czech Republic. But, wine is around and the local pubs like to sell the local wine. Typically the wine is poured out of taps (sort of like beer) and sold to locals in two-liter bottles like soda. The whole thing had a garagiste feel to it, like the jug wines that we found in Umbria. Wine made by the people, for the people.
The more traditional 750ml bottled wines weren’t bad. They grow all sorts of grapes that I’d never heard of and couldn’t pronounce, so tastings were that much more of an adventure. Most shops were more than happy to help us along with tasting, grapes, and linguistics. Across the board the quality is comparable with Virginia, perhaps a little better. The wines there don’t feel like they’re out to prove something as they so often feel over here in the U.S.
All this isn’t to say that Prague isn’t home to fancy, refined wine bars fit for a gentleman such as myself. The picture above was taken in such an establishment which looks the part and could fit into the Russian Hill neighborhood in San Francisco.
For all the drinking that is done in Prague, there isn’t much in Budapest. Hungary is home to Tokaj, a region (town?) producing some of the best sweet wines in the entire world. Much of the country is filled with wine appellations, but this doesn’t translate into lots of wine being available in town. Many restaurants have nearly identical wine lists with the same label images and same fonts, clearly all done by the same distributor or wine authority. We had to hunt down a by-the-glass Tokaji offering just so I could check it off my list.
Vienna, ah Vienna. The Austrian wine industry may take a backseat to its neighbor Germany, but some of the whites there were very, very good. We were lucky enough to stay at the Hotel Rathaus, a swanky hotel in the city center that is all about the wine. Each room was themed with wines from a separate winemaker that the hotel is partnered with. Our room re-defined the mini-bar (pictured above), with full bottles of good wines from the featured winemaker, available at prices that were quite reasonable. The staff at Hotel Rathaus walked us through the recent vintages of Austrian Gruner Veltliner and Sauvignon Blanc, explaining the differences and nuances of each year/varietal combination. The 2006 Gruner Veltliner, we learned, is a superstar.
We ate at a Heurigen in Grinzing. Hurigens are wine taverns, essentially small restaurants that sell wine made from the owner’s vineyards. The big Heurigen towns are close to Vienna, some even within the city limits. It’s local Austrian cooking (meat, pork, Schnitzel) with local Austrian wine, can’t be beat on the authenticity meter.
In all, quite a trip with three cities in twelve days. The wine was great, always better to drink wines made locally than to get a bottle that has been shipped across the ocean in some inhospitable shipping container. A few bottles slipped into my checked luggage and we’ll look forward to popping those sometime down the road.
