Maryland wine festival 2023
Saturday, September 16, 2023 was the date for the 2023 Maryland Wine Festival. As predominantly dry wine drinkers, Ian and I got VIP Explorer passes so we could have access to all of the dry wines in the explorer tent. We couldn't have gotten luckier with weather for this year's festival - 70's and sunny all afternoon. So starting at eleven am at the Carroll County Farm Museum in Westminster, we set up our chairs over by the stage and made our way into the the explorer tent to see which wineries and which wines were going to impress this year. Our first stop was Six Wicket Vineyard's tent. They brought an albarino, rose and two cabernet francs, one aged in American oak and one aged in Slovenian oak. The albarino was excellent with bright acidity and some nice tropical notes. We preferred the American oak cab franc but enjoyed our first tasting of a wine aged in Slovenian oak. Information was shared that they are apparently the same tree but take on different flavors due to the effects of different soils. This was also our first experience with this winery. Located in Myersville, Maryland, they have been around since 2014 and are now on our list to visit next time we are out that way. 61 Vineyards was next and brought their dry town sparkling, which we love. Sugarloaf Mountain still has the best rose in Maryland in my opinion. This year's vintage is mostly merlot and did not disappoint. Love point brought a lovely seyval blanc from their eastern shore winery in Kent Island. Elk Run's pinot gris had some nice minerality and Boordy's spritz was refreshing, as always. In the vertical tasting tent, Crow Vineyards & Winery's sparkling vidal blanc was a favorite and sold out quickly. They are a cattle farm first and winery second but you would never know. Their wine is excellent. Links Bridge's barbera and cab franc's were getting a lot of attention and we were impressed by Mazzaroth Vineyard's 2021 estate tannat. Outside of the explorer tent, we could not leave without visiting Bordeleau. They are our favorite eastern shore winery and brought all of our favorite reds: malbec, merlot and cabernet franc, plus a lovely sauvignon blanc. As is typical, we went home with a case of wine, which included a lot of the bottles mentioned above. But not before sitting in our chairs with some waters, bacon macaroni and cheese and lobster rolls from the food trucks, while enjoying Kirk McEwen and the Tom Petty covers of Petty Coat Junction. We couldn't have asked for a better day or better wines and couldn't be more excited to see how the Maryland Governor's Cup wines come out for 2023.
