Wine in the Woods 2024

Wine in the Woods is a Maryland wine festival that just celebrated its 30 year anniversary on May 18, 2024. It's typically held in May each year at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia. This was the first year Ian and I have actually been able to make it and we are happy we finally did. This was also the first year Howard County, this festival and the Maryland Wineries Association parted ways. The Maryland Wineries Association has been a very integral part of the wine history in the State. Providing benefits over the years of allowing glasses and bottles of wine to be purchased more and more conveniently to consumers and helping our wine owners to be more profitable and sustainable because of it, the MWA is a non-profit that represents our 80+ wineries. Most if not all of our winery owners are  members of the Association which allows for a pretty cool commuity that, even though they are in competition with each other, they also understand that each successful winery contributes to the Maryland wine industry as a whole. A win for one winery is really a wine for all and that's a pretty great thing if you think about it. Our understanding is this year was really a failed contract negotiation between Howard County, the festival and the MWA. The MWA would have typically taken in quite a bit of revenue from the Wine in the Woods festival so wineries like Linganore and Boordy pulled out of the festival and donated 10% of all proceeds Saturday, May 18th to the MWA. While we certainly missed the handful of wineries that pulled out of the festival due to all of this behind the scenes business, we still had a  great time enjoying the wineries that were in attendance, the really cool venue, talented bands and local vendors. Bordeleau was the first tasting we did and were lucky enough to get in the line where the owner, Tom Shelton, was pouring his wines. They continue to have some pretty fabulous reds, including our usual favs, malbec and merlot. We learned that all of their bottles have lot numbers on them instead of years because he mixes vintages to make the best tasting product. Broken Spoke was next and this is the first time we have seen them at a festival. They were in one of their trailers from the farm and poured some great vidal blancs and barbera. The dry vidal had great bright acidity and stone fruits, while the barbera was nice and tart with medium body. This was another interesting chat with their wine maker who told us that they don't use the pump over method for their grapes. All are pressed three times. Running Hare had a malbec reserve with bold dark fruit flavor. Urban brought their Stella which is a white using the IBX hybrid grape that was bright and herbaceous. Misfit has a new brandy that was full of spicy, caramel flavor. Orchid Cellars, interestingly, has a spicy mead, Scorpion, that also has orange and walnut flavor. Stonehaus and their cleverly named bottles like Call me a Cab and Tickled Pink were fun but for me, Café Au Lait was the standout. Great coffee flavored, port-style wine. We were back in our chairs for most of Secret Society's set which was great and finished out the festival on a high note.