A Tasting of Maryland wines.

Interesting notes. I actually sold the Le Mousseaux as well as wines for Basignani & Loew.

The serious wines are not poured at any wine festivals in Maryland--my friends Lynn and Bert Basignani have learned that to compete at the festivals the wines have to be sweet. Bertero's Lorenzino and his chardonnays are to me first class wines. Rob Lyons of Catoctin started at Ch Montelena and has some great cabs & chards at their tasting room, Tom Burns at Boordy apprenticed at Pa's Allegro under the late John Crouch who was the regions premier wine-maker.

I just tasted wines for the VA Governors Cup. Wines from this region are a lot better than 20 years ago. I'd rate the Finger Lakes as the best viticultural area in the East--MD & VA and Long Island are a step or so behind. Virginia is better on dry whites then Md but Md cabs and chambourcin are better than Va's.

To get a more balanced perspective you really need to visit Basignani and Catoctin. Of the rest of them Woodhall and Boordy have done some good things especially with Seyval. Mike Fiore, Fred Wilson(Elk Run) and Bill Loew are talented winemakers but they have never have concentrated on making world class wines-family businesses are like that. I've not tasted much Penn Oaks and Cygnus to form an opinion. Linganore is great on marketing but embarrassment on wine.

I'm working on my VA notes, I can't release them until June 3.

Salut/Hi Joe Rosenberg,

Thanks for coming back! I rather had you in my sights when I asked Michael for his permission to repost his notes here!

le/on Sat, 22 May 2004 23:28:35 -0400, tu disais/you said:-

Yes, our mutual (Michael & me) friends Dale & Gail had warned him that this was the case.

By what criteria? By those of MD? Or by the same kind of standards I'd judge a wine from anywhere else in the world?

You see, you say

Which Michael confirms. But then you go on to say

and Long Island are a step or so

Well, we visited Fox Run, I think it was- but in any case, a winery reputed to be amongst the best in the area, in Finger Lakes, and while I found no particular faults in the wines, I found no particular delight either. My very first question to the winemaker was "what yields do you work to?" The wines they had on tasting (including their premium ones) ALL tasted dilute to me, as if they had been working on huge yields, the sort of yield one found in wines from southern France selling at around 4F a litre. So if that IS the best from the East, it's damning with faint praise - especially taking prices into consideration.

If I sound harsh, I can only tell you that a couple of days ago, I met with one of the guys that run the local "Co-op" at Branceilles, which sell a wine they call "Mille et une Pierres". He asked me if I knew it, and what I thought of it. "A little local wine overpriced by €3 a bottle. I compare it with Coteaux de Glanes, with Cahors and Bergerac, and it simply doesn't stack up I'm afraid. I get a couple of bottles a year out of solidarity, but I buy 10 cases of the Glanes" "Ah monsieur", he replied, "you shouldn't judge it like that, you should treat it as a 'local product'". I'm afraid that did not sit well with me at all. "You mean overpriced stuff, only selling because it's local?. No way, a wine must be capable of standing on its own feet, judged against a wine from anywhere else in the world. And the same goes for any other local produce. Otherwise you're ripping off your customers in the most cynical manner."

So Joe, what I'm saying really, is that I don't think it's right to be indulgent with wines from your home state, just _BECAUSE_ it's your home state, or from the East, just because you're from the East, or from the USA just because it's the USA. Of course the same goes for wines from France, from Austria or from Australia, I have an Australian friend who drinks the most awful muck in a bag in the box, and claims it's drinkable mianly because it comes from Oz.

Chauvinism aside, California, Oregon and lately Washington State produce the best wines in the US. IMHO the Finger Lakes are a notch behind for whites. Our area, the Mid Atlantic states, have produced in my 25 years of tasting about 2 dozen wines which could compete in world class competitions. This is bottlings. They include the seyre-villards of the late G.Hamilton Mowbray, some of the late John Crouch's Allegro Vineyard's Cadenza from York County Pennsylvania, some Basignani Chardonnay, the Byrd 1980 Cabernet made by Rob Lyons.

Regional pride propels sales within each state in the region and a desire to support local industry. I've been about promoting these wine for 20 years or so because good winemaking should be encouraged. Pricing is fair based on market conditions. No one who has a meritage red or reserve cab(which constitute the bulk of the over $20 retail wines) believes it can compete with a similarly priced wine from a better region. But that does not mean that winery owners can't expect a good return on their investment. Most of these wines are sold out within a year or so of release. So they meet the markets condition.

Most plantings in the East are of lambrusca and french-american hybrid grapes until the early 1980's when vinifera was planted by serious wine-makers. The best of the hybrids, seyre villard aka seyval blanc (dry white) vidal(dessert) and chambourcin(red) make very serviceable wines on their own. Its only we cork-dorks who seem offended by them. Through out the world good, honestly made local wine is available and drunk contently by natives and visitors. I've occasionally surprised fellow cork dorks with Cadenza and the Basignani Chardonnay. I hope I can do the same for you one day, Ian

VA and Long Island are a step or so

I'd believe it, having had a few mid-Atlantic state "Champagnes"

This does bother me!

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Hrmmphh. I'd thought that I'd caught you out, but a trip down to the cellar showed me that -- of course -- you are correct, and that Mille et Une Pierres is a VDP de la Correze, not a Coteaux de Glanes. Oh, well! ;-)

Mark Lipton

: I just tasted wines for the VA Governors Cup. Wines from this region are a : lot better than 20 years ago. I'd rate the Finger Lakes as the best : viticultural area in the East--MD & VA and Long Island are a step or so : behind. Virginia is better on dry whites then Md but Md cabs and chambourcin : are better than Va's.

Oh my God, I can't disagree more. I've lived in MD for ~20 years and have tasted many VA and MD wines over that time. Both have made remarkable strides, but VA is far more mature (read better) than MD. The only winery worth the trip in MD is Elk Run, who makes very nice Cabs (Sauvignon and Franc) and a delicious port-style wine. I'm very liberal and forgiving at tastings, but there were very few palatable wines at the Wine in the Woods.

Virginia has many excellent Cabs which can compete with those on the left coast (it also has some that suck). The 1998 Barboursville Cab Franc was one of the best I've ever tasted anywhere. The balance and harmony were shockingly spectacular. It's faded a bit now to show it's Merlot contribution, but it's still very good.

: To get a more balanced perspective you really need to visit Basignani and : Catoctin.

Catoctin is a few miles from my house (I live in Olney) and they are the worst of the bunch. The unoaked Chardonnay is decent, but everything else, whites and reds, are weak and reeking of oak.

: Linganore is great on marketing but : embarrassment on wine.

On this we agree - if you want a juvenile fruit wine, Linganore is your winery!

I have watched both states wine industry grow. The father of Maryland wines was Phillip Wagner who owned Boordy Vineyards. Wagner believed in hybrids and American grapes. The father of the Virginia wine industry was Ham Mowbray and he was a vinifera advocate.

I can say that I never had a Maryland wine that I thought was worth a dollar a bottle. I helped Wagner and Mowbray harvest grapes but their wines were just drinkable.

I have had some great Virginia wines specifically some Chardonnays from Piedmont and Naked Mountain, and a Sauvignon Blanc from Linden Vineyards. I have only had one Virginia red that I would ever drink a second time and that was the Horton Norton. Bill

I worked for the late Dr. Mowbray briefly in the late '80s before medical school tore me away. I had been (and still am!) an amateur winemaker and approached him about working for Montbray Wine Cellars for free in exchange for the experience -- sort of an apprenticeship. He replied with his usual cockey voice, "naw, I'll pay you".

When I showed up to work the next morning, I was the only one there, apart from Ham. "Where are all your workers?", I asked. "You're it!", he exclaimed.

I now understood the concept of a "micro-winery"!

I worked for him for about a year, and for a few years after I would help with the harvest. I had many conversations with Ham, and learned a great deal about life, friendship and wine.

I was not aware of the influence he had on Virginia wines, Montbray being in northern Maryland "close enough to Pennsylvania to spit over the border -- and we often do!", as he would say. And although he advocated vinifera, he was very much a strong proponent of hybrids, and was instrumental in getting seyval (which he stubbornly called by its actual name, seyve-villard) established in the US. He often told me of the arguments he had had with Konstantine Frank -- now *there* was a vinifera advocate -- who seemed convinced that hybrids were evil and would even cause birth defects (barring fetal alcohol syndrome)! I don't know if he actually ever said this, as Ham was one for embellishments.

I heartily disagree. Montbray seyve-villard was a top notch wine. I would stack it against the best California chardonnay. Also, I celebrated my graduation from residency in '99 with the last bottle of his '85 cab sauv that I had stashed away. It was one the more memorable wine experiences of my life, and not just for the nostalgia (I had helped bottle it, and had hand applied the label -- all such work was done by hand at Montbray). It had aged beautifully, with overtones of leaf tobacco.

It's good to hear from someone else (and another Bill!) who knew Dr. Mowbray. I hear his wife Phyllis is working on a book about the Maryland wine industry -- from the perspective of the wives of the winemakers. It should be interesting, albeit for the small audience that would take notice of such a work.

In addition to helping with the picking, I helped with the bottling. I can remember sitting around on many Sunday afternoons drinking out of the barrels and the fruit flies in my nose really enjoying Ham.

When the owners of the big estates down in Middleburg were looking for some tax write-offs, Ham convinced them to start vineyards and claim they were farming and losing money. Piedmont and about three others got started just to have a tax write off. Merydith Vineyards that Archie Smith did was the only one that was really into wine and he only did hybrids.

Email me and lets get together with Joe Beppe for lunch.

I sold wines for Dr Mowbray, the last year or so he was in business. I also helped organise a dinner at the Peabody Court hotel which was attended by Robert Parker, Mike Dresser of the Baltimore Sun and other wine writers. After Ham's funeral, I gave her a copy of the article I wrote about the tasting. His cabs were first class as were his seyre-villard, the best I've ever tasted.

I remember most the day I drove with Parker and Bertero Basignani to Mowbray's. Parker and Mowbray had a somewhat adversarial relationship but Parker really liked what he tasted and after the Peabody Court tasting gave them a positive write-up. Ham never really thought wines should be graded like a school exam and said so but I know he appreciated the review. Basignani now tends the vineyard and uses some of the grapes.

Mowbray was also a great wine educator. I attended classes he gave for Les Amis du Vin, they were great. I followed Ham for the classes he initiated at Roland Park Country School and invited Ham & Phyllis to our "graduation" dinners after the conclusion of our class cycle. For health reasons he could never make it but he had a profound influence on winemaking in the region. He is still missed.