'G' fits Galen Glen's needs to a 'T'

If you follow these postings you read that the Traminette has been the best seller in the early going for Terrapin Station Winery in extreme northeastern Maryland, near the town of Elkton. Seeing Traminette on the list at Galen Glen Vineyard & Winery prompted me to ask proprietor Sarah Troxell how that wine is rolling off the shelf there. It’s rolling, all right, down the hill and out of sight.

“Our Traminette sells very well, but there’s good news and bad news about that,” she said the other day. “The good news is that we planted Gewurztraminer as a replacement and will have our first commercial harvest [with it] this fall. The bad news is that the grower we were purchasing the Traminette from sold his property and the new owner is putting a tremendous house on it, ripped out vineyards. It’s a 6,000 square-foot house, so a lot of vineyard came out.

“We were very uncertain as to what would happen with the Traminette, so [that] will fall off our wine list as we sell out of this vintage and be replaced with Gewurztraminer, grown right here. We had a small amount last year and we blended that into the Traminette, just a couple percent, but we’re really excited. It’s going to be a beautiful crop, and we’re hoping to a real true Germanic Gewurztraminer coming next year.”

Troxell called Traminette the “easier-to-grow version of Gewurztraminer.” But that’s only if you have the grapes. They weren’t sure what they’d have once that house went up and the vines came down. “We just decided to take the bull by the horns and try the harder-to-grow one,” she said. “It seems to be doing well here. They’re four-year-old vines this year and we should get close to a commercial harvest. So, we’re really excited; looking forward to it.”