The Marcus files: Part 2

I set up this blog as an opportunity in part for people to sound off. Not viciously, mind you, and not to incite fights, but not to get people thinking and prompt discussion. So I invite the opinion and get it on the record. In this case, Doug Marcus of Towson Wines & Spirits has his problems, he says, with a majority of Maryland wines, primarily that so many are sweet nad lacking in quality. He says as much in his recent monthly newsletter, posted previously, as he was touting the wines of Black Ankle that he’s now carrying. That winery, located in Mt. Airy, is scheduled to open by the end of July.

We talked a bit last week and he went on the record a bit more in-depth about why he says he’s frustrated with Maryland wines, in general, and why Black Ankle will raise the bar in the state. These are just some snippets of what he said:

“What happens is, people don’t drink a lot of wine. And so there’s a parallel thing going on. The wineries in Maryland are not making the effort. Some are, most aren’t, because it started out as a hobby, you know, it’s like grandma’s apple pie. She doesn't care where the apples come from, she just wants to make an apple pie . . . so she lucks out and the first couple pies are made with good apples, and after that she has to make 10 pies instead of one, so she wants to cut back on her cost so she buys substandard apples, and all of a sudden the quality goes down. This is kinda what happens because people don’t know how to run a business or ramp up a business. And you end up with substandard wine, partly because of soil chemistry and partly because of wherever the source of the juice is if you’re not growing your own grapes. And you end up with really crummy wine. So what you do is put sugar in it . . . it’s like me and salt . . .salt makes everything taste better. And the same thing with sugar . . . so you end up with 20 of 22 wineries who make almost predominantly sweet wine because it covers all the ills of the wine.”

“When Black Ankle started . . . everybody said, ‘no, no, no, you gotta go sweet, sweet, sweet.' And what they did is they did some soil samples and did chemistries and hired consultants; they spent an absolute fortune. If you’ve not been out there . . .when you go out there you have to think California, not Maryland. They’ve got . . . if I were to guess $20 million, I think I’d be pretty close. They weren’t kidding around. I tasted their wines. To put it in perspective, they have 250 brand new French oak barrels and they cost a thousand dollars apiece. That’s a quarter million dollars in barrels. So before you get started, you’re talking about a lot of money . . . They’re doing the right things in that they’re planting the right vines and going through the chemistries of the soil and they’re doing everything they need to do, knowing full well that ultimately they’re going to be able to turn a profit at the same time they’re making good wine, whereas everybody starts off altruistically wanting to make good wine and they realize, ‘aw crap, this stuff isn’t any good, let’s throw some sugar in it.’ And there are enough people out there that buy wine without fail once a year that you can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, and that’s enough.”

“. . . People will climb up a tree to get a nice product it doesn’t matter if it’s a restaurant or an ice cream store or wine. So it’s really a matter of finding a product and being able to stand behind it. Most people are in the business of making money, and unfortunately with wine, you gotta make the wine first and then the money comes."

“. . . Black Ankle, and another winery -- I forget the name -- apparently they’re both doing it right, and by doing it right they’re going to put Maryland wineries on the map and set a standard that other wineries just can’t meet.”