Hauser Estate swings open its doors

Hauser Estate Winery won’t officially open for another month and a half. Just tell that to manager Melisa Patrono around 1:30 earlier this afternoon, who begged off an interview for a couple more hours to handle the rush.

“We’ve been very busy,” she said a few hours later, talking from the tasting room of the second winery that will call Adams County (Pa.) home. It quietly welcomed in visitors a couple of weeks ago. The grand opening is set for Saturday, Sept. 20, when the winery will extends its hours until 9 p.m. and is planning live entertainment.

So how is a place that’s sort of tucked away on a hill overlooking Cashtown Road, a little more than 8 miles west of Gettysburg? Well, there’s this story in the Gettysburg Times. Another in the Hanover, Pa., paper. And one in Friday’s York Daily Record. Advertising? Hey, who needs to buy any ads when the local papers are spreading the word?

“I really think these articles are helping us a ton,” Patrono said, “We have people walking in saying, ‘I saw you in the paper, I saw you in the paper, I saw you in the paper.’ Also we’re getting, not that we’ve been open that long, but people who came in the first week have come back in the second week. So it’s nice that we’re seeing some of these familiar faces who are coming back. You have parents who say, ‘Oh, I’m going to tell my children about this. Other people will say, ‘Oh, we’ve got guests coming in soon and we’ll have to bring them over.’ People are thinking, ‘Who can I bring up here?’”

What they’ll find when they get there is outdoor seating on a patio and a view that’s among the best in the region, a little of which can be seen in the photos included in this post that have been downloaded form the site. In various directions is Gettysburg and the battlefield, Ski Liberty, the dots of surrounding communities and the rolling farmland. Oh, and the vines that occupy a bit of the 170-acre property. The tasting room is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Tastings are $2 per person, with that money refunded if you buy any wine. This early into the process winemaker Michelle Oakes has used the juice of grapes grown elsewhere in Pennsylvania to make a red and white table wine ($11.99 each), chambourcin ($14.99), chardonnay ($16.99) and apple wine. Three hard ciders are also for sale, and a peach wine will be the next addition to the tasting room. To date, those ciders (Helen’s blend and the traditional blend) and the red table wine have broken from the gate as the best sellers.

Patrono said she’s seen a mix of visitors. Some are winery veterans, who talk about visits to other nearby wine trails and more distant regions, such as the Finger Lakes and Virginia. “And different newspaper articles are really helping us,” she said. “We’re getting people from Hanover, some from York and Chambersburg. It’s pretty exciting to see.”

Black Ankle, Woodhall have food on the brain

Making note of a couple winery and food items. Black Ankle Winery has delayed its expected opening to sometime this month at the earliest. But if you want to beat the rest of the world to a taste of the Mr. Airy, Md., winery that's getting a lot of buzz, you can purchase a couple selections at Morgan's American Grill in New Market, Md.

Meanwhile, the folks at Woodhall Wine Cellars in Parkton, Md., reported in its August newsletter that on Sunday afternoons during this month they've arranged for live music, cheap (as in price, not quality) food, great wine and a recession busting wine sale. Donations for the music will benefit the national Arbor Day Foundation. The food will be provided by Patricia Della Casual Fine Dining. The wine is by Woodhall. And the wine sale will feature a different wine variety each week, including the following:
Tomorrow, Cajun Day
Aug. 10, Italian Day
Aug. 17, Tex Mex Day
Aug. 24, Provence Day
Aug. 31, Maryland Day

The winery also is planning to offer exclusive samplings of its new Vintner's Prestige series on Saturdays through the month. There will be a charge.

Finally, the Eat In Season Challenge committee of Slow Food Baltimore will continue its series in August with a special menu at Donna’s, Charles Village, 3101 St. Paul St., Baltimore. The challenge requires that the main ingredient of each course be sourced locally. The dates are Aug. 9 through Aug. 16. Some of the menu choices are expected to be: tomato consommé with local goat cheese, homemade fresh mozzarella and tomatoes with basil and olive oil, white corn flan, Maryland crab salad with cantaloupe and fresh mint, soft-shell crabs with farmers market succotash, sweet and sour fairy tale eggplants, Springfield Farm pork tenderloin with peach chutney, and roasted local capon with lemon. Expect to see some Woodhall wines there.

Maryland on cusp of 34th winery

There should officially be 34 wineries in Maryland by the time the 25th anniversary of the Maryland Wine Festival takes place at the Carroll County Farm Museum takes place in Westminster on the weekend of Sept. 21-22. Legends Vineyard, as you read in a post earlier this week, is still waiting for its papers while tying up a number of loose ends.

“They’re going to be in Harford County, not far from Fiori Winery,” Kevin Atticks, executive director of the Maryland Wine Association, said recently, “and we have two others who are opening up in Harford County in the next couple of months. So that’s going to be exciting. Mt.Felix, they received their winery license and hoping to debut at the Maryland Wine Festival, where we’re going to have a premier tent. It will be kind of a VIP tent that people can buy into. That gets you to some of the newer wineries who wouldn’t be able to go in full force to the festival.

“We’ll be able to set up a 30 by 30 tent and sent up 10 pouring stations and all that. So they’ll be here pouring. Black Ankle is coming to pour, whereas they didn’t think they had enough to come to the main festival. Mt. Felix will be there, a couple of other ones. A guy who’s making nothing but mead is going to be there, and it’s really cool stuff.. They’re Polish immigrants, making their family’s historic recipes. It’s kind of a pretty cool story. Orchid Cellars. They are out in Thurmont.”

Atticks said one of the drawing cards of Mt. Felix will be what greets the visitor when they get there: a historic manor building the 1800s that overlooks the top of Chesapeake Bay at the Susquehanna River. “It’s a waterfront vineyard, and really a beautiful site, and they grow four or five grape varieties including Thompson seedless, which they are making into a dry wine, which is typically the green table grape that you buy at the grocery store. They’ve got a beautiful chambourcin and a couple other wines.

“Legends . . .is a fairly young couple deciding it’s time to do something fun. They’ve gotten some great expert help, gotten got some local wineries helping them out. They’re not doing it alone. You like you see some folks try, so it’s been great watching them zoom ahead and getting their labels done and all that good stuff.”

Couple squishes a lot of trips onto wine site

Terry and Kathy Sullivan (center)

and some photos from their recent

trip to Colorado wineries, all of

which you can find on their site.
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He wrote: "We were totally amazed with Colorado and the wines. Vineyards were between 4000 and 6500 feet high and I expected cold climate grapes. However they have more degree days in some of their areas than Napa. Many of the wines we tasted were in the 14 to 15+ % alcohol area. Although they have their challenges, they do not have the humidity, diseases and insects that we have on the East Coast. I don't believe that I ever had a 15% alcohol wine from anywhere on the East Coast."

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Terry Sullivan said earlier this week that he and his wife Kathy created Winetrailtraveler.com back in 2006 to educate others. But it also has taught them a thing or two about wine as they’ve traipsed around the country reviewing wineries.

“I would have to say my tastes have broadened,” said Terry. “Definitely. I now really enjoy dry reds, but on a day like today give me really pretty cold Pinot Grigio, and I’m happy with that. When we were in Canada earlier this year we tried so many different ice wines. I’m not a Cab Franc fan [not as a varietal], but the Cabernet Franc ice wines were just some of the most delicious things I’ve had the experience of trying. [And] I like my sparkling wines. I think sparkling wines probably are the best food-pairing wines that are out there because of the cleansing. They go with any kind of food you can think of.”

Their site and subsequent blog leaped up at me earlier this week as I was doing some research. Terry said both of them were wine aficionados for years before bringing their knowledge and passion to the Internet; they would take day trips to various wine festivals within a day’s drive of their home in Maryland and stop at various wineries. Then came the tipping point; it took place at a doctor’s visit in the fall of 2006. Hearing what they do, he blanched. “He mentioned that he would be scared to death of doing that,” Terry recalled. “It took me by surprise. I know my wife and I look at each other. [It was like] the light bulb went on.”

Having both recently retired from careers in education, they were searching for the next chapter in their lives. Securing a loan, they were off on their mission.

“Our site to me is significantly different,” Terry said, “because we’re talking about the experience of going to wineries. There’s not a lot of that out there; oh, maybe a few that are localized. But not a lot that have the scope that ours has.”

Originally they would write one article that feature several wineries, but soon noticed that they received better reaction from the wineries if they focused on one per article. All told, they’ve been to 233 wineries, including a recent all-paid trip to Colorado that netted a number of stories and some gorgeous pictures, some of which have been uploaded to accompany this story.

“It’s a full time job,” Terry noted. “We try to spend a week or two a month traveling to the wineries and writing about the experience. We try to spend the other two weeks working on marketing, trying to get people to advertise on our site. The blog we just added in January of this year. It’s a newer kind of experience for us, but people seem to like it. The blog has been viewed 1500 times this month.”

On these trips they’ll hit two to three wineries, spending about two to three hours in each. It all has become a routine; they’ll check into a hotel around 5 in the afternoon, write until 11, then get up the next morning and write a couple more hours before getting back on their wine trail. “It’s a lot of work,” Terry noted. “I constantly hear people tell me, ‘Oh, I’d love to have your job.’ The people who don’t write don’t know what’s involved. They think all you are doing is drinking wine all day.”

Oh, maybe that day will come down the line, when they move their business into the black and just feel like spending 24 hours celebrating. “We not making enough to support what we’re doing, but we do have some wineries advertising. Different lodgings. And as of June of ’08 we equaled all of what we made last year. So, yes, it’s showing progress. I’m happy about that. If we end up doubling each year, eventually we’ll make enough money to pay for all of our expenses.”

One issue that seemed worth raising is this whole sweet/dry debate, one ythat already has fueled a number of stories on this site. Do they see the predominance of sweet wines in this region as unique? No, Terry said.

“I think its very prevalent,” he said. “America talks dry and drinks sweet. The diehard dry fans would argue that statement, but there are a lot of people new to wine, moreso now than ever before, who start by drinking sweet. You still have a lot of beer drinkers, and they normally go to a sweet wine if they have to rink a wine.

“Wineries realize even if they personally like dry reds that, in order to be economically viable, you’ve got to put some sweet wines in the portfolio. You don’t have a nonsweet portfolio anywhere in the United States. Pretty bottles are the other thing,” noting that statistics show women buy more of the wine than men. “Oft-times they’ll buy a wine because of the color of the bottle or how pretty the label is. Some wineries have picked up on that. And they market to reach the women out there who do that. [For instance], blue bottles outsell any other bottle. It almost doesn’t matter what’s in it.”

Ice wine making debut at Pinnacle Ridge

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Noticed on the Web site of Pinnacle Ridge Winery in Kutztown, Pa., that the folks there will be introducing their 2007 Late Harvest Vidal next week on what they refer to as Wine Wednesday. Sent proprietor Brad Knapp an e-mail inquiring about both and received this almost immediate response:

We have made true ice wine in two vintages (2004 and 2005). In 2006 we kept waiting to get appropriate temperatures (15 degrees F or lower) and we lost our fruit while waiting (til mid January). The wine we are releasing on Aug. 6 is a 2007 late harvest Vidal Blanc. In 2007 we, again, were waiting for cold enough temperatures but finally decided on Dec. 27 to pick the fruit in an unfrozen state since the forecast was not showing any weather cold enough to harvest ice wine and we did not want to lose our fruit again. The fruit begins to dehydrate (rainsin) once the canopy of the vine shuts down and the leaves fall off. The vine no longer "talk to" the grapes.

There is no movement of nutrients, sugar, or water to the fruit from the vine. In essence the vine becomes a holding mechanism for the fruit. So if you let the fruit hang it will slowly dehydrate and raisin. The flavors also begin to change. A very distinct honeyed, tropical fruit character will emerge with time. The fruit looks horrible (brown, wrinkly), but tastes great and unique. It is from this type of fruit that we made our late harvest. It displays a lot of the flavors of ice wine but without the intensity of ice wine. Residual sugar is 7% (instead of the more typical 15-20% for ice wines). Price is $15/375 ml instead of $30-$80 more typical of ice wines.

Wine Wednesday is a new approach we have been using to releasing new wines. We are typically very busy on weekends and much slower during the week. So we decided to try and release our new wines on "Wine Wednesday" in order to allow our regular customers (those who get our newsletter) an opportunity to get the new releases without dealing with the crowds on weekends. We have only done it once thus far (2006 Cabernet Franc) and we got a nice group of folks who showed up to check out the new release and are going to continue the "Wine Wednesday" program.

Pouring out sound advice for new proprietors

This could have worked as simply a podcast, but with no confidence yet that readers will take the time to click the link, it made more sense to type out Rob Deford’s answer to the advice he’d give anyone going into the wine biz.

“A lot of people come in and talk to me before they start a winery,” the owner of Boordy Vineyards said a few days ago, “but I can see when they come through the door that they already have their mind made up and very little I say is going to change anything. I mean on the wine side, I would say, don’t do anything unless you’ve got the perfect site, and the vineyards come first. And then after that, I would say tread lightly in your community.”

Asked what he meant by that, Deford said: “Well, wineries are on that leading edge of agriculture going direct to consumers, and as such we represent the new ag, the so-called value-added ag where you are taking a product, a raw material and converting it on your farm and then selling it direct. And that’s a buzz word, value-added agriculture. It’s a known term in the federal government, there are actually grants directed toward that and so forth. But also on the community level it represents both a sort of local hero quality but also possibly a huge nuisance factor as you start to hold weddings and helicopter rides and, you know, loud concerts where there’s a half-hour traffic jam on your little country road. People being to look at wineries differently; in fact, I was really surprised on one of my trips to California to hear that in Napa Valley you can’t hold an event without a permit.

“I thought, woah, we take it for granted here that seven days a week that, if I want to, I can hold an event here. I don’t have to ask permission from anybody. I suddenly thought, if you get enough of us together and the guy down the road figures out that with a couple of well-placed ads he can have 2,000 people on his farm, and he thinks that’s just the greatest thing in the world, then the neighbors are going to go bonkers. So treading lightly means that remember you are part of the community and can be a huge contributor to the community. But from the very conception of your business plan, when you enter that first bureaucratic office and want to announce your intentions to the zoning people or the building code people or the community association, tread lightly and be very sensitive to the concerns of the community. Because that’s where I see most of the pain occurring is when someone hasn’t fully done their homework and understands human nature well enough that you often aren’t God’s gift to the neighborhood the way you might think you are but you really are viewed as perhaps a threat.

"And so there are many, many positive things to tell, and that’s the story we have to emphasize and the story we have to live out is the positive side. Land preservation . . . sustainable agriculture. Local food. Good wine. Family-style responsible entertainment. There are many, many good stories to tell and we have to make sure to define ourselves in a positive light going forward. That would be my little bit.”

Boordy's Deford 'bullish' on new competitors

Rob Deford calls them the old school, the wineries that were among the first sprouting up in Maryland. Talking a few days ago by phone, he recalled the seven of them that served as pioneers as the 1970s moved into the ’80s. That's about the time the Deford family bought Boordy, Maryland's first commercial winery when it was established in 1945. One by one he ticked off their name and their ultimate fate. Most went out of business. Only two remain: his Boordy Vineyards and Linganore Winecellers/Berrywine Plantations.

That story seemed particularly poignant amid today’s rapid growth in the state, which is only the matter of some paperwork away from its 34th winery. Deford, both articulate and introspective, barely needed to hear the beginning of the question regarding his feelings about this spurt before the answer just spilled out of him.

“I love it, I think it’s great,” he said. “I’m completely bullish on it, and have befriended a number of the new wineries already and what I really want tare good competitors. It’s been lonely out there for a long time. A few of us, you know, met in the same little group for 15 years and got to know way too much about each other. It just isn’t healthy. Not that it wasn’t a good group, but there’s just only so far you can go.”

It was in the mid to late 1980s that the next wave swept over the Maryland landscape, a group that included wineries called Basignani, Elk Run, Fiore, Loew and Woodhall. Deford noted their talent and commitment, but in some ways even this group fought to do anything more than tread water.

“That group, we were all kind of condemned to be in a room together for another 15 years scratching our heads on how we could grow our industry,” he said, “and things were pretty bad for a long time. We were all groping around trying to sort out how to grow grapes the best and there was no research money, there was no state marketing money. Virginia was dancing circles around us, and then finally the tables started to turn, and I think it was aided by an improving economy. I think regional foods and wines started to gain a real cachet in the marketplace, and we were starting to really get our act together, the core group that I mentioned to you, and we started to get some positive word out about the wine industry and the wines were getting better and people inevitably started to get attracted to this industry.”

Deford was president of the winery association when it hired Kevin Atticks, who’s still the executive director of the Maryland Wine Association. “He’s a wonderful guy, top drawer,” Deford said. “When we did that I’ve never felt prouder of an accomplishment in my life because he has been fantastic to work with and the updraft created by having a really tight association. A very telling moment occurred in 2006 when we had to fight for our lives over the distribution thing, and Virginia, who we always looked at as the perfect state, had their heads handed to them because they couldn’t coordinate. And Maryland won and so that was quite a realization that maybe we’ve come of age a little bit.

“Virginia lost in a smoke-filled back committee room, they lost the right to self distribute, while we were able to keep ours out in the light of day and it grew and prospered and the bill actually passed and the wholesalers lost, which was the first time they had ever lost. So that was a real turning point and that got us ironically a lot of publicity. We’ve had literally a flood of wineries coming in. I think we’ll have over 40 pretty soon. It’s real exciting and some of them are turning out to be real wonderful operations, great people to deal with. Smart. Their investment is in the right place. And what doesn’t surprise me but does surprise a lot of people is that with this . . . much more crowded neighborhood during this period of rapid, rapid growth of number of wineries, we continue to prosper like never before, and it just proves the old point that clusters are good for everybody, the business cluster is good for everybody.”