Maryland's growth: more spurt than squirt

Kevin Atticks, the executive director of the Maryland Wineries Association, and Jennifer Eckinger, who manages the Pennsylvania Winery Association, have been extremely helpful to me in trying to launch this site.

I talked to both a couple of days ago about the growth that both states are experiencing, which seemed like a good place to begin this idea of covering regional wine as a beat. What follows below is the interview with Atticks, and the one with Eckinger will run in a day or two. Once I get a few technical issues resolved, I’d like to finally post a podcast I did with Carl Helrich of Allegro Vineyards in The Brogue, Pa. Carl, hang in there. Haven’t forgotten you. Never thought the simple task of moving an audio file to blogger would knock me down for the count, but it did. I’m back on my feet. Hope to have it posted by Tuesday, May 6, and then move this into more of a daily posting.
Cheers.



Own a bottle yet from Cascia Vineyards? How about Galloping Goose or Running Hare or Serpent Ridge? Didn’t think so.

These are four of the eight Maryland wineries – the other four are Knob Hall and Cassinelli Vineyards and Perigeux and Heimbuch Estate Vineyards & Winery – expected to open at some point this year. And there will be more to come, based on everything executive director Kevin Atticks is seeing.

“It was pretty stagnant until 1998, ‘99,” Atticks said by phone the other day. But in the eight, nine years since then, “we have more than tripled. And we see that continuing because there’s just a bigger interest in wine. I’ve talked to three people today who are starting vineyards-slash-wineries who I didn’t know of yesterday. Now they could be five years out, six years out. But there are multiple people a week that I talk to about legitimate start-up.”

This passion for wine and winemaking is one of the reasons this blog makes sense now. This area of southern Pennsylvania and Maryland remains an adolescent in terms of growing grapes, certainly young when compared nationally to the more established states such as California, New York and Virginia, among others. It’s safe to say that many wine drinkers are oblivious to the wineries that exist in their state; in fact, even those aware of the growth are most likely unfamiliar with how many are out there. It was the Uncork York tour last year, which took my wife and I to 11 wineries from the Susquehanna River west to Gettysburg and north to Harrisburg, that provided the seed for this idea.

Atticks said right now there are 33 wineries across his state. “That’s licensed wineries that are making wine,” he said. “I expect to have 37 or 38 by the end of this year…. these are big jumps for a state our size.”

That increase, he expects, will continue at around a 20 percent pace for the next five or 10 years.

Now, not everyone who calls the Maryland and Pennsylvania wine associations will be churning out Chambourcin or Vidal Blanc by 2015. Some might never get beyond dreaming about it.

“They may never have the land,” Atticks said. “They may go away, which is what, think, most people do. It’s romantic . . .then they start seeing what it really means. It’s a lot of work.”

Because of the time at takes to move that dream along to a working vineyard, the more accurate numbers in assessing state growth are tied to sales.

“If I look at what the fed tells me is the number of wineries in the state,” Atticks said, “they tell me there are 49 wineries in Maryland. And that’s not true. What they are looking at is how many people have received their federal license to manufacture and they may not make themselves known to me until they are two years out, which could be three years from now. So we always go by gallons sold, because, practically speaking, that’s what’s on the ground.”

While that footprint has expanded to southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore over the last 10 years, Atticks said the biggest growth area heading past 2015 likely will occur in the Piedmont. “You have this region between Baltimore and western Maryland … kind of north of 95, [where] you’ve got the hills,” he said. “It’s just a great place to grow grapes. From Baltimore, out toward Frederick, and past Hagerstown out west. It’s going to be the best growing area. Excellent.”

Roll call

It's safe to say that most people in this area are oblivious to the number of wineries that are springing up around them. You could drive an hour north, west and south, and two hours east and find more than 30 wineries, with a couple new ones opening every year.

There are two obvious sites to go to see the big picture:

The Association of Maryland Wineries

http://www.marylandwine.com/

The Pennsylvania Winery Association

http://www.pennsylvaniawine.com/



I've added both as permanent links.

Wine beyond my reach

Wonder how I'd sleep any more soundly if I had wine in the morning and coffee at night? I'll have to try that for a week.
In addition to writing about the wineries, winemakers and wines of this region, I'll post various national and international stories I come across about wine. Hey, where else can you get this free all-in-one service.


LONDON (Reuters) - While the global credit crunch has forced many consumers to rein in spending, one Beijing-based billionaire has splashed out a record $500,000 on 27 bottles of red wine, London-based Antique Wine Company said on Saturday.
The anonymous Chinese entrepreneur bought a mix of vintages of Romanee Conti, a Burgundy wine and considered to be among the world's most exclusive with only 450 cases produced each year.
The client bought 12 bottles of Romanee Conti 1978, two bottles of the 1961, 1966, 1996 and 2003 and single bottles of the 1981, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1999, 2001 and 2002.
"It is the highest price that has ever been achieved for a single lot," Managing Director Stephen Williams of the London- based Antique Wine Company told Reuters on Saturday.

"I don't think he has bought this as an investment -- he has bought it to drink," he added. "The fine wine industry is completely immune from the global credit crunch."
The client's biggest previous purchase was 30,000 pounds ($59,880) for a case of 1982 Chateau Petrus.
Williams believes the Romanee Conti sale marks a significant change in Chinese wine buying habits.
"In the past, the Chinese have been drawn to the magnificent but simplistic qualities of the wines from the great chateaux of Bordeaux.
"Now, our leap in sales of Domaine de la Romanee Conti to mainland China this year in particular is indicating a broadening of their fine wine education and appreciation to the more complex wines of Burgundy."
The highest prices paid for fine wines are for extremely special bottles, for example, those that reputedly came out of Thomas Jefferson's cellar.
In his day, wine bottles were not labeled, so Jefferson poured the premium wines he imported in casks from Europe into bottles etched with his initials.
Malcolm Forbes, the late publisher of Forbes' magazine, set a record in December 1985 when he paid 105,000 pounds, then about $162,750, for a 1787 bottle of red wine made by Bordeaux's prestigious Chateau Lafitte.
In 2006 the Antique Wine Company sold the world's most expensive bottle of white wine, a regular-sized bottle of Chateau d'Yquem 1787 for just under $100,000.


I could see Jefferson starting a blog like this back in his day. It would have been a perfect vehicle for a guy who loved drinking and eating as much as debating the issues of the day. Here's a link to information on a book that addresses the wine passions of Jefferson and Ben Franklin.

http://www.thomasjefferson.net/

Time to roll

So why are you here? Hopefully to join me on my journey toward learning more about everything related to wine, from preparing the soil to growing the grapes to bottling and storage, and all that surrounds this equal mix of science and passion. I'd like to do that not only with my opinions and links to stories I see, but through interviews with those across the country who are involved in some form or fashion with wine. This area of Southcentral and Southeastern Pennsylvania is still in its infancy as a wine region, compared to Europe or Australia or the West Coast. Or even New York. But that makes it perfect as a case study, these more than 30 wineries that are within driving distance, from west of Gettysburg to west of Philly, north to Hershey and south across the Mason-Dixon Line into Maryland. I call it loosely as the 30 along 30; these are pioneers living in a broad area on either side of the Susquehanna River that is known for its fruit and corn and much less for wine. But it's early yet.

One winemaker in the region sees a thread pulled through all of these wineries: "I think Eric Miller at Chaddsford calls this area the Atlantic Uplands, or some such term." he wrote. "We are all more similar than different. Folks from I-76 south to Baltimore. And there are enough of us that will eventually reach a critical mass that determines a wine region with serious wines."