Maryland Wineries

As he adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses, 24-year-old Kevin M. Atticks, a journalism teacher at Loyola College, says it is a rare Maryland wine that he would not recommend."

Maryland Wine Festival for farm museumI wish to bring to your attention inaccuracies in your March 2 article "Restaurant Cash Trail May Lead to Costa Rica." The Maryland Wine Festival is not a Jerry Hardesty festival. It is a well-respected wine festival conducted by the Carroll County Farm Museum as a fund-raiser to help defray the operating costs of the museum.The Maryland Wine Festival receives the wholehearted support of the Association of Maryland Wineries. Virtually all Maryland wineries participate in the festival.

AUTHOR Kevin Atticks will appear at Cygnus Wine Cellars of Manchester, where owner/winemaker Ray Brasfield will release three new wines at a free tasting from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday."

All jazzed upLounge on the banks of College Creek at St. John's College, Annapolis, and cozy up to the cool sounds of the sixth annual JazzFest '98 Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Headliner Charlie Byrd (pictured) will perform with steel drummer Derek DiCenzo. Other acts include Susannah McCorkle, Monty Alexander, Main Street Octet and Unified Jazz Ensemble. Proceeds benefit the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra. Tickets cost $15 in advance and $20 at the gate. Group rates are available, and children under 12 get in free.

Jerry Hardesty, owner of the Middleton Tavern near the City Dock in Annapolis, has maintained control of the Mid-Atlantic Wine Festival, designed to promote Maryland wines and microbrews, despite a contentious battle that 10 Maryland wineries waged to oust him.On Monday, the three-member Anne Arundel County liquor board gave Hardesty the license he needs to operate the June 1998 festival, usually held at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds in Crownsville.The...

Why are Dell and Haines trying to dry up the Maryland Wine 0) Festival?Carroll County Commissioner Donald Dell's woefully misguided efforts to undermine the Maryland Wine Festival (Nov. 10) are nothing new.He was preaching the same gospel back in 1992. As coordinator of the wine education seminars for the Maryland Wine Festival, I wrote a letter, printed in the Carroll County Times and copied to Mr. Dell, carefully addressing each of his objections. Now he has been joined in his diatribe by state Sen. Larry Haines, but it's the same old song.

This weekend, the sophisticated can sample Chardonnay, chicken divan and boogie-woogie.The Wine in the Woods festival, sponsored by the county Department of Recreation and Parks, is returning for its second year, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday, to Symphony Woods in Columbia.Planners are expecting at least 15,000 visitors -- 5,000 more than last year."Last year, we got a lot of positive feedback, and we've been getting calls all year about the next one," said Joanne Moroney, Rec and Parks special events coordinator and festival co-chairwoman.

Call it a vintage case of sour grapes, this tiff between the Association of Maryland Wineries and Annapolis tavern owner Jerry Hardesty.The 10 vintners in the association are stomping-mad at Mr. Hardesty for using his capital connections to win passage of a General Assembly bill allowing him to invite out-of-state wineries to his yearly beer and wine bash. The vintners say this violates the spirit of 1984 legislation that created the Maryland Wine Festival as a promotional tool for Maryland's small but reputable wine industry.

Howard County hopes this weekend's Wine in the Woods will siphon off a portion of the wine festival tourism market like a spout hammered into a wooden cask.Organizers say the inaugural event could become an annual affair that will rival or even surpass the popular Maryland Wine Festival that drew 23,000 people last fall in Westminster.The festival's sponsor, the county Department of Recreation and Parks, has budgeted about $100,000 for the two-day event.Joanne Moroney, who is co-chairwoman for the festival, said at least 10,000 people are expected to attend.

Call it a vintage case of sour grapes, this tiff between the Association of Maryland Wineries and Annapolis tavern owner Jerry Hardesty.The 10 vintners in the association, including three based in Mt. Airy, are stomping-mad at Mr. Hardesty for using his capital connections to win passage of a General Assembly bill allowing him to ask out-of-state wineries to his yearly beer and wine bash. The vintners say this violates the spirit of 1984 legislation that created the Maryland Wine Festival as a promotional tool for Maryland's small but reputable wine industry.

Baltimore County will build a $9 million agriculture center in Hunt Valley that will offer office and meeting space as well as classrooms, greenhouses and demonstration fields for groups now spread throughout the area. Officials said the Baltimore County Center for Maryland Agriculture, located on a 149-acre property just west of Interstate 83 on Shawan Road, will extend the county's commitment to farming. The county purchased the land from the Tillman family, which had operated a horse farm and boarding business there.

A House of Delegates committee yesterday rejected a bill that would let Maryland consumers buy wine directly from Internet merchants and wineries, as is permitted in at least 35 other states. The bill was also debated yesterday in the Senate, though its chance of passage appears slim. Wine lovers and Maryland wineries have been battling the state's liquor distributors for several years over the issue. Under current law, online direct-to-consumer sales of alcohol are largely prohibited because they circumvent the "three tier" regulatory system in place that requires producers to sell to wholesalers, who distribute cases of wine to retail stores.

Time to loosen state's liquor laws? As the chairman of the Baltimore County Board of Liquor License Commissioners, I read with interest and dismay The Sun's editorial about the proposal before the General Assembly to allow direct shipment of wine to consumers in Maryland ("Special delivery," Feb. 20). I was particularly struck by the editorial's statement that "it's easy enough to make sure the deliveries are signed by someone age 21 or older." My five years of experience with the Baltimore County liquor board belies this statement.

The woods are the same, but the amount of wine has grown considerably as Wine in the Woods celebrates its 15th year in Columbia Town Center this weekend. The festival, organized by the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks, plans to feature 18 Maryland wineries - its largest number - from noon to 6 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday. It will offer food, entertainment, 10 musical acts on two stages and more than 70 craftspeople. The festival drew 15 wineries last year and 10 in 2004. The first Wine in the Woods in 1993 also had 10 wineries.

Morris Zwick likes to say that he got into the wine business at the consumption end and worked his way backward. That interest in wine, stretching back years, was in part what prompted Zwick and his wife, Janet Zwick, to begin growing grapes on her family farm in 2003. But the couple, who plan to open Terrapin Station Winery in Elkton in May, had no illusions when they entered the industry of just how difficult - and costly - this new endeavor would be. (In Maryland, the initial investment for labor, vines, trellises and other expenses for a vineyard is estimated to be between $10,000 and $15,000 per acre.

The lawn mowers arrived first, turning the grass into a neat, green carpet beneath a leafy canopy of trees. Next, water and electric lines were strung through the trees 14 feet above the ground. A couple of thousand feet of fencing was rolled out. Piles of wood chips were spread over paths. Nearly 70 tents were put up. Today, the wineries and the artisans arrive, completing the weeklong transformation of Symphony Woods in Columbia into a bustling festival site for the 14th Wine in the Woods festival from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

The lawn mowers arrived first, turning the grass into a neat, green carpet beneath a leafy canopy of trees. Next, water lines were laid, and electric lines were strung through the trees 14 feet above the ground. A couple of thousand feet of fencing was rolled out. Piles of wood chips were spread over paths. Nearly 70 tents were put up. Today, the wineries and the artisans arrive, completing the weeklong transformation of Symphony Woods in Columbia into a bustling festival site for the 14th Wine in the Woods festival from noon to 6 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday.

Aprediction for the dining scene this summer and beyond: Doggy bags shaped like bottles will become fashionable in Maryland. That's assuming, of course, that Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. decides to sign into law a bill making it legal for a restaurant patron to take home an unfinished bottle of wine. The proposal is pretty straightforward - the diner has to cap or cork the bottle (duh, as a pesky maitre d' might say) and is expected to keep it away from passengers (the glove box and trunk are the preferred places to stash)

Almost all Maryland wineries will retain the ability to sell directly to retailers and restaurants under a compromise reached with liquor wholesalers, averting what winemakers feared could have been a death knell for their fledgling industry. Under the new proposal, which has the support of leaders in the General Assembly and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., wineries that produce less than 27,500 gallons annually will be eligible for a limited wholesaler's license. That would enable them to avoid contracting with a third-party wholesaler, which winemakers said is cost prohibitive for small operations.

Maryland may never be California or New York when it comes to winemaking, but farmers here at least would like to stay in the game. But the Maryland industry suffered a blow recently when the state comptroller's office issued an order forbidding winemakers from selling their products directly to restaurants and retailers. The move came on the heels of a Supreme Court decision last year that struck down state laws barring direct shipments of out-of-state wines to customers if the state allows those shipments from in-state winemakers.