Southern Md. winery, with the cooperation of area growers, puts together a winning combination

Leonardtown is on the southern tip of japanese Maryland, the county seat of St. Mary’s County.

To its east are St. Mary’s School and the Naval Air Station Patuxent River. It’s about an hour and a half trip south on Route 5 from the D.C. metro space, and near a 2-hour drive from Baltimore.

It’s the place Port of Leonardtown Vineyard has been working for 10 years in a novel cooperative setup with space growers, with a local Canadian making all of it work within the cellar. This shall be Lauren Zimmerman’s seventh classic, drawn to the realm by her husband who was born and raised there. She laughed when she stated he informed her it by no means snows there. “The primary yr I moved right here there was like snowmageddon; it snowed like 3 toes and we had been snowed in for days.”

• With every passing yr her fan membership has grown, each inside the business and amongst a rising buyer base. Simply within the final 4 Maryland competitions:
• Her Rose and a pink mix known as Captain’s Desk had been named finest at school in the 2019 Comptroller’s Cup.
• Her Vidal Blanc was named finest white varietal in the 2019 Governor’s Cup.
• A Port of Leonardtown fruit wine known as McIntosh Run was named finest bruit wine and obtained the Jack Aellen Award in the 2020 Governor’s Cup, held earlier this yr.
• In the latest Comptroller’s Cup, the outcomes introduced final month, Port of Leonardtown earned finest at school for its rose, its pink (Chambourcin Reserve 2019) and its pink mix (tenth Anniversary Purple NV).

As for the background on the setup, the Southern Maryland Wine Growers Cooperative (SMWGC) cooperative was fashioned in 2007 because the area started to evolve from tobacco manufacturing to different agricultural pursuits, according to the website. A kind of was an rising wine business within the state, that might usher in {dollars} each from manufacturing and gross sales of the product and from tourism. Partnering with St. Mary’s County and Leonardtown, farmers and others with a ardour for wine fashioned the primary agricultural cooperative in Maryland. Port of Leonardtown grew to become St. Mary’s County’s first business vineyard in 2009 and the tasting room opened in 2010.

The vineyard, situated at 23190 Newtowne Neck Highway, is open Thursdays via Mondays. There’s music, together with meals vans, on the weekend, and you may test the vineyard’s Fb web page for extra particulars.

Beneath is the most recent within the “6 Questions” collection of interviews with winemakers and homeowners of East Coast wineries, which appears behind at what has been a turbulent yr and, with optimism, appears forward. Because of Zimmerman for taking outing of her day to Zoom in and discuss to my York School of Pennsylvania media writing class and reply these questions on the identical time.

Q, What’s the vibe at Port of Leonardtown Vineyard?

A, We’re very informal, we’re very low-key. We do stay music each weekend, each Saturday and Sunday. We’ve a pleasant large patio, loads of open-air area. We’re considerably of an city vineyard, we’re within the city of Leonardtown. We don’t have a number of vines on web site, which makes us slightly bit totally different [than others]. We’re really a cooperative vineyard, which is a really distinctive enterprise mannequin within the wine world. We’re the one cooperative vineyard within the U.S. that runs the best way we do; we’re basically owned and operated by grape growers. A bunch of small winery homeowners got here collectively in 2007, 2008 and fashioned the cooperative, and we opened our tasting room and vineyard manufacturing in 2010. Basically, it’s a bunch of 11 vineyards that adjust in dimension: Our smallest is half-acre of vines, very small, upwards to a few of our growers are 7, 8 acres. We’ve near 45 acres of vineyards within the cooperative, however all these winery homeowners, they carry their grapes to the vineyard and as soon as they drop the grapes off they usually’re in my fingers, they form of again away.

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They don’t actually have a say in the place the wines go or what blends occur, and it’s all bottled underneath the Port of Leonardtown label, the place different co-op-style wineries may produce particular person winery labels, which we don’t do. [The arrangement] is sweet for small vineyards that may’t afford to open their very own vineyard. Not solely do you’ve got the price of the power but additionally the tanks, the barrels, the workers. One thing like this permits smaller vineyards to be concerned within the precise winemaking and gross sales a part of the business as nicely.

Q, The place are these vineyards situated and are these the one ones you’re sourcing?

A, All of our vineyards are situated proper in southern Maryland, so between Charles County, St. Mary’s County and Calvert County, that’s the place you’ll discover all of our vineyards. Truly, the final couple of years, we’ve additionally began to supply from exterior the cooperative as a result of we’re rising in manufacturing, we want extra grapes. We’re actively on the lookout for of us to plant vines as a result of there’s a scarcity in Maryland of high quality native grapes. We actually satisfaction ourselves in with the ability to produce 100% Maryland-grown grape wine. To satisfy the demand, we’re actively on the lookout for extra vineyards. This yr we’ve capable of supply from a winery over in Frederick County, extra on the western Maryland facet, which is cool as a result of they had been capable of develop the Sauvignon Blanc grape a lot better than we might ever develop down right here. It’s simply too scorching in southern Maryland.

Q, Do you go to all these vineyards through the rising season?

A, An enormous a part of my job through the summer season season is strolling via the vines, simply checking up on issues, checking the development of grapevines. It simply units me up for being ready when harvest comes. It provides me an thought of the yields and the way a lot we’re going to get from every winery. As a lot as I’d prefer it to be the identical yearly, it’s very totally different what we harvest from every winery.

So to have the ability to put together my provides, my tank stock, I’ve to be within the loop on what number of grapes are on the market. And the standard, too; after we get shut to reap to me it’s tremendous necessary to watch not solely the flavour of the grapes however we test the sugar ranges, we test the acid ranges, and with these totally different parameters we determine on the precise second when it’s essentially the most optimum to choose the grapes. What’s actually key to producing world-class high-quality wines is selecting the grapes on the proper time.

Q, So for guests, is there meals? And speak about your anniversary wine I noticed you’ve got highlighted.

A, We’ve cheese plates, and that form of factor. We do meals vans on the weekends; a number of instances on Saturdays you may come out and we now have meals vans concurrently the band that’s taking part in. They all the time have a number of scrumptious issues on their menu that you would be able to usher in or decide up. We all the time encourage individuals to herald snacks, too, so it really works out properly.

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We celebrated our tenth anniversary in 2020. [Not a good year, obviously]. We had been really closed down all the summer season of 2020. We didn’t have our terrace open. We had been simply doing curbside pickup. We had been planning to have an enormous social gathering and have fun, however, after all, that didn’t occur. If the mandates begin to raise and the restrictions begin to raise, we’d do a celebration. Ten years being open is an enormous deal for us. We made a really particular pink wine, a really particular mix. It really simply gained finest pink in Maryland on the Comptroller’s Cup. We’ve it in a daily bottle and in addition in a magnum bottle. 1.5 liters. It’s $90 … a really big day form of wine.

Q, What’s mixing time like for you? Is it one thing you get pleasure from?

A, It’s enjoyable doing the mixing trials. You’re tasting a number of wines. For me, as a winemaker, it may be slightly worrying. You wish to create the proper mix. So there’s a number of stress there. However often, we’ll usher in a bunch and style via all of the wines, and we’ll make notes, issues that stand out within the wine, the flavour, the feel, the aromatics, after which we simply begin mixing totally different ratios collectively till we are able to discover the proper mix. It’s actually a bonus we now have right here at Port of Leonardtown due to the cooperative, we now have so many extra grape varieties to work with.

We’ve over 30 grape varieties, the place a typical vineyard might need far fewer grape varieties within the winery. Since we now have so many vineyards, we now have much more to select from, and that offers us a bonus and a superb motive why our reds achieve this nicely in competitions. We are able to mix till we discover one thing that’s actually excellent. It’s enjoyable, completely. I believe one other key to our success is simply being affected person and never releasing our wines early.

Q, You had been one of many winemakers who talked about your expertise with COVID-19 again in November. What was that entire episode like?

A, It surprises me even to this present day, simply blows me away. We had been climbing within the Shenandoah Mountains. We had been doing like a 15-mile hike. Feeling nice. The very subsequent day, it was like being hit by a practice. Simply felt horrible. Positive sufficient, I examined constructive for COVID. A number of days later, I used to be simply feeling completely horrible. Went to the hospital, barely capable of breathe. Gasping for air. I ended up having pneumonia and my lungs had been basically shutting down. They needed to hook me as much as oxygen. I wound up Within the hospital for six days being handled for COVID. It was very scary. I misplaced my sense of style and odor; that alone is terrifying for a winemaker who depends upon my senses to supply these wines.

That’s a quite common symptom, to lose your sense of odor and style. Fortunately it solely lasted for just a few days, the place I misplaced 100% of odor and style. Brushing my tooth, I couldn’t style something. Then it slowly began coming again. It was a matter of six weeks till I had my full capability to style and odor again, and that was an enormous aid for me. It was worrying sufficient to be away from the wines for nearly three weeks, and never with the ability to monitor issues. As a winemaker, it’s a must to decide up faults that develop within the tanks early, so if there’s a difficulty you wish to nip it within the bud. In fact, for those who can’t style or odor, you may’t try this. It was positively a worrying time for me. Fortunately, I’m feeling nice now. I really feel like anybody who had COVID, the senses come again however the pace [at which they come back] varies.

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