Welcome to the Wine Club

Complimentary Club Membership Includes Many Attractive Perks:

Maryland Wine

  • Monthly e-newsletter highlighting featured and recommended wines, area wine tastings, events and festivals, and more
  • Online access to food & wine pairing recipes
  • Tastings every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Wine World
  • Discerning wine knowledge and impeccable taste: Bragging rights!

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Wine Tips

When tasting the wine there are many descriptors you might experience. But each of these will fall into 3 basic categories. Again, they are one of the following:

Wine tip #1 -Sweetness

Sweetness is the opposite of dry. Off-dry is in the middle. It has a touch of sweetness. Sweet is sweet. It just depends on how much sugar is in the wine.

Wine tip #2 - Acidity

White wines are generally more acidic than red wines. Acidity is often an indicator of dryness. Acidity is indicative of the level of crispness. Non acidic wines are fat or flabby.

Wine tip #3-Tannin

Tannin comes from the skins, the seeds, and the stems of the grapes. It causes the drying out feeling in your mouth at the end of the taste and in the finish. Too much tannin sometimes causes a bitter taste.

Did you know?

How Merlot got it's name.

Merlot–– Little Blackbird
Merlot is a thin-skinned grape that most often produces a dry, flavorful, red wine. It makes admirable wines on its own, but can also be blended with other grape varieties to create softer red wines. Merlot is most often blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, two of its cohorts from the Bordeaux region.

The first recorded mention of Merlot was when a 1784 vintage wine, made from the grape, was named one of the Libournais region's best. The name "merlot" is French and translates to "young blackbird," which is used because of the grape's dark-blue color or perhaps because of the blackbird's love for grapes. Researchers from the University of California, Davis believe that Merlot is an offspring of Cabernet Franc France, Italy, and California are the primary producers of Merlot.

Nature and Merlot have a somewhat love-hate relationship. However, the vines can be very vulnerable to early spring frosts. Merlot is also a key target of birds and cannot tolerate any kind of bird damage due to its fragile skin. Also, it is able to ripen in cooler regions than required for Cabernet Sauvignon, but is harder to grow because of its high susceptibility to fungus and mold diseases.

"The East Coast gets pretty heavy rain in the early season, just about as wet as they get," says Tucker O'Brien of Wynne Winery in Leonardtown. "Our Merlot grows on incredibly vigorous vines in an area where vigor isn't hard to find because of the rich nutrients in the soil," says O'Brien. He believes the southern and central growing of Maryland are prime locations for growing Merlot.

Wines from Merlot tend to soft, fruity, and smooth in texture. The more common flavors are plum, cherry, and blackcurrant. Aromas of vanilla and coconut can be produced from lightly oaked Merlot.

"The soils of the Eastern Shore impart a special earthiness to our Chester River Merlot," says Don Tilmon of Tilmon's Island Winery in Sudlersville. "The finish is soft and pleasing."

Events

Sugarloaf Mountain Winery
Inaugural Event

Linganore Winecellars
Desserts in the Cellar

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