Fine Wine from the Old Line State: Visiting Two of Maryland's Finest

Class transcript:

All right, welcome one and all, and happy Sunday to you. It is a pleasure, as always, to have you all with us for our regular Sunday wine learning. They're honored to still be here after 32 weeks and still have so many of you interested in what I have to say all these many weeks later. I am honored thrilled to have guests today and to talk about my home state Maryland's amazing wines. Not only do we have the greatest state flag in the country, New Mexico and Ohio be damned, but we also have some of the most thoughtful and progressively minded vintners in the country, as well, especially for a state at size, so you know Virginia; or, you know, Virginia is kind of the local wine of behemoth.

The state lawmakers were much more forward-thinking about kind of kick-starting the industry in their state. That didn't come until 2000, actually, in Maryland, in terms of enabling wineries to sell on-site at least you know for the sake of wine by the glass. But you know the industry has thrived nonetheless and we'll be talking to two wineries that you know aren't even on their I mean I guess 2008 and you know for your sake at Old Westminster what we're talking 2011, so you know ten plus years now but you know industry leaders each in their own way for the sake of community building for the sake of non-interventionist wine practices and for the sake of environmental stewardship all in a country that produces less than a half a tenth of a percent of the nations of a nation's wine so I think you know we really do.

You have an abundance of riches, an embarrassment of local riches for you know a local wine region and a state of its size that is Maryland. I'm going to give you all a few more moments to join us but just wanted to give everyone a chance to say hi. Drew Baker is joining us. Thank you, Drew. His son, his newly born son was up all night, but he has made time and soldiered through his day and it's a longer day. It feels like a cruel twist of fate that you get an extra hour when you don't need it. I'm just looking forward to this one to be over with. I'm so excited to be here with you all this afternoon. Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining us, Drew, and then we have Regina and Tom joining us from Anne Arundel County; please say hello to everyone Regina and Tom. Hello, everyone. We're so happy to be here. I remember the very first class that Bill did, and I joined it, and I was crying. I was so grateful for extended hospitality, even through a Zoom conference call, so it's really, really fun and special for us to be able to participate today. And I'll just say hi after that introduction from Regina. Thank you so much Tom. So, without further ado, I'm going to keep hitting admit because the powers that be at Zoom have you know disables one of my favorite functions for the sake of disabling the waiting room.

But I promise to those of you who get booted that we will do our best to make sure that you get back in class. Thanks again for joining us. We have a bunch of wines, cheaply devoted to two wines each from Old Westminster and Doden. We're gonna give Regina a chance to speak to the history of wine making in Maryland. Then we're going to give Drew a chance to talk a little bit about the history of the Tio Wine Kit making in Maryland. House Home beforehand, and I'll bring it to you guys very soon. Essa Budget Lake, PROP CNH from Old Westminster and Odin. I'll bring it to Regina again in a moment. Over his wine so he can get back to his son, and then I will close things out with Tom and the lovely offerings that we're sharing with you from Doden today.

So without further ado, a bit of verse as always for you, and sharing a bit of verse from an old Wine School favorite. This is Linda Paston. Linda Paston is a former poet laureate of Maryland. We've shared her work before. She's one of my favorite modern poets. She went to Radcliffe with Sylvia Plath once upon a time and outperformed Sylvia in a Radcliffe poetry jam, and writes, you know, very un-Plath-like poems. They're, you know, very thoughtful moments in domestic life that she captures better than anyone that I can think of. It's a little longer one so bear with me. It's called 'Dreams' by Linda Paston. Dreams are the only afterlife we know. The place where the children we were rock in the arms of the children we have become.

They are as many as leaves in their migrations, as birds whose deaths we learn of by the single feather left behind, a clue, a particle of sleep caught in the eye. They are as retrievable, irretrievable rather, as sand when the sea creeps up, its long knife glittering in its teeth to claim its patrimony. Sometimes my father in knickers and cap waits on that shore, the dream of him a wound, not even morning can heal. The dog's legs pump in its sleep, your closed eyelids flicker as the reel unwinds, watcher and watch, archer and bullseye. Last night I dreamed a lover in my arms and woke innocent. The sky was starry to the very rind, his smile so burning there like the tail of comet that has just blazed by.

I had no idea what particular bearing that bit of verse has on our lesson today, but, you know, it is a beautiful poem and we are proud to share the work of a former Maryland State Poet Laureate. Without further ado, Regina, we are drinking wine from a state that, you know, I will say most people, even in the DMV, don't associate with, you know, wine and wine making. You know, I think to the uninitiated, it would seem that, you know, Maryland's history in wine is very new. Is that a safe assumption or, you know, are you here to dispel that notion? I'm here to dispel that notion. We are certainly often thought of as the underdog here in the Mid-Atlantic, but Maryland has a surprisingly rich history.

The, as we all know, Thomas Jefferson was the main guy that we think about making wine and innovating. So, you know, we have a history of wine growing back in that day, but here in Maryland, we actually have record of wine growing, grape growing and wine making from the 1560s up through the 1750s. In fact, we have some really amazing authors and thought leaders who wrote really important books about wine growing in America. So I'll tell you a little bit about those. Just a little bit of current information. We have over 100,000 Licensed wineries in the state of Maryland. So we are certainly a smaller footprint than Virginia, but we have over a thousand acres of grape vines in the ground.

So we're, we're getting there. But as I said, the, the first mentions of grape growing and wine making go back to the 1560s with the French Huguenots. Later on, we see mentions with a gentleman named Tennis Paley in 1648, who grew Muscat. We hear about Lord Baltimore, who had plans to, to plant a 300-acre vineyard. There's two kinds of folklore stories about what happened. Either the plants never made it here or he planted them and they died. There was a clear and deliberate movement to plant grapes and make wine here in the mid-Atlantic when European settlers arrived. They just weren't very successful for the most part, unfortunately, up and down the coast. That's not a unique Maryland story though. That is a pretty universal, you know, new grape growing experience in the new world.

Exactly. Exactly. There was a gentleman named John Adlam, who was a colonist in the Revolutionary War. He was also a judge and a surveyor. He settled down in Havre de Grace up in the northern part of the state and planted a vineyard there. He later on moved to Georgetown, of all places, planted a big vineyard, like a hundred acres. In Georgetown proper? Yes, in Georgetown. I don't know exactly where, but he was in D.C., in Georgetown. Right where we're going. I don't know where Clyde's is today. He was buddies with T.J. He and Thomas Jefferson would send wine back and forth to each other, and apparently his wine got some good feedback. But more importantly, he wrote a book, the first book published in the United States, called 'Winemaking in America: A Memoir on the Cultivation of the Vine in America and the Best Mode of Making Wine.' We're going to have to work on his branding, I think.

He ended up working with Catawba, which is a grape that ended up becoming very popular in Ohio. So he was kind of a big deal. And then another little bit of an interesting trivia for you: FDR, right when the New Deal was taking place, had this theory that winegrowing and winemaking could be part of our initiative to get back on the right track. Part of the American Revitalization Project. They actually built a research winery in Beltsville at the USDA Research Center. It was gravity flow. They had refrigerated fermentation rooms. They had all of the equipment. They had a cellar, the whole nine yards. Congress got wind, said no way, this is not a project that's happening, and they froze the funding. And a bunch of the equipment ended up out in California.

But another little Maryland trivia for you. And then, you know, not much happened really between that Prohibition-era winery and, you know, the next few years. But in 1945, Bordy Vineyards is our first modern-day commercial vineyard and winery that was launched. The owner was a man named Philip Wagner. And he was a journalist for the Baltimore Sun. He was a London correspondent. And he traveled around France. Grabbing little clippings of American French hybrids. And the story goes that he would keep them alive by soaking them in the bidets at night in his travels through France. He brought Vidal back here to the States. He wrote a couple of really important books. I know even Tom read these books when he was getting started. Warren Winiarski touts him as one of the foremost thought leaders in early American wine growing.

And that's kind of how Bordy Vineyards got its start. Before it transitioned to its new owners. So kind of a slow start. But some really interesting folks in the mix. There was a bit of a growth in the 1970s and 1980s with wineries opening up. And then in the early 2000s, we saw more wineries open. And then it was around 2010 that we saw a real influx. And since then, it's just been growing like a vine. There's lots of wineries that are just opening every day. And folks doing really innovative stuff. So we're in a really cool time in Maryland wine's history. And I think that's something that's going to continue to grow. Regina, I feel like you're better positioned to answer this than any other person.

Do you feel like there is a distinct identity when it comes to Maryland wines? Or do you feel like... You broke up a little bit. Oh, sorry. Is there a Maryland wine kind of fingerprint? Is there a signature yet? Or is that something that just hasn't developed? I don't think we're there yet. I think where we have so many diverse growing regions in this state. You think about the beaches on the eastern shore. That sandy soil. The mountains in the west. The Piedmont area. We have so, so much diversity in terms of landscape. Thank you. That I think regionally we will find strengths in different pockets. But I don't think we have our Maryland grape yet. Great. Thank you so much, Regina. That feels like a great segue.

For the sake of our first, you know, set of wines to taste through. And that would be a Rosé. And a fabulous, kind of wildly elegant multi-vintage. From the folks at Old Westminster. You know, it should be said, please do not wait to drink. If you are. You know, waiting at home. You know, kind of drink away, but this is Mr. Drew Baker. He is one of three. Baker siblings who essentially, you know, kind of repurposed the family farm for the sake of viticulture. I'm going to share a port to kind of a picture of your cartoonishly beautiful family. Drew and I want you to kind of give folks a sense of how did you guys, you are kind of, you're in Carroll County, which is kind of the I don't know if you call it outer line suburbs of Baltimore or.

I think of it as kind of like old-school Baltimore horse country or. You know, but it's. You know, kind of do north of Washington and do north and west of Baltimore, but in that unlikely place, how did you all come to be making wine? Yeah, sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on the show. It's a, it's a pleasure to be here and to hang out and talk with you all. And I'm excited to share the story of. Our humble origins and efforts to repurpose the family farm and. Work together as a family and bring community together and make wines that we're proud of. I did just wanted to say, Regina, thank you. Wow. That is a, that's a picture. Great. Come on. Oh, boy.

I feel like, I feel like if your sisters were on the show, they would be upset that the other in-laws aren't in on this picture. So. I think it's just Ashley's husband, right? It's just adorable. Isn't it? Yeah. Regina, thank you so much for, for sharing that history. I really enjoyed listening and I did just want to, to add one note that I, that I think is pretty cool. You had mentioned John Adlam down in Georgetown cultivating Catalba. So he actually got those Catalba cuttings that he went on to famously cultivate from a Mrs. Joel who owned the land at Clarksburg, which is. About well, where I, where we think it is, is about two miles away from where I live now and where our new Burnt Hill farm is.

So there's some humble sort of origin. The origins of Catalba in Clarksburg, Maryland. So we're actually cultivating some Catalba and hopefully in years, I guess, decades to come. Hoping to reclaim a small piece of that story. I don't, I don't want to, you know, cut you off for the sake of telling, you know, your family story, but I think, you know, for the sake of the job, it is worth mentioning. Is that, you know, a grape like Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot? Or is it, you know, a different entity altogether? It's a differently, it's a different entity altogether. And I think Tom would probably be more qualified to speak to it's a genetic makeup. But it is. It is. It is.

It is actually a blend of a native American cultivar and via DNA testing, they discovered that it has a significant proportion of semi-own in its genetics. I think really fascinating and random. And as you might imagine, there's all sorts of or all sorts of speculations, but very little. You know, definitive answers for how exactly that happened. But there are some early writings about the vines that Mrs. Scholl had at her in and Clarksburg, that sort of those who would pass through would write about how interesting the wines were. And it was only up until recently that it was believed to be 100% native for a long, long time and only recently discovered that it has some own in its genetic code. I actually thought it was 100% native. How embarrassing for me.

And I should say, you know, more broadly that. I think people largely underestimate the rich history of winemaking on the East coast. You know, cheaply. Originally in places like the Hudson Valley, in Western New York, but Ohio. Had a huge wine industry pre-prohibition devoted largely to sparkling wine from, you know, American hybrids, but, you know, people have been making wine here for a long time. We just didn't have a good 20th century on the East coast. Yeah, certainly. And I, you know, just to kind of go back to. You know, the origins of Catawba. I think that, you know, it, it is an American grape. And I think the fact that it's now discovered that there is semi-own in, in, in its origin story, I think still is aligned with the idea of calling it an American grape.

And, you know, so much, so many of the grape vines that we cultivate today can be traced to really fascinating origins. And, you know, I, I think that, you know, the, the genetic makeup of, of grape vines and of, of The, the clonal variation there within is. It's so fascinating and goes back to, you know, this whole idea of grape vines, really having a story to tell of a particular time and place. And. You know, when isolated there. And farmed by it. By, you know, particular people. Within ethos of their own, whatever that may be. There is. You know, an evolution that takes place in, in, you know, in real time. And it doesn't take that long before we can step back and observe it.

So I think that that is, you know, one of the more fascinating things that I've come to love about wine and, and growing grapes in Maryland, where you know, I. Regina had mentioned that we haven't found our grape. I couldn't agree more. And also, personally comfortable with that. With that lack of solidified identity. And, you know, one of my favorite things to do is or one of the, my. One of the things that I get the most joy out of in sharing our wines with people who may or may not have ever had a glass of wine from Maryland before is: is to have the opportunity to share those wines and our story. Without some preconceived bias or notion about what wines from that particular region ought to be.

You know, without that sort of, without the rigidity of, of. You know what we do here as a backdrop to the conversation, it's just an opportunity, I think, to tell, you know, really human stories about our family and what we do and why we do it. Why our wines are grown and produced in the way that they are and, and how we really are just seeking to farm well and make wines that we believe in quite simply and, and hopefully are a pleasure to drink. And, you know, and, you know, we hope that you like them and, and if not, that's okay. We love them and our, our, our just happy to, you know, to share that family story. So I'm going to share this picture of your folks with the three of you again.

I feel like your folks engineered this whole vineyard experiment. Just so that they can keep the three of you. You know, close at hand. And the family together. And have all their beautiful, you know, grandchildren running among. The vines. It feels like a, a bit of a plot by, you know, kind of perspective, grandparents, true. To that or. You're getting some, you're getting some pleasure out of embarrassing me, Bill. I can tell. Yes. So. The, the, the origin story of old Westminster winery. We moved on to the farm. That is now old Westminster winery in 1999. I was 12 years old at the time. And we moved from Anne Arundel County. Actually, I was born in Annapolis, not far from Doden. And so that was home for my early years.

We moved to Westminster. On to what was. Up until the late nineties, old Westminster nursery. For about a hundred years. It grew predominantly juniper bush and other shrubs went out of business. And my folks. Looking to move to. The country and sort of transplant the family there. We moved out that way in 1999. In the 2008. Timeline myself and my sisters who are all quite close in age. There's three of us. You saw in the picture, we all look the same age. There's just three years between us. We were all the way at college at the same time. My parents were empty nesters. My dad's a carpenter. My mom's a nurse. They both still work in those occupations. 2008 was a tough time to be a carpenter.

There weren't things to build, if you will. And so my parents actually were looking to sell the farm. They actually listed the farm on the market for about a year. Yeah. So, actually looking back, we're really thankful that they were unsuccessful in their attempt to downsize. And I actually remember. Christmas time. 2010 sitting around the Christmas. The kitchen table and my dad asking, you know, the family. What are, what are we going to do? And. So. We were. You know, out of necessity, kicking the tires on ideas to put the land to work. I was really captivated by the idea of an, an agriculure based business, especially value added the idea of growing a crop and turning it into a product that we were proud of and would get to share.

And my sister, Lisa, was in school for chemistry. We quickly convinced her that being a winemaker would be more fun than residency. And so we were off to, off to the races. And so there, we just kind of had a moment where, you know, we collectively decided to, you know, then go on an adventure together. We jumped in and headfirst. I graduated from school the following December. I actually worked at 40 vineyards that summer. As an intern and into that. And into the fall of 2010, which was a really great vintage. And then the following spring. I moved home and at three months after graduating from college, we planted our first 8,000 grapevines on the family farm. I lived at home and attended the vineyard myself, my cousin helped me put in all of our vineyard posts.

We put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into the project. And, you know, for the first four years, didn't pay myself a dollar. And, you know, we really just, my, my, my parents. Put their entire retirement in and with the help of a loan from my grandfather. We, we built a small pole barn, which was our initial winery. And, you know, we really bootstrapped the project off the ground. And, you know, looking back, I'm just so proud, honestly, of of everything that we've accomplished together. And it's just been a long sequence of, you know, putting one foot in front of the other and, you know, continually trying to. You know, farm and grow grapes. And make wines and create experiences for our community. That we're proud of, and you know, and seeking.

You know, seeking to bring others into that adventure with us. So that's kind of the old Westminster origin story. Yeah, no, I love it. And I love the way that each of you leans. Into your kind of individual roles for the sake of this larger product. So, you know, you are the vineyard manager. Extraordinary sister. Lisa is. You know, the wine maker extraordinaire. And then Ashley is, you know, the guest facing. You know, kind of. You know, service side personality, kind of like myself. For the sake of what you all do and you all. You know, operate at such a high level and, you know, it feels like a family affair. You know, to visit you all, it feels intensely personal. And, lovably, you know, without the trappings of luxury living that you often get with wine.

It's just a, you know, come here, you know, we're. You know, hugely serious. And, you know, I'm curious about what we do and, you know, I have this like, you know, raging intellectual curiosity down to the origins of Catawba. You know, but by the same token, you know, it's just wine and glass at the end of the day. Which brings us to a Rosé. And Sarah, I should say, this is one of my favorite wines that you guys have made. Tell us about what a vineyard does this Sarah come out of? And, you know, how do you think about this Rosé, you know, within your constellation of wines. Yeah, for sure. So this Sarah Rosà is actually, it's a Rosà of two vineyard origins. So it's not a single site story.

We have Sarah. Let's back up a little bit. It is a tricky grape to grow in this region. And we have. Over the past couple of years. Made Rosà from the grape. Because we have found that just as a function of. Of. Assessing the fruit late in the season that it has served us best as of late to harvest a bit earlier. Rather than to push the ripening envelope. And so we, and we think that Sarah makes really lovely RosÃ. So this is a blend of, of, of two vineyards. One being our home vineyard. Where we have. A half an acre of Sarah. So it's a very small little block. Last. Last year. We got just about 12,000 pounds of grapes out of that particular block. And this year we.

We one-upped ourselves and got just over a ton. Out of that half-acre block. There is another vineyard that's called Pads View. Which is in Hartford County. And in that vineyard, they also are growing Sangiovese and Merlot. And we have. A great working relationship with those folks. And for the past four years, we have sourced all of their fruit. And so in this particular Sangiovese Rosé. We took the Sangiovese from both vineyards. Because the yields were small. And we pressed and co-fermented from the very beginning. And made a whole cluster press. Sarah Rosé. Yeah. Yeah. And so with our press cycles too. We load. We loaded basically we. We harvest the fruit. We chill it overnight to get it nice and cold. Throw it in the press, and we, in this particular case, give it a nice firm squeeze.

And then we sort of let it macerate in the press, sealed up. And, and. We basically make that press cycle last about a half a day. And so we're able to get just you know, a nice little bit of color. And otherwise not to pick up too much phenolics or tannin. And it's just kind of really zippy and fresh. It's a really lovely halfway house though. Cause it's not. It's definitely not direct press. You know, but it's not Sarnier either. It's really, you know, kind of this fun. So Sarnier is a different way to make Rosé for the uninitiated that you know, essentially draws off a nascent red wine from a red wine bat. And tends to produce these like denser inky Rosés.

And so this is a little fuller in body than you typically find with, you know, something like your classic Provençal. But, you know, it's still like, wow. Refreshing and super fun. Thank you. The rep. This is not vintage dated. And it's a blend of, you know, kind of classic Bordeaux varietals. And then. Another hybrid varietal. No. How do you approach this blend from year to year? You know, what informs, you know, your, your vision for this wine, given that, you know, it's a snapshot, not only. Of. Multiple varietals, but multiple vintages and multiple vineyards. Yeah, for sure. So Rev is. You know, our sort of all Maryland classic red blend. It's a cuvée we make every year and we're actually intentional about this particular wine. To be a cross section of vintages vineyards and varieties.

So it is a bit of a kitchen sink blend. And as I mentioned, we go out of our way to make that true in this particular wine. And so what we're looking to do is to just make. A really approachable. Nice medium bodied red wine. I think it accentuates acidity and highlights. A broad section of, of red grapes that, that we love and we believe in from this region. Namely Cabernet Franc. Petit Bordeaux. Chamberson are sort of the, in the driver's seat. In this particular wine. It does also have. Some Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot as well. But it is it's a, it's a broad cross section of, of, of our. Of our production. And you know, in terms of the multi vintage. For those that may not know this.

The date that a particular bottle of wine. Bears is reflective of the season that the grapes were grown. And so if all of the wines or at least not 85% of the wines are from that particular wine, or that particular vintage, it can't bear that year. So with this wine being a blend of multiple vintages. The sixth edition is 17 and 18. We are basically pooling those two vintages together, and just a note: 2017 was a really nice growing season for us. Yeah. And 2018, on the other hand, was super challenging. And so... Yeah, exactly. So we made a lot of Rosé in 2018. It was also the origin of our, of our Picket's History, which I think I wasn't sure that maybe, yeah, we were going to taste that today.

It's a, it's a wacky one. And not a terroir driven wine. Or even a wine at all, more of a product. But that was just. Those were all born of the 2018 vintage. Which was historically. Challenging. And so by creating multi-vintage blends. It was just a great tool for us to pull together a wine. That I think was. Greater than the sum of its parts. Awesome. So do we have any questions for Drew and you, you know, very studiously compiled your tasting notes on each of these offerings as you do. You know, much more scrupulously than I do every week. Zoe, did you want to. You know, add anything for the sake of these particular wines, what you like about them, and, you know, how they bear the implant of their, their origin.

Yeah, sure. First question is we're talking about the Rose. Drew, what temperature do you prefer to drink it at? Oh, boy. I would just say chilled, and so just a little bit. A note about our approach here: You know, we are, I think. Bill really kind of summed up our approach by saying that, you know, we do take our farming and our operation, our production - really seriously. But we're also quite passionate about, you know, building community and having fun with what we do, and not making wine overly precious. But, but, sort of viewing it as an agricultural product. And something that's, you know, meant to just simply drink and, and bring you pleasure. So I would say, you know, on a hot summer day, I would drink this one.

I would drink this one right out of the refrigerator. And if, you know, sort of playing around with temperatures. Is something that brings you pleasure. Then I think that it would be fun to open cold and then to enjoy it over a couple of hours as it comes up to temperature and sort of watch it evolve and open. Awesome. Why is Sarsaparilla difficult to grow in Maryland? It's a, it's a, it's. It's difficult to go everywhere. It's not a uniquely Maryland thing. But it's also, it's not a unique area. Sure, but it requires a long growing season to get ripe for a red wine making parameters. We've done it successfully a couple of times, or at least successfully in our own minds and, and but, but not with great consistency.

However, you know, in our particular region, I would say that we have had a couple of issues with Sara. One is. Is Great Berry Moth, and at our particular site in Westminster, we've gotten better with this, but where it is located, it's not far from a pine hedge, and so we just seem to have a high deal of pressure, and it has presented an issue for us, a few more vintages than I would like to admit, as the person who's in charge of seeing over the vineyard. You really dropped the ball this year, Drew. Yeah, it's a perennial sore spot, I would say, but sorrel, by and large, is fickle, and it's also prone to black rot. We've had some issues with, I don't mean to, you know, sort of over degrade the variety.

I do love it. We're actually going to be planting a little bit more at a site, which I think is much better than where it's currently setting, so I do think that it has some potential, but it really needs to be optimal conditions. It has some issues with primary bud mortality, which means the vines look big and beautiful and green, but there's just not as much fruit as there ought to be, and/or the fruit that you have isn't primary clusters, which means that they're a bit delayed in the season and uneven ripeness, and it's just, it's a challenging grape to grow. In our vineyard, for example, it is; it's situated right between a block of Albarino and Cabernet Franc, and I think; thus is; you know; just continually highlighted how much; how challenging the Syrah is; because annually the Cabernet Franc and Albarino perform just so; so much better; and with the same oversight; so Syrah is just tricky.

What's the disadvantage of it being next to a pine head? Oh, so I had just mentioned a grape berry moth, which is an insect that likes to fly in and digs in particular berries, and I think; inside the berries; and it; you know; if you're not setting traps; and or monitoring very closely; they can be quite sneaky; and you don't see the issues until you start to see late season fruit rots that are the result of the young moths emerging from the berries that were laid there earlier in the season. So, you know, I think the, you know, I think the big challenge is that there is a great impact in the season, and I had only mentioned the pine hedge, because I think that's where our, sort of, native pressure is coming from.

Ah, good. We have a few more questions about exactly how you make a piquette, and what the rehydration process looks like. You're welcome. Everyone eating at home, you're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. So, piquette. Piquette. Piquette's a fun one. It's a category that we believe in. It makes a lot of sense to us from a sustainability standpoint, from a resourcefulness standpoint. Every year, we grow and source from other local growers a lot of beautiful grapes that required a tremendous amount of effort, resources, and inputs to get to our winery. To us, it seems like the right thing to do to not only set out to make great wines from that fruit, but also to, when possible, make additional products and put the pumice or those grape skins, seeds, pulp, stems, etc.

to as much use as possible. For example, I'd mentioned the Syrah that you're drinking. When those grapes were pressed, we are only pressing that fruit to a certain extent such that the juice is clean and optimal for making wine. The press at the very end, when you wring grapes out or squeeze them extremely hard to extract the last bit of juice, is often separated from the free run or the first pressings. Treated differently because it's harsher and more phenolic. Rather than doing this press fraction, what we've started to do is only press, say, 80% of the juice from the grapes, and then to immediately transfer the rest of that pumice to a tank where we are hydrating with water or adding, rehydrating with water.

It's a bit of a Solera method, so as you can imagine, from day to day, we're pressing different grapes in different varieties. We sort by tank where the pumice goes according to color, style, quality, whatever it may be. There's really no rules, and we are allowing this pumice to re-ferment in a separate mash with water, and it's creating a low-alcohol product. For us, one of the advantages that we've learned, really by dumb luck, is that the water on our farm is quite acidic. Coming up from the well untreated, it's only 5.7 pH, which is quite low. Having low pH in wine and in piquette even more so is quite important for microbial stability. Really, being hydrated with water and also not creating a high, or too high of a pH, is a really, really important product.

Then, additionally, we add Verjus, which is green grape juice that we pick from our vineyards. We even have some hybrid varieties, namely Muscat and Save-All Blanc, which we've had some issues with overcropping or not loving the wine quality. We just are picking substantial portions of those vineyards quite early with the intent of making acid reserves that we can use to acidulate piquette. It's just a cool little side project that has helped us to make viable volume of interesting, we hope, and stable piquette from otherwise unwanted pomace and grapes. Really, piquette is not a terroir-driven product or wine in the least. It's something that farmers would have made throughout most of human history. I think it's important for farmers to have something in their glass that is low alcohol, that's safe to drink, that is affordable, and resourceful.

It's the ultimate lemonade out of lemons, which feels all the more fitting for current times. Drew, I want to give you a chance to get back to your son as needed. We would absolutely love it if you hung out because I'm sure folks have additional questions, but I want to thank Tom for lingering as long as he did. I hope you have a good weekend. Tom Bilyeu, Jr.: We are very excited. I feel guilty that we didn't devote a two-part series to Maryland wine with more time for each of you because you certainly deserve it. If you have to go, Godspeed, sir, and thank you so much. If you're willing to hang out, we would love to have you. Drew Dixon, Jr.: I'm going to hang for a bit, thanks.

Tom Bilyeu, Jr.: Excellent. I don't want you to get in any trouble with Casey, in the least. Tom, switching gears now. I have, as well, two of your favorite beers. I'm going to have fabulous wines of Chardonnay and South Slope. You are a bit of a renaissance man yourself, sir. You've had exceedingly successful careers as a doctor in immunology, as a businessman, and now you make wine for a living. How did that happen, and your wife is the same way, you know, she was active in Argentina during the dirty work for the sake of their [children], and thereafter for the sake of, you know, the human rights crises, and she's currently a public health professor at GW, but how do you all come from that very intellectual background back to the land and back to Anne Arundel County, of all places?

Well, I'm not sure it's completely back, but let me start by thanking you, Bill, and the rest of the group on the video, and also congratulating Drew, because Drew did a great job. Thank you. I didn't tell this story, but we've worked together in the past, and sort of came up in the industry at the same time, and you really do have a lot to be proud of, Drew, and so congratulations to you and the family. Thanks, Tom. That means a lot. We wish you all the best, of course. So, Bill, to your question, probably my wife was actually, this is her family farm, and so it's a very, it's been here for, in her family, eight generations now.

There's the location, and it's a pretty, it's very different, first of all, from old Westminster, which has two sites, only one of which I think they're producing grapes from, right, Drew? Yeah, we'll get our first drop on the other. So, the yellow part here is a bit interesting, because it's in the coastal plain. We're in an area known as the Western Shore Plains. Uplands mean that it's not subject to tidal influences, and so what's interesting about that region is that it's all marine sediments, and so if you're interested in climate change, which all grape growers are, you will realize that at one point, we were underwater, or we wouldn't have marine sediments as our core soil, so that's pretty interesting.

The other thing that's interesting about this particular slide is that the pale yellow, over the next 30 to 70 years or so, will be underwater, so we're going to lose that much of our state in the not-too-distant future. You're talking the pale yellow, more of it on the eastern shore? On the eastern shore, yeah. Yeah, we're going to lose a lot of our agricultural land. Sorry, Dorchester County. Yes, that's right. I think about 50 percent of Dorchester County is expected to be underwater. So, the origins of this, Polly and I are both healthcare professionals, mostly doing health research, and we were living in Washington. It was always her dream to live on the family farm, and so we came here, and the short story is we looked around and said, well, let's farm, and the farm was in transition.

It's been about a 50-year transition out of tobacco. It's history, and the fields at that point were rented for row crops or for field crops, corn, soybeans, wheat, that sort of thing, and we as a family wanted to find, one, productive uses of the land, and two, do that in an ecologically or environmentally sensitive way. So, we're committed to working in harmony with nature. Maybe harmony is the wrong word, but we certainly feel like we, as humans, are part of nature, and so the way we farm is to not try to overcome the challenges of nature. This is, as we started, and we planted our first grapevines, actually, in 2007, as part of an overall agricultural operation that includes our own vegetable garden and sheep and horses and donkeys and chickens and things, but we were very fortunate five years ago to have Claude and Lydia Bourguignon join us. Claude and Lydia are quite well-known soil scientists from Dijon, and they were on their way back from their consulting gig in California,etus and Jim at The British Society and towards the end of that journey, we met Linda Ruth who is an an anthropologist, Highland Natureist at Ski Ar predicting Marine. 

Then you can see the face there Boba Beasley who is a geologist who mapped the entire vineyard when we were getting started so that we knew exactly where to place vines and that sort of thing but Claude, It was over a dinner with a bunch of winemakers after having been in the fields all day. So we were all very, we'd all been sampling quite a bit of each other's wines, including Claude. And he had this quote, which is, it said, you're very lucky to live in this climatically challenging region. Now, actually, the climate is a good thing for the most part. We have really wonderful September temperatures. And so Drew mentioned, for example, Syrah is a bit difficult because it takes a long growing season.

Some of the Chardonnay and the red fruit that are in South Slope, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, the classic Bordeaux varieties, all ripen in a very nice window where you've got a long September relative. But historically, a relatively temperate climate. And so you've got highs in the 70s, lows in the 60s. You've got a nice diurnal variation. That's a really nice temperature. They don't have to worry about tropical storms in Burgundy and Bordeaux. Oh, no. Well, yeah. Well, we don't worry about them either. No, it is challenging. And those are the challenges. And the humidity, the humidity is a real challenge here. And that, of course, is getting worse. We are a subtropical region. And so that is more difficult than Bordeaux and Burgundy.

Anyway, that challenge means that we have to be exquisitely careful with our canopy management and the way that we traditionally take care of grapes. But the cleverness really has to do with ecological methods that we've adopted here to try and overcome some of the challenges that we have. We spend a lot of time. We spend a lot of time thinking about soil and the ecosystem within the soil. We also spend a lot of time. And I want to mention something that Drew touched on, which is the great Barry Moth. That is a significant pest in our region and getting worse because of the rising temperatures and the humidity. We learned very, very early on. We initially learned from Miguel Altieri, who's in environmental science. He used to be a professor at the University of New York.

He taught at the University of Berkeley. One method of trying to address that is you can tell from the temperature, monitoring temperatures in the growing degree days, when great Barry Moth is likely to be a problem. When it's going to hatch its two or three generations within the vineyard. And if you disturb the grass underneath where the natural predators are living, you can send those predators up into the canopy, and disturbing means mowing it, and they will gobble up the grape berry moth larvae and reduce the problem. So when we started doing that, our grape berry moth problem really declined. And so we do monitor for grape berry moth, we do pay attention to the growing degree days, but we really see very, very little grape berry moth.

And as you'll see subsequently, we've actually adopted even more diversity, plant diversity, within the vineyard and that's really helped with our insect pest problem. And I will say one of my favorite things about Dodon is that you have this very old-world notion of yourselves as stewards of the land. I think it helps that the farm itself dates back to the 18th century in Polly's family, and she's the ninth or tenth generation at this point, so you have this sense of your imprint. Permanence in this, you know, whole you know program and I think that's something that's often lost um in uh in America, even even bit of culturally, and you know, making decisions as a ninth generation is very different than making decisions as a first generation uh owner owner of land, and the sense of legacy is very different and I think very cool.

So, you all um it's a lot. You own the largest farm in Anne Arundel County, but um, you own it as or you you operate it as an easement through the Maryland Agricultural uh Land Preservation Fund, so you know, you are not only you know kind of metaphorically stewards, you are literally stewards for the sake of the state. We're we're sort of planted here and we're not going away uh anytime soon, that's for sure unless we wash away. I'm going to share another slide uh featuring prominently your vineyard mascot, and then um, you know, some other uh creatures that you use in your farm. I'm going to share another slide, featuring prominently your vineyard mascot and then, you know, some other stick that you use to help manage the land.

Uh, let's take through, let's talk through the the chardonnay here, um, and, you know, kind of what this wine is all about for you in terms of, you know, how you craft it and how you manage it in the vineyard with the help of uh your adorable sheep, um, you know, kind of steward here. Okay, well there's there's two different topics there, I think I want to start with the sheep while everybody's enjoying some chardonnay. So um so we uh as I mentioned we spend a lot of time thinking about soil. And as a first approximation, we want to bring as much diversity, microbial diversity into the soil as we can. Diverse fungal populations, for example, have mycorrhizae, and those mycorrhizae act as communication networks between the vines and between the surrounding plants.

And that helps with vigor, for example. It also helps with when one plant is attacked by an insect or fungus, it will send signals to its neighbors. This is the work of Suzanne Simard at University of British Columbia. I encourage all your listeners to watch some of her really terrific videos about her mother tree project. Anyway, the diverse microbes will secrete antimicrobial substances. Everybody will recognize this from the penicillium fungus that was the origin of early penicillins. And those are natural protectants. And so we're really trying to get that diversity of the microbe life into the soil. We do that in several ways. One is to have diverse plants, and the other is to create a good healthy soil. Those are the mycorrhizae and the roots in the mycorrhizae.

I will tell you that it's a two-way street. I mean, you know, we used to think of roots as sort of a straw drawing up nutrients and water. Now what we realize is that the plants are diversified. They're starting up to 50% of the sugars that they produce back down through the roots and out into this mycorrhizal network. They're feeding the fungus in a two-way street. If you look at an electron micrograph, which is a very detailed image, a very detailed microscopic image of the interaction of a fungus with a root, it is indistinguishably different from the interaction of a fungus with a root, it is indistinguishably different from the interaction of a fungus with a root. It is indistinctly different from the interaction of a fungus with a root.

There is nothing that is distinguishable from the interaction of There is nothing that is distinguishable from the interaction of microbes in the human intestine and the intestine itself. Completely the same sort of interaction both ways. Completely the same sort of interaction both ways. I love I love both of those relationships and I think there's just like such ñ for me, you know how I am not assigned to this path but itís very poetic ñ I think we are used to thinking of ourselves as stand-alone entities. but any biologist will tell you that we are a colony. But any biologists will tell you that we are a colony. We are・you know we are unique. you know, a singular organism, but we depend, you know, to complete all sorts of metabolic and biological processes on all of these, you know, you know, multiple and especially single cellular entities that have evolved along with us and plants are the same way.

And, you know, I love that, you know, human gut, you know, kind of soil analogy, because it, it forces you to think in terms of systems, and it forces you to think not only in terms of a single vine or a single person, but in terms of a large organism. And I think, you know, I'm sure as an immunologist that appeals to you, when you think about how to, you know, best take care of a patient in terms of optimizing, you know, health outcomes, and I'm sure as a vigneron, it appeals to you in terms of how to think about a vineyard for sake of, you know, interventions. Well, you mentioned about 10 topics there, Bill, but I'm going to which is the health aspect, because one of the things I've learned as a, as a, as a physician-turned-winemaker is that we in agriculture, just like most physicians, think, think reductively, and think about disease and disease treatment and disease prevention, not about health.

So, just like you should be running, eating a healthy diet, or getting plenty of exercise, getting plenty of sleep to maximize your own health, you need to be thinking about the health of the plant. And the first thing about doing that from a human health standpoint and from a plant health standpoint is to be able to feed them a good diet. And in the plants case, thats having plenty of organic matter in the vineyard, in the soil, with this diverse microbial ecosystem. Now, Im going to extend the medical analogy a little bit further by saying that if you do things that disturb that microbial ecosystem in the soil, it is just like doing something that disturbs the immunologic system in a human being. Think about AIDS.

When you get the virus, when you get the HIV virus, you disturb part, you destroy part of the human immune system, and then you become susceptible to many other illnesses. You can do the same thing in the vineyard. If you disturb those microbes in the soil, you're taking away part of the immunologic system that the plant has co-evolved with. So another thing you mentioned was that evolution. Plants and soil have been, the microbes in them have co-evolved for 400 million years. That's a lot of time to figure out how to deal with different diseases and to survive them. So that co-evolution should tell us we're not quite clever enough to be able to substitute for all that accumulated knowledge over time.

Well, I just love that these ecological systems are so much more dynamic than we were ever taught to believe. And I think there is a great lesson there for us scientifically about humility. When in the face of these natural systems that have evolved over millions of years, there is so much more going on there than we even realize. And I think anyone who loves wine, anyone who lives in the mystery of it could tell you that already. They could tell you that the generations of codified wisdom very often surpass our scientific understanding. That doesn't mean that they're preposterous. It just means that we haven't totally unraveled the science behind this codified wisdom. And I think it's important to live in those mysteries. Yeah, that's right. But we have unraveled some of them.

And I'll come back, this applies to both of the South Slope and the Chardonnay, but particularly to the Chardonnay, which is somewhat tricky to grow here as well. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The flavors in the wine, the phenolics, the terpenes, the esters, all the things that we think about as contributing flavor in the wine, those are there because they are plant protection, plant protective chemicals that are derived either because the microbes, the microbe has produced them themselves, or the microbe gives the plant the nutrients that it can use to produce those chemicals within the plant itself. So that's a really important concept that the healthier the plants are, the more able that they are to respond to the challenges that they face, especially in a subtropical region like ours, the better the wine is going to be.

Yeah. And I think that it's that concept that Claude was talking about, and we said we should be clever. What Bill's showing here is what's happened at our vineyard using a variety of techniques, mostly good standard agricultural, agro-ecological techniques, no-till, and diverse cover crops to build the organic matter in the soil. And how that correlates with other desirable features. So you can see there that in our Sauvignon Block 11, we've been able to, we've gone from 0.3% organic matter in 2012 to 2.8% organic matter in 2018. That has an environmental benefit. We've increased the carbon stock, which is about 0.58% of the soil. The organic matter by 45 tons per acre. It's a lot of carbon. And where that carbon come from, it came from carbon dioxide that was sequestered.

And across our 16-acre vineyard, we estimate it's about 2,500 tons of carbon dioxide over the past seven years. But what's the effect on the wine? And in this particular example, what we're highlighting is the effect on the acid balance. We've gone from a must with that low organic matter of a pH of 3.5, which is a little bit high. We had to acidify wine that year, to 3.25, which in Sauvignon is a very desirable pH. It gives it freshness and its life and its vitality. And so it's really good. We don't have, we don't, we certainly don't have acid balance. We have a lot of acid balance, acidified pet at that pH, so that's yeah, we don't have accessible nitrogen for this crowd.

But, uh, I will say that like one of my favorite um, you know, kinds of outgrowths of this line of inquiry is that you know ultimately what you're doing for the sake of you know environmental stewardship makes for better wants and it's that's the point, it's you know it's yeah, exactly. So it's one thing just to you know um, pie in the sky, you know, um, yeah, just kind of uh, be a bleeding heart, but I love that there is a scientific basis for um, you know, correlation between good environmental practice and awesome juice. I mean, that's that's you know really um, amazing, uh, for my sake, well, and it's it's it's in this case, there's also a plausible mechanism, uh, and uh, we know that over time, uh, in agricultural systems As the soils are degraded, the ascorbic acid in all sorts of vegetables and fruits, uh, declines.

The ascorbic acid is, of course, vitamin C, and um, and so um, that has its own human health effect, but in this case, ascorbic acid is also the precursor for tartaric acid, which is the main acid in wine, so it's it's very plausible that there's a direct mechanism between the two of them. And it's a very plausible mechanism between the two of them: building healthy soil, improving the ascorbic acid content in the vine, and having that translated into better acid balance in the wine. Um, I love how nerdy we've gotten here. Um, and uh, you know it should. Be said that, hopefully, the viewers will remember tartaric acid. I feel like everyone is probably like falling asleep at home, uh, especially if they've gotten through the play, but, uh, tartaric acid is the most important um acid of the major types in grapes, not least because um grapes, Vitis vinifera, one of the few fruits that retain tartaric acid uh throughout the the ripening process and tartaric acid is much more stable than malic citric um uh and uh other uh types uh volatile acid certainly um and allows wine to age uh as it does. I have a few deep thoughts for you and we're gonna toast and then uh Zoe's gonna run the Roost and I hope that you all have all sorts of questions, because um, I can stay on the horn with um both uh Tom um and Drew and Regina for a good long while, and I just I want to say above and beyond, you know, the quality of the wines in the glass. I hope you all are developing a full appreciation of how thoughtful, um, you know these two producers are.

It is far too easy just to think of wine as a commodity, as something that arrives in your glass, you know, under mysterious circumstances and you know there's a certain amount of wanderlust associated with it, but it is the agricultural good as much as anything that you buy from the farmer's Market, and we should be supporting the work of local vignerons for the same reasons that we support the work of local farmers, all the more so when they are, as you know, wonderfully insightful and thoughtful and progressive – um, as the two folks, uh, that have uh joined us today, and, you know, Tom talked over uh soil health, um, he was on a really amazing um podcast um or uh forum, uh, as part of uh uh online entity, and we'll share the information here, some go with Dr. David Montgomery, who's a MacArthur Genius grantee, Mimi Cassell, who's just a badass bitch um out of Oregon, making amazing wines and advocating for – you know, both. you know social justice environmental change in the wine industry in the agricultural um you know kind of uh system um at large um and I encourage you all to listen to that but I should be said that you know these soils that we rely on for wine for our food they're being depleted um thousands of years worth of soil development um that we have uh taken your decades to to go through and that is um a great crisis along par with um the energy crisis that doesn't get the column inches uh that it should what I think is really amazing is that we have uh developed ways and the sheep on the adorable dog uh looking over them among them of engineering Ourself out of um these um problems, and you know, uh, it's easy to lose hope.

It is easy in the face of intractable problems like global warming, you know, like um soil depletion. To imagine that, you know, whatever we do um as something as frivolous as drinking wine has no bearing um on these larger crises. And I I tend to think in terms of, you know, there's this Buddhist idea that, um, it doesn't matter whose finger is pointing at the moon, uh, the moon exists as such, nonetheless. So, uh, the vector is less important um than the goal. And I think, you know, whatever we do, even you seemingly intractable problems, they are, they are out there. Uh, and they are there for us to solve each in our own way, however we are uh engaging a professional life, a personal life.

And I continue to be inspired by the work that you know Drew and his sisters are doing for the sake of creating a sense of community and working in a non-interventionist way, in a biodynamic way, and the work that Tom and Regina are doing for the sake of, you know, their scientific applications, um, to uh, creating, you know, and actively promoting soil health, and you know, the complex ecology on their, you know, centuries-old farm, uh, in their corner of Anne Arundel. So, um, I want you all, especially uh this weekend. when it is easy to feel powerless in the midst of all the happening around us to remember that you know even by choosing uh to drink wine uh from Drew from Regina and Tom that you are um you know playing a role in making a better world and each in our own way uh we have um you know power uh to do that and and we have a place um each in our own way uh to you know make a better tomorrow without sounding uh hopelessly um optimistic but um you know I thank you for all uh for participating today uh I hope you uh hang out uh so that uh um Zoe can run the roost and ask all the questions but uh cheers to you all um alone together um in our midst um thank You guys for joining us today, absolutely. Uh, Zoe, I've talked enough. Uh, kick it. Um, what do people want to know about yeah? Well, firstly, everyone's offense can get as geeky as possible.

Thank you, thank you, yeah, yeah. Um, top three contenders for Marilyn grape? Uh, Drew, we got. I had muted myself, sorry about that. Um, not to totally dodge um, but personally uh, because this is a personal uh, subjective question, I'm not really that interested in answering it um, or discovering an answer or uh, ever wanting there to necessarily be an answer. I am quite content um, growing grapes and trying new things and working with native varieties. Um, we have become increasingly interested, over the past couple of years, with growing mixed heritage hybrid varieties. Um, we've actually even taken a stab at um breeding some of our own by taking those that are cultivated in our vineyards and um pollinating uh Wild Native Vines that have lived on the edge of our Forest without our help for centuries, millennia.

I'm not sure um, so um, there uh Tom and uh Tom, you know um, uh Cliff, Amber, and Cliff has been uh, uh sort of at the forefront of this geeking out for a long time, and and i've just found it really fascinating and um, so just personally, i, i get more uh joy out of the of of trying. To come up with, uh, a new grape that might have biological roots in this region and and make a wine that's really interesting and compelling and all our own, uh, rather than say, um, you know, trying to necessarily pick another for ourselves, uh, so that's my real answer. I feel like Drew Baker doesn't want to be put in a box though, so it should be, I guess, to answer the question as I think it's being asked.

Um, I like Cab Fronk, um, Alberino and Chamberson, um, and then Drew uh, just to give the people uh, a taste. So Tom briefly referenced you have the home vineyard but you have a a gorgeous new site and uh, you um remind me sometimes of a musician. in the sense that i feel like your side projects have side projects so in addition to um being an extremely talented vineyard manager you um organize an amazing summer solstice celebration in 2019 um at your new site which is planted to how many different grapes oh boy um well it depends so let's um about 20 uh excluding that come on i feel like come on i feel like we can go excluding that experimental block so okay we've got we've got about six rows that have 50 different varieties or more in them um but outside of that uh it it's it's much more uh concise but yeah um so burnt hill farm clarksburg maryland that's where I'm tuning in from my wife and I are kids, we live here, and uh, we are growing grapes. We have 16 acres under vine now, uh, with plans to put in another nine in the spring, and we're going to be doing a little bit of a, um, a little bit of a time available, uh, time available, uh, in our homes, and uh, also, um, um, the, uh, global pandemic has, um, you know recalibrated a lot of our activities this year as it has for so many, and, um, so we've been become pretty obsessed with, uh, homesteading and, uh, raising pigs and bees and mushrooms and planting heritage grains and, um, just uh trying to not diversify.

I mean, we talk a lot about sustainability and farming and I Think Tom did a really lovely job talking about, uh, the, uh, many known benefits of biodiversity to soil health and the environment, the overall farm organism, if you will. But I think when looking at the human element for us, which is so important, you know, tending a commercial vineyard can be really exhausting too, and so I think, you know, making sure that your projects are always intellectually stimulating and sort of bring life to you and your team is, it's so important to the sustainability of your farming efforts. And the idea of of growing crops outside of wine that also can nourish us and, you know, peak our intellectual curiosities kind of keep us on our toes raising animals will definitely do that has has been you know a real a new chapter in something that I've been quite captivated by late and just because you're not busy enough you also host a podcast do you not yeah I just released an episode with you Bill last week I was I was I was uh that was kind of a set spike situation we will make sure to link to that uh but uh um you are uh equally talented as a hoster um and it was such a pleasure uh to to join you for that that particular dialogue um uh Tom it's getting a little it's getting too much here uh you're uh to you three three favorite uh Maryland Grapes, so I, I, I have to say my instinct is to uh, uh tag along with Drew on this one, which is that, like, we don't, I don't have a favorite Maryland grape.

Um, I really enjoy uh the experimental uh nature of that process, in fact all the fun of growing grapes is the discovery of how to do them and that sort of thing. But let me take that as an example, and if you just say that in our vineyard, and if you've seen a vineyard, you've seen a bit one vineyard. In our vineyard, we've been very pleasantly surprised with how well Sauvignon and Chardonnay do; they have a lot of life, they have they have responded well. Sauvignon itself is, and this is all Sauvignon. That you see here is a real workhorse for us in most years when it doesn't get frosted, it does very well and produce a lovely wine, Chardonnay.

The same way we deal a lot with it's very susceptible to downy mildew, but if we can keep the hold the canopy through the season, it really the fruit is really bulletproof. Red wines have been more challenging for us, I think because of the the the length of the season. On the red side, no particular some years are better for one variety, some years are better for the other, that's why the Bordelais have have diversified their grapes and we're finding that that's a smart decision on our part. I feel like, how do you feel about? I kind of like the bulletproof grapes in the Mid-Atlantic, so I feel like there's a hopefully a place for the Petit Bordeaux's and Tenat's of the world that you can just give you know hang time indefinitely and pluck you know whenever you like.

Uh, so what else do you have for Tom and Drew and Regina by extension uh, who's still in our midst? Thank you, Regina. Oh, we have a question from a viewer who uh, wants to talk a little bit about the Blinded by the Light project and all of your canning projects um, the Skins and Seeds and Ro Rosé that we carry over here at Reveler's Hour have been such a hit, but just to talk about um, that is as a new coming making bougie wine and cans that we can all enjoy which we love. Yeah, for sure, thanks. Um, so I had uh mentioned how um early on that you know we we really are um you know passionate about our farming around here, but I think that's a great question. Um, Wolf and Carhawk are next to the team, and Lazñc. We're gonna have a little bit of uh, a mwg here.

It's uh, sort of a signature, you know winner one you've seen a lot lately, just a lot of you know say you are, you know we have a lot of things that you know that we will pay homage to and I respect you guys it was a very K Szaho but it'll be a real pleasure to uh, hear from you. Thanks um um we had asked but I forgot something when we had um It didn't take us long to kind of have a conversation about the interest of Piquet, but also recognizing that it does have a tendency to be fairly tepid and thin, and so by blending it back with wine, you can create something that is somewhere in between, and that's what Blinded by the Light is.

It's in the 9% alcohol range, and it's a blend of predominantly Gruner Veltliner and Piquet Blanc. It's a fun little side project, again, not a terroir wine, but it's something that we think is delicious, and honestly, we wanted to drink, and so we made it, and we're hopeful that other people would like it, too. Drew, what are these tasting trials like? How many different iterations of these wines do you have when you're kind of playing around with them? Yeah, so we've got a really awesome group of humans that make Old Westminster work. Not only my sisters and I, but Lisa's assistant winemaker, Erin, her family owns an orchard just over the hill. She went to Virginia Tech for oenology, and CJ, who's our new farm manager, a guy named Joey Fox, who is one of our original employees, he's worked with us for seven years.

Great name. So there's a good group of us that sit down, and we do tasting groups and blending at the winery every Tuesday and Wednesday at lunch. So that's kind of like a longstanding tradition, and so we are always tasting lots of things around the farm, and I think it helps us to all, again, to stay connected to the adventure that wine can offer. And, you know, to challenge each other, and to always, you know, make sure that we are, you know, getting the opportunity to taste wine, have fun, and exercise our creative muscles. Are there any state business incentives for wineries in Maryland? Regina, I feel like that's a great question for you. Regina used to work for the Relevant Trade Association for Maryland wineries. Yeah.

And I'm actually, I'm so tuned out, Tom is the chairperson of our Legislative Affairs Committee for the state industry. Oh, okay. So I'm going to let Tom answer that one. I'm sorry, I was tuned out. I was actually reading chats. Can you repeat the question? Are there any, what is the Maryland legislature doing to incentivize your work, essentially? So they've been somewhat helpful. Not nearly as helpful as some of the other states. Some of the other state legislatures. And I will give you an example of that. In 1977, there were nine wineries in Maryland, eight in Virginia, and eight in Washington State. Oh, wow. Yeah. There are now more than 900 in Washington State, more than 300 in Virginia, and there are 100 in Maryland.

And that is directly related to the amount of support that we get from the legislature. Okay. So in Washington, they have a fantastic educational program, they have a fantastic community college program. Much of that has been replicated in Virginia. They have a number of laws that allow the wineries to have off-site tasting rooms, for example. And so the business environment is much better there. That's not to say that Maryland's not been supported. So as most folks would say, Maryland's not been supported. I think that the people from the other states probably know that we pay, in addition to sales taxes, which in Maryland are 9%, relative to 6% for other products. We pay 9% on alcohol products. We also pay excise tax, which is a volume-based tax that the wineries pay based upon the gallons that they sell.

That money is now funneled back into the industry to support the industry for promotional activities, for experiments, for example. For example, through those funds, we're supporting a graduate student at the University of Maryland in great pathology who's doing a bang-up job trying to understand the challenges that we face with bunch rots in our subtropical climate. So they have been supported in that way, but in general the support is much less than New York and Virginia and Washington State, California, obviously. It should be said, it sounds like a quaint idea for the sake of essentially, for most people luxury good for the sake of wine, but the economic paradigms are very real, and the wineries themselves create all sorts of other jobs, not even at the wineries themselves for the sake of a dynamic tourism industry centered around the wineries that wouldn't exist otherwise.

And, you know, Virginia in particular, locally has been very successful at leveraging that because the state has been so aggressive about promoting Virginia wine in a way that, you know, Maryland hasn't for whatever reason. Yeah, and there's another piece to this, Phil, which brings us together as an agriculture industry, and I consider Tail Up Goat part of our industry, and we help each other. In this regard, but we do not have, or we need to certainly improve our, the resilience and sustainability of our local food system. So most of almost all the crops that are grown on the Eastern Shore, for example, go to feed chickens. And I'm fine with the chickens; that's just not about chickens, but it is not a very regenerative model of farming. And I'm happy to work with them.

And the pandemic has highlighted many of the problems, many of which you faced at Tail Up Goat. But we also have a threefold increase in the number of people who are food insecure. That is people who can't afford a healthy diet during this time. It's increased from about 10% to more than 30% of the population across the country. We have now something like 10% to 15% of children who are going to bed hungry every night in this country. And that is in large measure because our food system is localized in certain places. And we can't get that food from point A to point B where it's packaged to go to the wrong consumer. So we really need to work with our legislatures and with all aspects of the food.

In order to get that, in order to get people fed, we think in wine, in wine, it's the same thing. I mean, we want to have a robust local system, food system, agriculture system, so that we can dance when nature needs us to. It's been demonstrated that states that have more robust local food systems, have not had had shorter lines at the food pantries, for example. So they've been able to respond. That's because they can package differently. They can take the milk that would have gone to a school, but now you package it in ways that you can get it to people at home faster. So, so we really need to build on that system. What else do you guys have? Say that again?

I have to always remember to unmute myself just one time in the class. I think that's about it. We should wrap up. You're feeling very Halloween at the moment. I want to give, so Regina, you started us off with a course on Maryland wine. I want to close things out with your hopes for the future. You have an idyllic background there, sunset over Jordan. Let me show you. What's behind me. And I, so, so just while, while Regina shares, I just want to encourage you all to, you know, visit both these places. They're, they're absolutely lovely, idyllic spots. And, you know, I can't think of a better way to socially distance than, than on a winery. And they're both deeply invested in, you know, making sure that, you know, the experience is as safe as it can be in the midst of this crisis.

But, Longer term, pandemic behind us. Regina, what do you want for Maryland as a wine producing zone? Oh, gosh. I don't know if I can quantify it, but I guess, you know, My hope is that we have a supportive environment for growers. With resources, not necessarily money, but. Information and shared communication about how to do this the right way and the best way, and a community that believes. In the US, we're seeing it like I mean, the fact that we're doing this right now is a huge deal for Maryland. I started in this industry in 2009 and I never thought we would engage with the DC wine market um it's happening, it's all happening so mostly I'm just grateful and I'm really optimistic for what the future holds so uh, onward and upward from here. All right, cheers! I think optimism itself deserves a toast. Uh, thank you all for joining us. I hope you have a lovely week and uh, you know, continue to remain optimistic, in spite of, in the midst of it all. Thank you.