Weekly Highlight of the World’s Best Wineries
The world is full of wineries. New vineyards and vintners arrive on the scene every year. Travel to these esteemed properties give wine lovers a wide variety of places to visit.
How do you choose the wineries to visit?
This blog series will highlight a wonderful winery from around the globe each week. How many of these fabulous establishments will be added to your travel bucket list?
This week we travel to Maryland!
Wait, What?
Maryland and Virginia have figured out that they can produce some amazing wines as the terroir has very similar aspects of the Italian Piedmont or the French Burgundy regions.
This featured winery is one of my favorites, producing beautiful red blends as well as lovely Chardonnays.
Catoctin Breeze
Catoctin Breeze Vineyard is in the foothills region of central/western Maryland. The owners immigrated from Poland about 40 years ago. They have a passion for wine from the old world and created a vineyard that honors those traditions while embracing the terroir of this new world area.
The wines they produce reflect the care and research they have done to bring grapes and varietals that thrive in the environment of the vineyard.
One example is the Teroldego grape, an Italian grape that has found a perfect home here. They also do well with the reserve Chardonnay and classic Syrah.
The vineyard strives for sustainable and environmentally friendly practices. The grapes are cared for by hand and many of the wines are unfined and unfiltered. This is a winery that produces high quality natural wines.
Perfect Day or Weekend Trip
The best part of this winery is that it is only about an hour or so from Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Harrisburg, PA.
It is a perfect day trip destination.
Catoctin Breeze is located just north of the town of Thurmont, MD. This quaint town best known for the fact that it is only a few miles to Camp David in the surrounding mountains.
Every September they close all the streets in the town and hold a gigantic craft festival called The Colorfest. I couldn’t imagine a better weekend trip than to hit the festival and then the winery.
You can also make it a weekend by staying overnight in nearby Frederick, MD. Have Sunday Brunch at The Wine Kitchen and walk along the promenade of Carroll Creek afterwards.
If you in Frederick during this time of year, check out the boats in the creek that are lit and decorated and then pop into Idiom Brewery (it’s not always just about wine).
Vineyard Time
Their wine tasting room, on the edge of the vineyard is both modern and rustic with lots of room to mingle and taste. The staff are very knowledgeable and really do a great job of making you feel at home.
Outside and nestled in a scenic valley view, is a lawn and garden with seating for those who would like to enjoy having wine alongside the vines.
On weekends there is often a local food truck with delicious foods should you want to eat something with your wine.
I also like that you can bring your own food. I don’t know about you, but I love being able to bring a picnic of food I know I like to sit outside with a bottle of wine I discovered at the tasting.
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