Anniversary Trip

Hello Fellow Wine Lovers,

First thanks for the great response on Facebook! Please keep asking your friends to join! I am sorry for the delay, I have been trying to figure out how to put this to use the best way possible.

This will be my first wine experience blog....yeah!

Scott and I had our 6 year wedding anniversary on Friday. We went to four wineries and at lunch in Baltimore.

We began our trip at Whitehall Wine Cellars, www.woodhallwinecellars.com, which is about 20 minutes northwest of Baltimore off of I83. The winery building is an old barn wood interior, very pretty. They had some nice wines. We like their Angler Wines, which are on the sweeter side. The wine was good but the fisherman on the label is what attracted us to try the wine. They had many of the staples for the area like Chambourcin and Cabernet Franc. Both of which do well in the Mid-Atlantic area. They had wines for both sweet and dry pallets. We personally liked their drier wines.





From Woodhall we headed to Basignani Winery, www.basignani.com. Back in 2000 this winery was voted one of the best winery in Maryland. They have some really old vines that produce some great wine! We got 2 bottles of the Lorenzino Reserve which is a blend of estate bottled (Top juice from grapes grown on the property) of Cab Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot. Their Riesling which is on the much sweeter side was also very good. We took one those bottles home too! Most of their wines were very appealing. The only down fall is they have a lot of dogs running around. I am a huge dog fan, but if you aren't, be on your toes. All the dogs were very friendly. The owners were very accommodating and allowed Scott and I to wander through the vineyard for awhile. It was a beautiful day which made the vineyard look even more appealing.



We enjoyed a fairly short trip, about a 15-20 minute drive, right into down Baltimore for lunch. Normally I would not mention lunch at some random restaurant, but we went to Fogo De Chao. In a wine magazine a couple months ago Fogo was rated very highly because of their huge wine selection. OH MY! A 4 page wine list and walls of wine everywhere you look! I thought I was in Heaven. I will say, it is very impressive, but the wine is a bit over priced. We splurged and got a Malbec (which cost more than my meal) to go with all of the fantastic meats and huge salad bar. Everything was fantastic and the waiter did a great job suggesting a wine that went well with the food.
















We finished up in Baltimore and walked off some of our food and then headed west to Mt. Airy. We headed to Lignanore Wine Cellars, www.linganore-wine.com. We have been here before and were going with one purpose, we wanted May Wine. This wine is made just in the month of May that has some great herb flavors added that goes fantastic with fresh fruit like strawberries. I will spend some more time talking about Lignanore is much more detail at a later time. I will leave you with one thing, if you are planning on tasting leave plenty of time because they have a huge list they share with you. Take a tour of the winery also, it was a great experience!

Our final stop for the day was at Black Ankle Winery,www.blackankle.com. We definitely saved the best for last. I was told to check this out by an acquaintance of mine who is one of the most knowledgeable people I know in wine. He has not lead me a stray yet so we decided to check it out and boy was it fantastic. Black Ankle has a beautiful "green" building, sprawling vineyards, and 100% estate grown dry wines. The wines are on the drier side but full of flavor and very enjoyable. The customer service was fantastic! Scott and I stayed to enjoy some music. The employees at Blank Ankle prepared fresh baguette and locally grown cheese and waited on the customers like a restaurant. They provided full size glasses to fully enjoy the wines flavor. There was a large crowd enjoying picnic dinners.




We had a great day of wine, vineyards, and food. If you want more details, let me know, check out facebook, or check out the different websites.

Cheers!