Back about a dozen years or so, when I moved to the lovely Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I was already a wine snob, so even though I had heard that there were several wineries in the state, I never really gave them much thought. At the time, I was reading a few wine publications and good ole PA rarely (never) was mentioned in any of them.
Instead, I focused on the well tested and trusted areas: California, Washington, Oregon, and even New York for my wine exploration. In recent years, other states have purportedly been making some high quality juice, notably Virginia and even Texas. Respect for wineries from Pennsylvania, however, still seemed to be lacking so I continued to shun them.
Last fall, as some of you may recall, I made an ill-fated bike trip to a few wineries near my Philadelphia home to see if there was anything worth “reporting”. We did find some gems (Black Walnut and Galer–that post should come out shortly), but also found a bit of a disappointment (Chaddsford).
When a buddy of mine over at the Pennsylvania Vine Company called me up to go visit another winery, J. Maki, I was certainly game. It would be good to give another PA winery a try–especially one that specializes in sparkling wine (we all know how I feel about those) even though they insist on calling it “Champagne”.
My buddy Jeff Alexander over there at PA Vine Co. proposed a rather interesting format for the write-up and we both think it turned out rather well. If you get a chance, go over there and check it out (I have linked the logo below to the article, just click on it). Be sure to let me/us know what you think!
the drunken cyclist 
Good read. The email exchange was a nice idea.
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Thanks Frank! I wish I could say it was my idea….
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Wow, and I thought Australian wines were pricey. Your French imports are priced better than ours though.
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So Aussie wines are higher over there? We tend to get only the mass produced cheaper stuff over here…
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Very interesting review with as usual many excellent points, Jeff.
I totally agree with all your comments re pricing (and yes, 30 bucks for a tasting is… insane – I would be curious to know how much revenue they get out of those!) and besides, sorry, but I really think that marketing your product by stealing the name of a protected region and far better known appellation of a different country by using the cheap trick of the lower case c totally disqualifies their product in my eyes, no matter how good it is. I would not buy it just because of that. And I would also do that out of respect to many other excellent producers who play by the rules and go through the hard process of getting some exposure to their very good sparklers by coming up with their own names and trying to market them for what they are.
Once again, very nice, thought-provoking piece.
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Thanks Stefano! $30 was jaw dropping, but it is a bit of a remote location and there is no other game in town. Not only was he not remorseful about the “champagne” thing (by the way, the lower case “c” was my doing–when I used to lead bike trips, I learned that the upper case “C” was used to refer to the region and the lower case refers to the beverage), but he went even further. He asserted that “sparkling wine” was complete crap–that sparkling wine was wine infused with CO2 “like soda pop”. I heard him say this numerous times while we were there.
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That’s unbelievable, especially coming from someone who is in the winemaking business!!! Think of what all the serious producers of Classic Method sparkling wines he world over would think if they knew that he considers their oftentimes excellent wines “like soda pop”. Preposterous. I’m not going to drink a bottle of his wines even if they were the last thing with alcohol left on Earth (a real doomsday scenario, at least for me!)
Thanks for the follow up, Jeff.
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Great idea! Maybe it’s piling on, but those prices seem way out of whack. I would put Michigan whites up against any in the Eastern US, but very few of them are priced in that range. There is even one winery, L. Mawby, that specializes in sparking wine (and no, they don’t call it Champagne or champagne) and it’s one of the state’s very best.. Their prices are here: http://www.lmawby.com/index.php?route=/buy As good as a place’s wine is, I would have a hard time taking them seriously as a winemaker with prices that high. Seems like an attempt to get credibility or snob appeal by simply having high prices.
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You present a cool idea for us in states that are not at the top of the heap regarding wine production–a blind tasting! I will have to look up L. Mawby this summer when I am out that way. Yeah, the high price thing was certainly a head scratcher.
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I’m with your comparison on equivalents in terms of price.
BTW – Have you been to the Virginia wineries around/near Charlottesville?
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It is hard to justify a trip to VA when my wife’s parents live about an hour from Napa and my wife’s sister lives even closer to the Woodinville wine area in Seattle.
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