Vintage Shopping, Close to Home

The county is a swift hour's ride from the District. But don't be fooled by the low mileage; this is real how-now-brown-cow country, with the ripe scent of Bessie in the air and long grasses swaying in the wind. The five wineries are as down-to-earth as their farming neighbors. In other words, you won't be belittled if you don't know your sweet from your dry, your buttery notes from your citrus overtones.

"Wine has always been about the where, the soil," said Carol Wilson, who owns Elk Run Vineyards in Mount Airy with her husband, Fred, and another partner, Neill Bassford. "Unlike breweries, we are farmers."

The Elk Run folks are also rapturous drinkers -- hey, ever hear of quality control? When my friend Kelly and I walked into the large, bright tasting room after a spin through the 24-acre vineyard (including an outdoor barrel storage area, a fermentation room hidden behind a lipstick-red church door and a treehouse), Bassford was standing behind the counter, cradling a glass of white wine. The jocular 60-year-old was sipping his morning chardonnay, Liberty Tavern 2005, which he jokingly described as being "good for breakfast." Pairs well with cornflakes? I wondered.

With a bowl of Cheez-Its at the ready, we sampled a pinot noir (Elk Run is the only vineyard in the state growing and producing this wine), a 2006 Gewurtztraminer and a port that didn't make me drop to the floor. (I am usually leveled flat by port.) We finished with a 1999 sparkling wine topped with Sweet Katherine, a sweet after-dinner wine. The three owners poured for five, generously filling our oh-so-proper glasses. With three more wineries to visit, Kelly and I celebrated with prudence. But the crew drank with delight, toasting the good fortune of having bubbly grown in their own yard.

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Of Frederick County's five wineries, four are surrounded by classic viticulture landscape: tidy rows of vines with hardly a tendril out of place, a nearby weathered barn barely hinting at the wine flowing within. It's Napa Valley downscaled. Frederick Cellars is the anomaly. The winery is urban, or as urban as tranquil Frederick can get.

Emily Williams and her husband, Charlie Daneri, bought the winery last July from Catoctin Vineyards and opened in November. The grapes are grown in Middletown and Annapolis but are made into wine at the Frederick site, which sits near antiques and art stores, restaurants and rumbling traffic. Currently, only three of its wines are local from start to finish. But that didn't seem to bother visitor Rene Montserrat of Rockville, who walked away with four bottles after commenting: "That's good. That's local?"

Before visitors sample the wares, Williams implores them to tour the facility, which is attached to the art-gallery-style tasting room and retail store. The tour lasts no more than five minutes, and you need only to crane your neck to take in the whole operation. White pieces of paper with black type are taped onto each piece of equipment; a large posterboard with colored Magic Marker lettering explains the four winemaking steps. One of the more interesting attractions is the bottling machine, which resembles an entry for a 1950s science fair. The machine fills the bottles with red or white wine, then sticks the cork in and slaps on a label. No fingers are stained in the process.

To watch the machine in motion, check the cellar's Web site, which posts upcoming bottling sessions. (One is scheduled for late June.) The other wineries also have public viewings of their operations: Loew's grape-crushing machine operates out front during harvest time (August through October), and Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard in Dickerson has a mobile bottling station in its parking lot.

"We're not hiding out in the back making wine," said Carl DiManno, Sugarloaf's California-trained winemaker. "We are out front and center."

As are the owners, who seem more comfortable playing the role of host than businessman.

Half an hour before Berrywine Plantations/Linganore Winecellars of Mount Airy closed for the day, I bumped into owner Lucille Aellen by the spouting Bacchus fountain. Inside the renovated red barn, the family's matriarch pointed out photographs lining the hallway, including a black-and-white picture of her German-Swiss father, who gave his daughter her very first wine press. Her 47-year-old son, Anthony, the winemaker, showed us around the pastoral 230-acre property, but Lucille returned midway through the tasting with a bowl of strawberries. The berries were to be eaten with the May wine, but unfortunately she came two dessert wines too late.

While Anthony poured wine after wine -- 13, until we screamed "last call" -- Lucille chirped in with recipes (mix raspberry wine into brownie batter), kitchen tips (use frozen grapes instead of ice to chill your wine) and commentary richer than anything to come out of Martha Stewart's mouth.

"Before you start housekeeping, put a glass in every room and a bottle of Mountain White in your pocket," she said. "When you've had enough of cleaning, pour yourself a glass and kick your legs up on the couch."

Spoken like a woman who was raised on wine made in her family's basement -- and has finally moved upstairs.