June 1, 2022 / News
Paintings by Elizabeth Floyd and her Students–June 4 through July 3
at Links Bridge Vineyards
Elizabeth Floyd began her career as an architect, but her true passion was to be an artist. Today she is a well-known painter in three main genres: still life, figurative, and landscape. Floyd has received recognition in local and international art exhibitions and competitions. Her work is represented in the Principle Gallery/Alexandria, the Anderson Fine Art Gallery, and Galerie Kornye West, and has appeared in numerous publications.
Floyd loves painting the flowers she grows in her own garden and works with oils in a colorist manner utilizing a full-color palette. She teaches painting classes and workshops locally at the Art League in Old Town Alexandria, VA and the Arts of Great Falls in Great Falls, VA. (Some of her classes are available on-line.)
Camellias and Witchhazel by Elizabeth Floyd. All rights reserved.
One technique Floyd used to develop her own amazing skill in still life rendering was copying masterpieces at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Analyzing and reverse-engineering the effects used in creating these masterworks enabled Floyd to learn new painting approaches and skills and apply them to her own work. In her “Master Copy” classes, she now teaches this learning technique to her students. These multi-week classes focus on work by a selected artist. In the first half of the course, students expand their painting skills and powers of observation by creating a master copy of one of the artist’s paintings. In the last half of the course, they apply the approaches and skills learned to a new painting of their own. The basic idea is “learn new skills from a master, then apply them to your own way of creative expression.”
Table With Apples, inspired by Cézanne, by Elizabeth Floyd.. All rights reserved.
Floyd will be exhibiting some of her own Master Copy creations together with those of her students in our tasting room at Links Bridge. Works will include master copies and original pieces inspired by Jean Siméon Chardin, Willem van Aelst, and Paul Cézanne. After seeing these paintings, both inspirational and beautiful, some of you may be interested in joining one of Floyd’s classes. In any case, the exhibit will be a joyful event and we invite you to study these paintings while you enjoy a glass of wine.
This special exhibit will be on display in the tasting room from June 4 to July 3.
For more information about Floyd’s classes and about her own work, go to https://elizabethfloyd.com
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May 31, 2022 / News
Goat Yoga Returns to Links Bridge Vineyards!
We are excited to tell you that Goat Yoga is returning to Links Bridge Vineyards on:
Sunday, June 5, 10am-Noon
Saturday, July 23, 10 am-Noon
Saturday, October 8, 3-5 pm
Goat yoga is a special, heartwarming kind of yoga, fun for yogis at every skill level. Cute, engaging, and lovable, these little goats will participate in the class, encouraging you to new physical and mental heights.
Before your class, savor a glass of sangria. After class, enjoy a glass of wine on our tasting room terrace. Take a stroll along the Monocacy River. Bring a picnic or try one of our charcuterie platters. Buy a bottle of wine and enjoy the rest of your afternoon up on the terrace or down by the river.
Exercise, relax, and enjoy!
Register for your class here on the Goat for the Soul website. Sangria, the goat yoga class, and the after-class glass of wine are all included in the $40 ticket price. Children are welcome!
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April 25, 2022 / News
Exhibit: Maureen Minard at Links Bridge Vineyards
May 14-29
Meet the Artist May 14 and May 29
Maureen Minard, abstract painter, art historian, and teacher in the Washington DC area, will display her paintings at Links Bridge Vineyards from May 14-May 29. On Saturday May 14 and Sunday May 29 she will be here from 1pm-3pm and available to discuss her work. We invite you to come by and chat with her!
Using acrylics, oil pastels, and various mixed media materials, Minard has established her own unique method of landscape and cityscape abstraction that is easy to appreciate and enjoy. Her work is colorful, vibrant, and playful. She paints abstract impressions of familiar, local spaces from her recollections. She has just completed an entirely new series of paintings for this special exhibit. Included in her exhibit are some vivid color paintings of Frederick Maryland employing her distinctive style of fractured memories captured on canvas.
Minard grew up in Northern Virginia, where she was influenced by the rich history of artist communities in the DC region. After graduating with a B.A. in Art History from Georgetown, she worked at the Smithsonian and participated in local art programs. For the last fifteen years, she has taught at the Edmund Burke School, a progressive school in Washington DC, focusing on Art History, African studies, and U.S. History.
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April 17, 2022 / News
Links Bridge Wine Club May 2022 Selection
In March we bottled white wines and rosés from our 2021 harvest, and reds from 2020. Bottling requires a lot of work and cooperation from all, and when that time rolls around everyone here drops whatever else they’re doing and pitches in. We’d especially like to recognize the help of wine club members Skip and Hazel Stewart, who labeled, taped, and palletized cases of new wine all day long. (There they are, just below.)
We think these new wines are pretty good, and our next (May 2022) wine club selection includes four of them. With this in mind, we’re sending this message to everyone on our general mailing list just in case some of you might want to join the club.
If you’re already a club member, or if you’re familiar with the club but have no interest in joining, stop here! Otherwise, read on…
This post includes (1) a summary of how the club works, (2) a description of the May selection, and (3) instructions on how to join the club.
Hope to see you soon at Links Bridge Vineyards!
Best spring wishes,
Bob & Joan
1. Here’s how the club generally works:
- If you join the Links Bridge Wine Club, we will provide you with four selected bottles of wine three times each year. These selections may include current wines that we think are especially good, wines reserved for club members, and/or new wines that have not yet been released.
- Two to three weeks in advance of the pickup period for a given selection, we will send you an email that describes the selection, the pickup date or period, and a deadline date for making adjustments to the selection.
- The price of each selection will be our normal retail price for the wine less a 15% wine club discount, plus Maryland alcohol tax. For club members we will extend this discount to any additional wines you order along with the announced selection (and to wines you purchase at other times of the year).
- If you wish to substitute a different wine for one or more of the selected wines, you can let us know by the deadline date.
- If you wish to opt out of a selection entirely, no problem—just let us know by the deadline date and we will not charge you for that selection.
- On the day after the deadline date, we will charge your credit or debit card for the amount due, taking into account any substitutions you have requested.
- We hope you will come by Links Bridge during the pickup period for each selection, as we enjoy your company and will often have members-only events on these dates that feature the selected wines, wines still to come, or both, and keep you informed about what’s going on at Links Bridge Vineyards.
- If you’re unable to be here during the pickup period, we’ll hold the wine for you until you can come by. Or, should you instruct us, we will ship the selection to you at your expense.
2. The May 2022 Selection
Our May selection features four new wines bottled in March—2021 Albariño, 2021 Hillside Chardonnay, 2021 Wild Roses (a delicious rosé), and 2020 Syrah “S”. More details below, but first:
The pickup weekend for this selection is Saturday-Sunday May 7-8 (11am-6pm). (If you are unable to come during the pickup weekend, we will of course hold your wine selection until you are able to be here.)
The deadline date for requesting substitutions, etc. is Monday, May 2.
Here are some additional details about the May selection wines:
2021 Albariño. Harvested September 2021 from our Riverside vineyard, fermented and aged in stainless steel for 7 months. Crisp, clean, and aromatic with slight hints of apple and honeydew melon on the nose and palate. Serve this one cold on a hot summer day! Bottled March 2022. ABV 12.8%.
2021 Hillside Chardonnay. Harvested September 2021 from our Hillside vineyard, fermented and aged in stainless steel for 7 months. Malolactic fermentation gives this wine a rich and mellow character, best appreciated by serving it cool (45°-55° F) but not cold. Bottled March 2022. ABV 12.9%.
2021 Wild Roses. Named for the wild roses that grow around our new Chestnut Hill vineyard, this wine is a 60/40 blend of two rosés. The first, relatively high in acid and low in alcohol, was made by co-fermenting a small crop of Chardonel and a very small crop of Cabernet Franc—both harvested somewhat hurriedly from un-netted second-year vines at Chestnut Hill that were about to be demolished by the local birds. The second, higher in alcohol and with some residual sugar, was made from a saignée of Syrah grapes. Together, they make a single rosé that we think will be a great summer wine. We like it so much that we may try to make it again next year using the same procedure. Bottled March 2022. ABV 12.2%.
2020 Syrah “S.” While establishing new Syrah vines at our Chestnut Hill vineyard, we decided to get a head start by practicing on Syrah grapes from Washington State. 2020 Syrah “S,” which many of you have barrel-tasted, is one of the results. (The other is 2020 Syrah “X,” which will be part of another wine club distribution later this year. More on that one later.) The “S” is rich and deeply colored, redolent of dark fruits with hints of smoke and pepper. Its good acid and grippy tannins suggest aging potential. Bottled March 2022 (even though the label says April). ABV 15.3%.
After the Links Bridge Wine Club 15% discount and Maryland’s 9% alcohol tax, the price of this selection for club members is $100.06.
3. How to Join the Links Bridge Wine Club
We invite you to join the wine club simply by purchasing our May selection.
To get this started, send us an email before the deadline date (Monday, May 2) at linksbridgevineyards@gmail.com. Use WINE CLUB as the subject line. Please include in your email:
- Your name, mailing address, email address, and phone number.
- Whether you would like to make any substitutions or additions. (For information about our other wines, look at the “Our Wines” page in our website—just click here.)
On the day following the deadline date, we will send an invoice to your email address that bills you for the May selection, adjusted for any substitutions you requested. This invoice will come to you from Square, the same well-known point-of-sale system that we use for transactions at our tasting room. You will be invited to pay this invoice online with a credit or debit card.
At the same time, Square will also present you with the option to save your card details in order to facilitate subsequent wine club transactions. We will need you to do this in order to make our wine club system work. Please note, however, that your card information will be housed securely with Square rather than at Links Bridge Vineyards.
Once you’ve purchased the August selection and placed your card information on file with Square, you are officially a Links Bridge Wine Club member. (And our communications about subsequent wine club selections will be a lot shorter!)
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February 28, 2022 / News
Seven Variations on Vidal Blanc
March is Maryland Wine Month! It’s a great time to visit as many as you can of Maryland’s 100+ wineries.
To mark the occasion, Links Bridge Vineyards will be celebrating Vidal Blanc, our favorite French-American hybrid. “VB,” as we call it, is a relatively cold-hardy and disease-resistant grape variety that thrives in all regions of Maryland and can be used in making delicious wine in a wide range of styles.
To illustrate the versatility of Vidal, we’ll be offering throughout Maryland Wine Month (in addition to our regular tasting menu) a flight of 7 variations on Vidal Blanc. The wines will range from dry to delicately sweet, from still to sparkling, and from pure Vidal to blends in which Vidal plays the star role. We’ll accompany this flight with a sampling of French and American cheeses selected especially to enhance the taste of the wine.
Come on by, taste the samples, savor the wines, and learn for yourself the potential of this wonderful grape!
Cheers!
Bob & Joan
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