April 26, 2022 / News
All,
This post has pretty much nothing to do with wines and everything to do with birds! Jerry Warner has surveyed birds at Links Bridge for the 2020 and 2021 Catoctin Christmas Bird Counts and for the Maryland/DC Breeding Bird Atlas. While here on Sunday morning, April 24, he noted a little over 300 birds comprising 43 species. His follow-up email will tell you what he saw. To take a look, click here.
Cheers,
Bob & Joan
Note: try these links for more information!
Audubon Christmas Bird Count
Maryland/DC Breeding Bird Atlas
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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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January 31, 2022 / News
Hello All!
As this picture suggests, it’s still winter here at Links Bridge Vineyards…
But the one below, taken not long ago, somehow reminds us (just barely) of spring.
And that reminds us to let you know about our new schedule for the upcoming spring, summer, and fall.
Beginning this coming weekend (February 5-6), we’ll be open Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 6pm, and on other days by appointment. We have limited indoor seating but plenty of seating outdoors. So until things warm up a bit, we’ll ask you to make a reservation for indoor seating. You won’t need a reservation for outdoor seating unless your party is large. Also, until the present Covid-19 variant recedes a bit more, we will continue our existing masking policy. We provide details below.
We look forward to seeing you again!
Cheers,
Bob and Joan
Indoor seating on Saturdays and Sundays, 11am-6pm
Reservation required–please call 301-466-2413. (You’re welcome to call for a reservation right up until the time you’d like to come, but we don’t want you to make an unnecessary trip if space is not available!)
Outdoor seating on Saturdays and Sundays, 11am-6pm
Eight or fewer in party–no reservation needed.
More than eight in party–please call 301-466-2413 for a reservation.
Other days/times
Call 301-466-2413 to make an appointment.
Mask policy
To help protect all of our customers:
Please wear a mask indoors when not seated at a table.
Please wear a mask outdoors when not seated at a table if you are within six feet of other customers not in your party.
Continued …
November 22, 2021 / News
Our Winter Schedule
All,
While we haven’t yet had a day this season like the one in the picture below, we’ll soon change over to our winter schedule here at Links Bridge Vineyards, and we wanted to write to you about the details:
This coming Saturday and Sunday (November 27-28) will be our last weekend of normal operations for the year.
From November 29 through February 3 we will be open by appointment only. During that interval, if you’d like to come by to taste some wine, buy some wine to go, or enjoy a picnic at our tasting room, just give us a call at 301-466-2413 and we can set up a time that works for all.
Beginning Saturday February 4, we’ll be back to our normal weekend schedule, opening Saturdays and Sundays, 11am-6pm, and by appointment on other days.
By the most recent weather forecast, it looks like this coming Thursday will be a lovely sunny Thanksgiving Day. We hope that your Thanksgiving and the holidays beyond will be great ones and happy ones.
All the best,
Bob & Joan
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