Windridge Vineyards
Windridge Vineyards. November 7, 2021. The Manifesto for this Blog states that our travels are “mostly” in Virginia. However, after reading an article in a recent Washington Post about wineries close to Washington, DC, Kim and I ventured across the river to Darnestown, Maryland, to visit Windridge Vineyards on a crisp Sunday morning. First, a note about Maryland wineries. Although Maryland and Virginia share much in their historical development, they appear to have diverged in the 1980’s. Virginia took a path resulting in a more robust wine industry now than Maryland. I believe that Maryland wine traces its start back to the 1640’s and followed a similar path as Virginia. In 1979, Maryland had seven operating wineries while Virginia, a state around four times larger, famously had only six wineries. But in 1979-80, Virginia enacted its farm winery legislation allowing wine sales at the source (see, Bureaucracy page). It was not until twenty years later that M