Published on: Friday, September 03, 2010

By Nick Coletta

The cultural feel of the annual Uncorked Wine and Music Festival filled the downtown Rockville air Saturday as a variety of Maryland wineries, musicians and chefs showcased their most prized works of art.

With neighboring state Virginia as one of top wine producers in the nation, the Maryland wine industry often times finds itself overshadowed. Uncorked provides Maryland a platform to gain publicity, according to the city’s special events manager Colleen McQuitty. Starting at noon, more than 3,000 people mingled around the streets of the Rockville Town Center to get a taste of what this state has to offer during the six-hour event.

Established by Tom Shelton, owner of the first licensed winery in Wicomico County, Bordeleau Winery distributed samples of their genuinely blended wines that are produced by volunteer and family workers. Bordeleau is 100 percent estate grown and features 12 varieties of red and white grape wines at Uncorked.

The name Bordeleau, which means “the water’s edge,” is reflective of the winery’s distinct location on the Eastern Shore. There, the winery hand-harvests its own grapes and ferments its own wine, which was recently awarded “Best in Show” in the 2009 Maryland Winemasters Choice Competition, according to the Uncorked website.

Less than a month old, Jackie’s Wine Club took part in the festival to display its array of imports. Formed on July 30, the wine and tapas bar is owned by Emilio Borro and named after his daughter Jackie. The Silver Spring-based wine club featured samples of their imported wines from Borro’s homeland Argentina, as well as imports from France, Italy and Spain.

Uncorked also hosted the Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard, which is Montgomery County’s only winery and only vineyard. Purchased by Dan and Polly O’Donoghue in 1962, the Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard is family owned and operated on a 92-acre section of land in the rolling hills of Dickerson.

“We speak to all our participating wineries afterward, and so many say that they get a lot of business after the festival,” McQuitty said. “People end up visiting the wineries and purchasing their wine.”

Although wine was the focus, patrons also got a taste of different types of music and cuisine from across the state. Nine different musical guests performed on one of the three stages while two chefs performed cooking demonstrations and offered samples at the cuisine venue.

Holding true to its nature, Uncorked offered a variety of bands to meet the musical genre preferences of the diverse crowd.

One of the featured bands, Superland, formed at the University of Maryland in 2004, took the stage at 4:30 p.m. Superland performed classical funk music from the ’60s and ’70s on the Maryland Stage, while the acoustical sound of country singer and songwriter Toby Walker could be heard in the distance as he performed on the Gibbs Stage. Walker engineered a mixture of blues, folk and other traditional American music, which has been heard in concert halls, festivals and coffeehouses throughout the U.S., England and Europe.

The cameo appearance of DiVine was the most popular entertainment act of the event. The ivy-clad performer moved through the streets covered in green, leafy vines, blending in with the foliage of the with the use of her overgrown ivy slits.

DiVine performed four, 30-minute encounters for Uncorked’s guests before going completely incognito at 5:30 p.m.

In addition to regularly cooking at the White House and the Embassy of France, appearing on the Iron Chef of America, and hosting his own cooking series on national television, Chef Patrice Olivon performed an hour-long cooking demonstration during Uncorked. An audience crowded around the demonstration table as the world-renowned culinary artist prepared a three-course meal using his own recipes.

Those who wished to sample the wines had to be punctual so that they could purchase a wine glass before it was too late. At a cost of $10 each, the souvenir wine glass was the only way to get a taste of the Maryland reserve. With 1,000 more glasses than last year’s festival, Uncorked ran out of the 3,000 wine glasses around 4 p.m., according to McQuitty. She said that the event staff will need to order even more wine glasses for next year’s festival.