United States of Wine

The Urban Winery – Chamborcin 2019 – Maryland

Purchased: The Urban Winery by Fig Tree Wines

Price: $36

Inside the Washington, D.C., beltway, the Urban Winery sits hidden in a business park filled with auto shops and building materials businesses. It’s technically not in D.C, but a mile from the North Corner Boundary Stone that marks where the district technically begins. But as everyone in the area knows, D.C. spreads itself far into neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia.

And so, I consider this a D.C. winery, even if its address is in Silver Spring.

I settled on their Chamborcin (their spelling) after a flight of their reds. The Chambourcin is a French-American hybrid grape and grown in the Mid-Atlantic area of the United States. It’s also used in blends with other grapes. According to Urban Winery, these particular grapes for their Chamborcin were grown on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, off the western coast of the Chesapeake Bay.

The wine is a beautiful rust color that upon opening the bottle, smells of red fruit and velvet. The first sips don’t do the wine justice, as it’s still a tad sour. But underneath you could taste a hint of sand and salt. That’s what lead to me ask about the grapes’ source, wondering how far from a body of water they were grown in. This wine does taste exactly from where its grapes came from.

Letting the wine breathe, I found it changing itself to match the mood of the winery’s great environment, like a chameleon, if you will. It carried hints of spice, a slight peppery taste. But through it all, it remained light with low tannins. And the longer it was open, the more a very faint sweetness appeared on the tongue, as if suddenly a single cherry was at the bottom of the bottle.

But perhaps my favorite part of Urban Winery’s Chamborcin was that its taste, even as it matured, reminded me of a very warm day. There was definitely a taste of nature, and I struggled to name it. Was it greenery? Maybe like walking through warm grass? Then it hit me: This wine made me feel like I was sitting on grassy beach dunes on a hot day. It might be a perfect beach day wine, but I’m definitely looking forward to trying it with Maryland seafood dishes. Crab cakes, anyone?

Score: 8/10