DrinkLocalWine (DLW) announced today that Baltimore, Maryland will be the site of its fifth annual conference. The focus on Maryland wine occurs less than two years after the state permitted direct shipping and three years after the number of wineries in Maryland nearly doubled. The DLW conference takes place April 12th to the 14th in Baltimore.

One of the highlights of the DLW conferences is a Twitter Taste Off. Wineries will serve a few of their wines while conference attendees vote for the best red and white. The press in attendance during the taste off will taste, tweet and taste again while they post tweets to Twitter and write blog posts. Having attended three of these Twitter-Taste Offs, I consider this work. It’s one thing to taste and another thing to compose a message limited to 140 characters, less if you want retweets.

The four previous conferences took place in Texas, Virginia, Missouri and Colorado. The 2013 conference returns to the East Coast placing the spotlight on Maryland. Hopefully this conference will help raise knowledge about Maryland wine and dispel some of the myths such as Maryland only makes sweet wines.

In addition to the Twitter Taste Off, there will be three sessions offered by the top names on the Maryland wine scene. The primary sponsor for the conference is the Maryland Winery Association, one of the few winery associations in the country with 100% membership of the wineries in the state.

Kathy and Terry, from Wine Trail Traveler, will attend and report from the conference. Perhaps we will take a bottle of a White Cabernet Sauvignon we are making with Maryland grapes.

Cheers,
Terry