A Nice Eastern Shore Stop

Our second stop in Maryland was about 40 minutes east of St. Michaels, Layton's Chance Vineyard in Vienna, MD.  It popped up not far from the water and surrounded by farmland. It was very peaceful with rocking chairs on the front porch. We were the only guests, but had apparently just missed a big crowd. The tasting room was well decorated with local pottery, other crafts and wine knick-knacks.

Our two hostesses were very friendly and told us quite a bit about the property. We learned that they made their first wine in 2009 and since they are still building their vineyards they have bought some of their grapes from other MD and NY vineyards. For $3 we tried 8 wines and the wine frappe. Layton's Chance is on Lazy Day Farm which is an 1800 acre working farm, owned by the Layton family.


They have their signature concord grape wines which are sweeter and they call the "beer drinkers wine," Joe's Cool White and Joe's Cool Red both with 8% rs and 12% alcohol. As a (dark) beer fan myself, perhaps these should be called the light beer drinkers wine. I did like their red version of Joe's slightly better than St. Michael's Gollywobbler. As for the rest of the wines we all liked the 2010 Traminette the best,  the Chambourcin was made with NY grapes but it was a bit more tart than I like my Chambourcin to be. They had the sweet wines well represented with a Lazy Day White (4% rs) and Lazy Day Rose in addition to Joe's wines. In the summer they serve a sweet Watermelon Wine which is a local favorite, unfortunately they were sold out so we were not able to try any. This vineyard seemed to fit the Eastern Shore with their light sweet wines for summer time sipping. While enjoying a glass we had some local cheeses from Chesapeake Bay Farms and we fell in love with their smoked cheddar!

Since we were so far from home we asked our hostesses for dinner recommendations and they pointed us in the direction of the Hot Spot Cafe in Cambridge. We also adored this spot! We had the best surf & turf...all the surf was amazing your choice of shrimp, scallops or crabcakes and since there were 3 of us we got to try all three. Delish!