Frederick Cellers

Wow. This place has the worst wine I’ve EVER tasted.
I first came here two years ago with a friend while visiting the old hometown. I remember thinking then how bad the wine we tasted was. I still took a chance and bought a Winter Red that was a special edition for that year (it wasn’t included in the tasting). I opened it recently and OMFG it was awful. My boyfriend, who will drink any red wine, couldn’t even handle it.
Yet, I still came back here a few days ago during another visit to give them another shot. They must not be doing very well as they are now only inhabiting half of the building they are in, when they used to have it all. Now there is a Wine Bar and Bistro next door. When I asked if they sell their wines, the employee answered «I don’t think so, maybe one». Wow. How bad of a winery must you be if the wine bar NEXT DOOR won’t sell you?!
The Eye of the Oriole is their best wine, so I bought a bottle. Their Vin De Glacé was ok, but def not worth the price they are selling it! Everything else was atrocious. The employee was nice, but not very knowledgeable about their wines. We were in and out in less than 10 min. Such a sad experience. Such a sad winery.

My husband and I needed a break from work. Both of us work in high stress jobs, and while we both normally thrive on the crazy (gotta love us Type A personalities), we were close to the breaking point (he was, I just get goofy). So we took the day off, packed a picnic lunch (of delicious bahn mi), and decided to hit up some Maryland wineries. Imagine our surprise when we find that there is a little «winery» conveniently in Frederick’s Historic district. This isn’t the actual winery, but merely the «tasting room» for their wineries which seems to span around the Maryland area!
As with most places in Historic Frederick, the space is remarkably charming, with old hardwood and adorable wine barrels as bar tables. My husband and I sidled up to the bar for the tasting, which was only $ 2 per person for 5 wines — unless you want to buy a souvenir glass like we did, which is then $ 8 per, and had a great time with a really nice gentleman who not only taught us what we should be tasting with the wine, but the «story» on some of the wines, which definitely adds a bit of mystique and allure to the wines. At the end of the tasting (and he poured more then 5 wines for us… I think we tasted practically everything they had… haha!), we bought a bottle of wine for our Vietnamese sammich picnic (there is a park right next door), only to realize that it was pouring outside!
Although there is a weird rule about not being able to let us pour our own wines inside a winery, they kindly let us have our picnic indoors at one of the wine barrel tables. They merely poured our wine for us to get around this weird rule. It was a fun and lovely and fantastically charming and romantic picnic! When they realized that we were not tourists but locals, they even popped in some lovely jazz in the background and lit up a few candles around the bar to make it more fun for us! How lovely!
Shortly after this, one of my friends decided to have her bridal shower here. Now, I’m normally not a fan of showers. I will go with a smile on my face because I know how much it means to my friends, not because I’m actually enjoying myself. However, even as I wanted to stab myself in the eye with each «bridal game» (seriously, these games stopped being fun when I was in the 5^th grade!!! GAAAH!), I must say, having the shower at Frederick Winecellers definitely took the edge off of the suicidal thoughts!
The staff was friendly and «closed down» the place so that we had the entire place to ourselves. The bridesmaids did a great job with the food (you have to bring in your own food or get a caterer) and the decorations, and the staff seemed to be pretty OK with letting us do whatever we wanted! Despite the games, I would probably have had a fairly decent time if it wasn’t for our friend the drama-​llama, who was perpetually attached to my hip and deciding to be snarky to the other girls. *SIGH*. But that’s a different story for a different day.
In a nutshell, this was a very friendly and very adorable tasting room. It’s a great venue for events, and even if you’re just trying to have a romantic (yet cheap) date, this is a great spot. Definitely a fan.