Shade Mountain Winery and Vineyards, Middleburg, PA
Nestled among the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania, in what is known as the Susquehanna Valley, is a winery with a lot of class and character. Shade Mountain Winery is known mostly to the locals, but certainly has the potential for wide spread recognition. Owners Karl and Carolyn Zimmerman began their venture into professional wine making in 1989 when they started their vineyards. They currently have about 60 acres of grapes and the complete process from planting to bottling is done onsite.
The Zimmerman's grow and produce several varietals including: Chardonnay, riesling, cabernet franc, sauvignon blanc, cayuga, viognier and traminette. They also bottle their own specialty blends such as Shade Mountain Red, Rascal Red, Shade Mountain Blush and Anniversary White, just to name a few. In addition to their extensive list of grape wines, they also produce a variety of fruit wines. Many of these are from locally grown fruit. Persimmon, apricot, and elderberry are on the listing of fruit wines that are quite good, but my favorites are raspberry and blackberry.
Something of an enigma is the Six Dwarf's Mint Wine; a sweet dessert wine with 11% alcohol. It has a rather pleasant complexity to it; sweet, fragrant, floral and refreshing. I liked it well enough to buy several bottles and have found that adding it to iced tea makes a cool and refreshing summer drink.
Several Shade Mountain wines have won awards: Sauvignon blanc was a gold medal winner at the 2000 Pennsylvania Wine Competition; cabernet franc was a silver medal winner at the 2002 PA Wine Competition and a silver medal winner at the 2001 Pennsylvania State Farm Show; the lemberger was given a gold medal for Best Overall Vinifera at the 2003 PA Farm Show; the Shade Mountain Red received a bronze medal at the 2003 PA Farm Show and Proprietor's Red was a bronze medal winner at the 2003 PA Wine Competition and a silver medal winner at the 2003 PA farm show. These awards are an indication of this winemaker's dedication to his craft.
The tasting room at Shade Mountain Winery is decorated with attractive wine displays and there are various accessories available for purchase. There is no charge for wine tasting and to tell you the truth, with the number of wines I tasted from their impressive list, I almost felt a little guilty about that. But I have learned the advantage (or is that disadvantage?) of trying before buying. We left with more bottles than we intended to buy. Chances are, you will too!