Mazzaroth Vineyard

Mazzaroth Vineyard is located in Middletown, Maryland and is a family-owned boutique winery. Micki and Garry Cohen own it and are operating it out of their house. A soil analysis was done in 2011 and a small vineyard was planted on their property. That small quarter acre has now grown to 1.75 acres. The name, Mazzaroth, originated in the Book of Job and directly translates to "star array." It can also mean a set of constellations or the zodiac. To Mazzaroth Winery, it means humans can't control the forces of nature. It has taken us way longer than we had planned to get out to them for a visit. Ever since trying their tannat a few years ago at the Maryland Wine Festival, they have been on our radar. It was excellent and everyone at the festival was talking about it. But due to the small operation that Mazzaroth is, visits are one hour, by appointment only, and space is very limited. The "star array" finally aligned and we were able to make it happen in July 2025. The tasting was conducted by Garry himself and his dog, Leo, greeted us as soon as we pulled in. Garry and his wife are originally from Randallstown but moved to their current location so they could go through the zoning and commercial engineering process to convert it into a winery. 60% of the grapes they use are grown on site, including cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon. They also get a number of grapes from David Collins over at Big Cork Vineyards like muscat cannelli, petit verdot and syrah. Other grapes like vidal blanc come from a vineyard on the Eastern Shore. They do all bottling by hand and we quickly learned how passionate Garry is for quality. Every single wine we tried was excellent. It was hard to choose our favorites but I'll go into detail on a few. The vidal blanc was very fresh and citrusy with peach on the palate. The cabernet franc was full of fresh fruit like cherry and raspberry, with a peppery nose. Mazzaroth was the first winery in Maryland to grow tannat and theirs was full of dark fruit and cocoa with enough tannin to be able to enjoy it through 2028. The petit verdot had violet, anise and pepper on the nose and great dark fruit, plum and tannin on the pallet. We got to try the chardonnay that was just released and also entered into a competition. It was unoaked a full of super ripe fruit like apple and peach. They want to be known as the best value in the state of Maryland for the quality and we definitely think they are nailing it!