Detour Vineyard and Winery

We came here for a wine tasting about two weeks ago. It was a short visit: despite stopping by during the business hours posted on their website, they were closed. No explanation or advance notice of the closure was given anywhere: website, Facebook page, answering machine, etc. Apparently we weren’t the only ones. Another person posted on the winery’s Facebook page to complain that it was also closed on a different day when they were supposed to be open. I don’t know if this place is out of business or if they just don’t have it together, but we won’t be back.

Future Brides,
I was to have my wedding at Detour on Sept. 6^th of this year, however with 38 days to go I had to move my wedding for the 3^rd time. My first location went out of business 6 months before my wedding. Detour was very nice in the begging and said all the right things to make me feel better after such a terrible experience. Once I signed a new contract with them in May, we went to work on making the place my dream wedding. However, shortly after signing the contract the issues started. When I first walked through the venue I was told the reception hall would have Air Conditioning installed in July, the parking area would be black topped and there would be a huge patio deck build onto the reception hall for my cocktail hour. I was continuously promised that all of these items would be there for my wedding. I then paid the Venue in full and when I went back to check on the status of the patio, black topped parking area, and AC in the reception hall, NONE of these things were done. Prior to being told that nothing had been worked on, I spent weeks trying to get in contact with Sarah via phone (the person that takes care of the weddings at Detour). For weeks I only received e-​mails, which never answered my direct questions. I also received emails saying every month that the blacktop, patio, and AC would be done the next month. So I decided to show up and see the venue for myself 38 days to my wedding. When I arrived I instantly saw the landscaping was dead and overgrown with large dirt piles, and the trees around the reception hall were completely dead. The owner is a landscaper! When I asked if it would be taken care of I keep getting the answer of «sure» and «yup» for everything. They then proceeded to tell me that she could give me my deposit back so I could go somewhere else!!! (It was a LITTLE late for that!!) Needless to say, I had to move my wedding again! This venue almost ruined my wedding with their bait and switch tactics! Please go somewhere else when choosing your day!

Went on a little wine tour yesterday with my boyfriend to some MD wineries and Detour by far stood out among the others. It may even be the best winery we’ve ever visited. The staff was welcoming, knowledgeable, friendly and pleasant. The woman helping us was patient, cheerful and allowed us to take our time and enjoy the wine tasting. We sampled around 6 or 7 different wines and received very generous sample sizes when compared to what most other wineries typically give. We loved practically all of the wines and wound up leaving with half a dozen bottles along with a wine bottle bag and 3 bricks of local cheese. We enjoyed a lovely picnic lunch outside with our dog since it was a mild day. Another perk is that the winery is dog friendly! This was a great experience and we can’t wait to go back and bring some friends and family with us for our future visits!

Went to Detour with a few friends. The drive there is beautiful. The tour left much to be desired… I am glad it was free. He was disorganized, basically just showed us around one room in the area and said if we wanted to walk around later we could. It was $ 5 for 6 tokens of wine tasting but most wines required two tokens. The wine itself was fine for Maryland. There were a few I did like but would not have paid $ 26 for it. They have a nice area they call a chapel for outdoor weddings.
I would go back for fun however… Old Westminster Winery has a better venue and better wine and food.

Attending the fall festival yesterday at Detour and was so disappointed compared to last year’s event. If you are going to charge $ 20 a ticket (lucky I had a Living Social so it was cheaper for us), you need to provide more. You were given tokens to taste each wine and it limited your ability to try Detour’s wine without paying extra $ 5. They wanted $ 15 for a mug of mulled drinks. There was nothing for the kids but a bounce house. I don’t think in the future this event should be advertised as a kid’s friendly event. We were thinking we would come back for the Ravens Sundays in November but after yesterday’s experience we will stick the vineyards in Virginia.

Small winery, they are trying but they don’t have things figured out yet. The grounds are laid out poorly and not accomodating to large groups outside. The wines are okay, but definitely overpriced. The couple playing music were a nice find, but the owner and her daughter walking around asking for donations for her gymnastics team, wasn’t cool at all. Donations? Really? Not even selling a candy bar? Donations? Yeah, I just donated $ 75 for wine tasting and a couple bottles of wine. Very very unclassy. Won’t be back.

The review is for the winery itself, and not so much for the wines. Maryland wine in general is pretty pathetic, so the wineries tend to focus on fruit and sweet wines. Which I don’t have a problem with, but many wine snobs do. The wines at Detour are perfectly fine, in league with other Maryland wineries. Several of them, well, taste good – which means non-​wine drinkers will probably find something they like.
I had visited them once a few months back, and noticed that they have «events». I recently decided to check the event schedule, and opted to try the 4^th of July festival (held the Saturday after). I realize this weekend is popular for heading out of town, but I have to say, anyone who was in town and didn’t come REALLY missed out. Live music (and not cheesy stuff – big name bands), wine sampling, and professional fireworks. 30 minutes of real fireworks. Well worth the cover.
The winery is located on the Frederick/​Carroll county border, an easy drive from Frederick, etc.

I’m not a Wine Connoisseur, so there’s little i can add about the quality/​taste of wines Detour Vineyard offers. That said, nestled deep inside the beautiful Carrol county Detour has decent variety of red and white table wines, quite a few dessert wines and plenty of fruit wines. They had 21 wines available for tasting over the weekend.
As many other folks here have mentioned, the pours are small. It isnt too bad when you get to taste 21 different wines, but some of the pours were less than a sip which was perhaps the only negative i can think of.
The bottles are priced, well, competitively i suppose. The reds are pricier with most bottles ranging from $ 24-​$ 35 which i felt was overpriced. The person who assisted with our tasting was very friendly and courteous. Upon inquiring he did say that ever since they opened, their top 3 selling wines have always been their white wines which did not surprise me., the white wines are where Detour excels. And as we sat out in the patio enjoying a refreshing bottle of blush admiring the beauty of country side, i could totally see myself returning here again.

Wanting to try a vineyard/​winery close to the house that we haven’t been to yet we headed out to Detour with the Mom and family in tow for Mothers day. Although all great in there own right we have been there done that with Linganore, Black Ankle, and Elk Run. So off to Detour we headed, first impressions the drive is great very country road BEAUTIFUL and relaxing. I got out of the car and thought to myself it’s so quiet, in such a nice serene way. The grounds are pretty, although it would be nice if there was a little more of a view from the outdoor seating area instead of being sandwiched in between two buildings. The tasting room is clean, and large enough to accommodate.
The tastings were a little disorganized but I really think that is to be expected when you have five people tasting, two of which did the 12 wines for $ 10 three of which did the four complimentary wines. The customer service was great when I was there, attentive, friendly but gave us space to discuss as well. Yes a lot of the wines are fruit and sweet wines which is very typical for Maryland wineries and the climate. I thought the prices were very reasonably priced. As one reviewer had mentioned, have you been to Black Ankle? I think the cheapest bottle you can walk away with is $ 28. That being said it at times is worth it I think the wine is great. But I digress, you have to keep in mind with a place like Detour they are growing ALL the fruit/​grapes etc. that they need for their wines. All of them, I know because I asked. I feel that is something that is worth appreciating and supporting. There are plenty of vineyards/​wineries that truck grapes in from California, Italy etc. not keeping it local. I would imagine it has to be quite the undertaking to be able to support as many wines as they have. A lot of the wines are sweet, but still good.
We bought two bottles to drink while sitting outside and enjoying the live music. The atmosphere was great and it was a fun time. The bf and I ended up taking home a bottle of Raspberry wine that is obviously a fruit wine but was not too sweet, light, crisp, and refreshing. Which also went perfectly with our chocolate ice cream last night.

I went to Detour Winery on the spur of the moment after my mom called and invited me to go with my parents. They had purchased a Living Social or Groupon coupon that was expiring soon so they wanted to make sure they used it.
We each tasted 15 wines some of which I liked and some I didn’t, but that is to be expected. One of the owners poured our wines for us and easily answered all of our questions as well as described the wines. One of my favorite parts was when he poured a blended wine using two of their wines to create a unique wine. He did this after asking me my thoughts on «Bonfire», which I found to be too smoky. Yet, after blending it with the pear wine, I was convinced to buy both because the combination was awesome! Their house white was very easy drinking and I thoroughly enjoyed the blackberry wine. I enjoy fruit wines (even though I tend to prefer dry unoaked whites) when they are true fruit wines (just the fruit without the use of grapes), but if fruit wines aren’t your thing, you may not enjoy them. I was very surprised how much I enjoyed the Noiret as it was definitely a more full bodied red (which I don’t always like), but it was very smooth and reminded me of some of my favorite Italian reds. I bought a few bottles to bring home and wanted to buy more, but I need to drink more of my current stock first!
Yes, many of their wines are $ 20+ and when I go to the wine store I typically stick to a $ 10 – 15 price range, but in this case, I am supporting a local business.

A friend and I were looking for something to do over the weekend, so today we visited Detour for a tasting and we were both pleasantly surprised! We chose this winery specifically because we both enjoy sweeter wines, and it looked as though they had a good selection.
The woman who assisted us was attentive and helpful — she gave us great information about each wine, and helped us select the wines we wanted to try based on our individual preferences. Generally when I go to a tasting, I end up liking about half the wines I try, but I can honestly say that I enjoyed every single one of the 12 wines I tasted at Detour. Seriously, they were fantastic!
The bottles were a bit on the pricy side (ranging from $ 11−32ish)… but I ended up buying six, despite the price. They were just that good! If you enjoy sweet wine, I would highly recommend a visit to Detour. I will DEFINITELY be back!

I was a little surprised to see the negative reviews on here. I rarely write reviews, but felt that there had been some unfair bashing on here. I’ve seen a few complaints here. One has to do with some Living Social deal. I don’t know anything about his. The second thing was that not all of their wines cost «in the teens».
If these are you’re main complaints, you might not be a wine person. Let’s be honest, good wine might cost more than $ 12. Have you been to Black Ankle in Maryland? There are no wines under $ 20.
What you’ll find are good, solid wines. There is something for everyone. I encourge you to get a full flight and work though everything they have. Yes, there are a lot of sweet wines and fruit wines, but there are a lot of «traditional» wines too. The Noiret is my favorite red as well as the Bonfire, which has Thai cinnamon added.
If you like wine, please go visit them and try their wine. Don’t worry about the negative reviews

Their tasting is a tasting, no food. So be sure to read details when you buy Living Social deals — or pick a tasting to go to. (I went to a tasting at another winery recently; it was $ 10 a person with lots of cheese, crackers and bread to go with the ~12 wines we tasted.) At Detour, I paid $ 5 per person via Living Social, and we got tastes of 15 wines (not the 20 mentioned below). No water to cleanse my palate. A bucket for discards that was kept out of reach. And just a few tiny oyster crackers for helping to cleanse your palate. Yes, it’s a very small building that the tasting was held in. There was a band that played that day, and boy am I happy that we arrived well before the band started playing. Otherwise, we would have been yelling at each other as we communicated about the wines. Anyway, the actual wines cost more than I care to pay for wines. I’d prefer a $ 12 bottle to something that’s $ 26.99, unless it’s a special occasion. Many of their bottles were over $ 20. Another winery I’d been to recently sold wines in the teens. So I learned another lesson: when picking wineries to visit, look at the bottle prices if there’s any chance you’d want to buy some to take home afterwards. If most of Detour’s wines were priced in the teens, I may have bought a bottle or two. But my favorites were well over $ 20.
That said, I liked a lot of the whites and the dessert wines. I didn’t like any of the reds. But hey, that’s me. Maybe you’d have a different experience.

After reading the other Unilocal reviews, we were a little worried about this place. Like the others, we also had the Living Social deals.
Walking up to the event check-​in table, the staff was already on the phone with Living Social, so they just went down the line confirming everyone’s coupon numbers and handing out wristbands. Next up, picking up our included glasses (which were NOT made of plastic). They’re not the biggest ones around, but not exactly «tiny».
The event we came for seemed to be fairly popular. There were lots of couples and a few more families than I expected to see there, but there was a bounce house, games, pony rides and some animals for the kids to pet. They also had a sort of jazz band playing on stage. A bonfire was set up for s’mores later in the day.
But that’s all secondary to the real show: the wines. The Living Social coupon included tastings of all the wines and coupons for two glasses for each person. The tasting pours were definitely on the small side compared to most other wineries we’ve been to. You get about a sipfull (I posted a photo of the tasting pour), but when there are 20 wines to taste, smaller tastings isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There were roughly 10 regular reds, whites and blushes to sample and another 10 fruit and dessert wines. Generally speaking, their wines seemed to be a bit on the sweet side. We liked them, but they may not be for everyone.
The staff was nice and friendly, but seemed less enthusiastic than staffs at most other small wineries. They didn’t really offer much information about each one.
The full pours were much more generous than the sample pours (again, check out the photo I posted).
If there was any real disappointment, it would be the lack of food to pair with the wine. There was a booth selling barbecue (not included with the Living Social coupon), but it really wasn’t anything that would have paired particularly well despite how good it was.
From the sounds of the other reviews, it seems that their wine selection changes from each event to the next. If we visited on the wrong day, I suppose we may have been disappointed too, but everything exceeded our expectations.

Man, I came to write a review after visiting Detour today (10/​21/​2012) not having any idea that two other Unilocalers pretty much already wrote what I am about to write! The place is unorganized and the staff is there just to serve people — customer service sucks to say the least! Although I purchased the same deal as Vannie, I got the tiny wine glasses that Paulie is talking about, which I thought were ridiculously small… As Vannie says, all they have is just gazillions of selections on sweet/​dessert wines. I was utterly disappointed that they hardly had any full-​bodied, oak-​barreled wines — they don’t even carry a chardonnay on their list and their one selection on cabernet sauvignon is listed on the tasting menu but not available to taste or purchase (for a glass or a bottle).
I don’t necessarily feel that this wine tasting livingsocial voucher was a complete rip-​off but I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be visiting Detour Winery again anytime soon. This experience taught me a lesson that I should to be ultra careful visiting new wineries in Maryland.

This past Saturday, Sept. 29, my fiancée and I (Travelzoo subscribers and customers) redeemed our Detour Winery (2) adult admission deal. The experience at Detour Winery was more than disappointing, it was infuriating.
We spent over an hour traveling from Washington, DC to get to a place that was in no way, shape or form worth the time or money spent on travel, let alone the $ 25.00 we paid for the admission.
Unorganized lines and crowds of people were everywhere, there was absolutely no organization and the staff at Detour Winery was extremely unhelpful and unable to provide any logistical support. While some people like us who waited in a line to redeem our coupon for more than half an hour, others simply parked their cars, walked up to a wine sampling station (of which there were only 2), asked for wine and were served without having paid.
To reiterate, we witnessed people who paid nothing participating in the same (or better!) benefits we paid $ 25.00 for. Some were given small wine glasses after asking certain staff without paying. When I asked if we could get the same small wine glasses, we were told we had to pay $ 2.00 per glass. This was insult to injury because I expected to be provided with at least that for the $ 25.00 Travelzoo deal.

The place has lots of variety in terms of fruit wine, but thats it. Customer service is terrible. I got a living social deal that was for a wine festival and 2 free glasses of wine for $ 21. It was a rip off. The ppl at the place told me that i wont get glass wines but plastic instead!!! wtf! Also, There was this sales lady that kept drinking glass after glass after opening new ones for customer tasting I mean I know it’s a winery but c’mon at least be a bit professional. Ambiance of this place is not so great. It’s a TINY winery not beautiful at all. Beware!