BALTIMORE — The team behind Baltimore's Christmas Village is now bringing another German-style event to the Inner Harbor - a traditional German "wine village," running from May 11 to May 29.
"We've always kind of had the vision of bringing another May event to Baltimore," said project manager Nancy Schmalz, noting they have run Christmas Village successfully for about 10 years.
"We are importing the German culture of celebrating wine in May to Baltimore. For German villages, it's absolutely normal that in May you have either multi-day pop-ups or weeklong pop-ups where local vineyards but also all kinds of vintners from abroad just come and basically showcase their new wines. And they kind of embed that into this cool little market situation where you have food vendors, other beverage vendors there, and regular arts and crafts vendors."
The event is free to attend (with pay-as-you-go food and wine). More than 10 vendor booths will offer food and wine, including Maryland wines, European wines, North American wines, and wine slushies.
The food will be similar to what's offered at Christmas Village, with bratwurst, Swiss Raclette Cheese sandwiches with various toppings, Belgian Fries, French Crēpes, Danish Stroop Waffles - as well as the addition of a charcuterie place.
"What better to pair with wine than charcuterie?" noted Schmalz.
A pop-up garden called the Wine Terrace will offer about 500 seats for people to "have a great day out there" with their family, or bring a date, with a picnic blanket, listen to music, have some wine and enjoy a bratwurst.
"It's simply a way of bringing the community together in May, and this is basically what this whole cultural thing is about," she said.
Live trees, raised garden beds, and bistro lights will set the scene, and a Maypole (or May tree) will complete the German-style celebration.
"Every single German village has a Maypole... It's definitely something that is new to the Inner Harbor," she said.
There will also be a chill-out area called the "Grape Escape," cornhole, life-size Jenga, movie nights on weekdays, and live stage performances Fridays through Sundays. More information is available here.
Ultimately the organizers hope they get as great a response to the Wine Village as for Christmas Village, since the event taps into the same target group. A full list of vendors will be announced later this month.
Baltimore has always been very, very good to us. People have been extremely friendly, the city has been super supportive with everything we've been doing with Christmas Village, and ultimately also this is why we're doing it in Baltimore... simply because we believe it's the right city to bring an event like that. We have high hopes."
