DRINK UP: The Wine and Food Festival in the Poconos featured 28 wineries.

In 1968, the commonwealth passed the Limited Winery Act (our legislators seem to be fans of Orwell), broadening the range of potential customers beyond the PLCB alone. Within a year, the first two wineries opened here after a half-century hiatus. Today, there are nearly a hundred. This growth should not be surprising; even without counting the wine grapes, Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the country in grape production. Also, almost all the new wineries are small, boutique-style ventures open to visitors, thus the concentration in vacation areas, such as Bucks County and Lake Erie, whose mass of water regulates the climate for wine-grape growing.

The 16th annual Pennsylvania Wine and Food Festival took place on the last weekend of June at the Split Rock Resort in the Poconos, and served as a useful snapshot of the state of the industry here. Twenty-eight wineries were represented at this well-attended affair, which attracted a surprisingly diverse crowd, reflecting, perhaps, the broadening appeal of the fermented grape. Many of the vintners happily catered to a more common denominator than is normally associated with the fine wine market, and sweet specialty products were everywhere, including several varieties of wine slushies.

This was something of a revelation. Every winery had some selection of "serious" wines, that is, dry varietals with relatively high alcohol content and little residual sugar, including the ubiquitous chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. But these types were outnumbered by such items as Christian W. Klay's Raspberry Frost or Franklin Hill's Passion (featuring strawberry and kiwi). Hardly fine wine as we know it, but these were mostly well-made quaffs with natural ingredients, and judging by the rising tide of good spirits among the masses, which often threatened to spill over to bacchanalian glee, happy social lubricants.

Of the more standard wine types, there were few surprises. When sugar overwhelms the palate, there is less of a need for the vintner to worry about fine balance. But in the case of the classic varietals, this is the very essence of the winemaker's art. There was a sea of cabernet sauvignon to sample, but none rose to a level of special interest. There were a number of nearly, almost, but not-quite contenders, wines scuttled by some crucial deficiency—suppressed tannins, weak fruit, poor finish, odd overtones. A major disappointment was the lack of good Riesling. In recent years, both New York's Finger Lakes and our Lake Erie region have been touted as having climates similar to the great wine producing regions of Germany. Alas, almost none of the many Rieslings at the festival came close to a classic European model. The crucial problem was the lack of acidity, which is the spine of a decent Riesling, the requisite counterpart to the residual sugar. As in life, it's all about balance, balance and more balance.

Of course, it is important to remember that the art of the vintner is honed from harvest to harvest, and that nearly all of the Pennsylvania winemaking community is less than one generation old. Two veteran winemakers were standouts, both well-known to local imbibers. Blue Mountain Vineyards produces a Late Harvest Riesling (vintage 2004) that came close to the real deal, with a scintillating crispness and superb structure. This Lehigh Valley enterprise, now 20 years old, also crafts dry red wines that flirt with excellence, although at the mid-to-high-teens dollar point, there is withering competition from around the world.

Chaddsford Winery, now over a quarter of a century old, has garnered many fans, but does not rest on their laurels. Although Lee and Eric Miller make solid, respectable European (vinifera grape) wines, their most compelling and distinctive efforts may well be those that are built from hybrids of vinifera (usually French) and native grape varieties. Chambourcin, a vibrant red grape variety, is a compelling example. There is no little resemblance to another American original, zinfandel, both dry and bracing, yet showing a bold fruitiness and nuanced peppery profile. Chaddsford's chambourcin blends, though modest in structure, show a complexity and careful balance that stand apart from the crowd.

As the Pennsylvania wine world grows, vintners will continue to experiment with both their products and their potential marketplaces. For now, we have an exciting, somewhat messy scene that is not without some curious surprises. Case in point: Lemberger wine, from Shade Mountain Winery. Never heard of it? It is made from a native German grape that presents an astonishingly explosive nose, rich with roasted cloves. It is hard not to smile when you drink it, a quality it shares with many other wines from the Keystone State.