Burnt Hill Farm opens to the public today.
The 177-acre property at 25001 Burnt Hill Road, in Clarksburg, Maryland, is located 30 miles north of Washington, D.C., and 45 miles west of Baltimore, and overlooks Sugarloaf Mountain and the Appalachians.
It’s founded and run by three siblings in their 30s — Lisa Hinton (winemaker), Ashli Johnson (operations), and Drew Baker (farmer) — who have overseen the growth of Old Westminster Winery over the past 10 years.
Both places require reservations.
As for the name, per the website, farmers in the 1800s found it difficult to grow crops on the steep, rocky ground. Instead, they burned timber to make charcoal, lye, and potash for cooking, soap making, and fertilizer.
Those settlers certainly wouldn’t recognize that ground today, where 50,000 grapevines have been planted — from Cabernet Franc and Gamay to Syrah and Tannat, alongside native American vines and multi-heritage hybrids such as Regent — on terrain that will emphasize regenerative farming.
Burnt Hill Farm in Clarksburg, Maryland, opens officially this weekend. Reservations are required.Lindsey Plevyak
Old Westminster Winery has received many accolades, starting with its appearance several times on “The Daily Meal’s” list of The Best 101 Wineries in America, which ran from 2011 to 2017.
Since then, Cosmopolitan named it a Top 10 Winery in the U.S., Wine Enthusiast in a 2024 story noted that the winery “has set a new standard for the possibilities of what can be produced in Maryland,” and vinepair.com in a review last December of the winery’s Pétillant Naturel Albariño 2023 said the family is “among the new pioneers of American wine helping the East Coast realize its potential.”
Here is a link to Old Westminster’s online wine shop.
Baker told Baltimore magazine in an April profile that while they had put in what was described as a seasonally inspired, pizza-slinging kitchen in 2020, “the missing piece in our team was a really talented culinary partner, someone who understands and aligns with what we’re trying to achieve, to not only provide technical skill and passion, but also have skin in the game.”
On May 1, Tae Strain added that final piece, joining Old Westminster as its culinary director and chef-partner of the forthcoming Burnt Hill project. He has led Michelin-starred kitchens — including The Progress in San Francisco, Momofuku in Washington, D.C., and PUBLIC in New York City. There, they launched a spring menu that “doubles down on our commitment to local ingredients and producers,” featuring wood-fired pizzas, seasonal small plates, and garden snacks.
Meanwhile, he’ll become an integral part of the farm-to-table experience inside the tasting room at Burnt Hill Farm, where guests can enjoy a curated experience centered on estate wines paired with seasonal garden snacks and house-milled bread service with accoutrements.
Next to open will be a casual lounge, followed by the debut early next year of an eight-seat Chef’s Counter amid the Burnt Hill kitchen that will feature the chef’s personal tasting menu of Burnt Hill and Chesapeake Bay ingredients produced through his “Asian-American lens,” per the winery bio.
Also in the planning stage are 10 low-intervention luxury cabins, to be open for guests sometime in 2026.
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Dining and Cooking