---
title: Finding ‘Lost History’ in Your Glass
date: 2022-02-24T05:30:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/finding-lost-history-in-your-glass"
section: Articles
---
# Finding ‘Lost History’ in Your Glass

*February 24, 2022* — by [Shannon Clark M.Jour. ’22](/author/shannon-clark-m-jour-22)


> Alum Helps Continue Family’s Mead-Making Tradition, Honoring Holocaust Survivor and Winery Founder

*Loew Vineyards 22 1920x1080 — Rachel Loew-Lipman '15 oversees the winemaking and vineyards at her family's winery in Mt. Airy, Md. The Loew family's roots in making honey wine, or mead, stretch back to Eastern Europe, where her great-grandfather started a meadery in 1870 that used the Polish-language bottle label below.*

The sweetness and light of fermented honey blend with crisp flavors of Frederick County-grown apples or richly sweet grapes, evoking notes of cinnamon or honeysuckle … well, that sounds intriguing. But what is it, you might be asking?

In a country where wine frequently means well-structured (i.e. pricey) French vintages or fruity blasts from California or Australia, it’s a fair question. The answer: a different kind of wine entirely, known as mead. After a heyday hundreds (or [thousands](https://www.liquor.com/articles/10-facts-about-mead/)) of years ago and being relegated more recently to renaissance fairs, it’s now “[on the rise](https://www.vogue.com/article/why-mead-is-popular-again),” according to *Vogue*.

It’s never really fallen from favor, however, in Eastern Europe, where the Loew family began crafting it more than 150 years ago, a tradition it continues today at [Loew Vineyards](https://www.loewvineyards.com/) in Mt. Airy, Md.

Rachel Loew-Lipman ‘15, winemaker and vineyard manager, is working to uphold the Loew legacy and share her family’s story through every glass of mead (or grape-based vintage) that’s poured.

“I want to reconnect people to a beautiful but lost history,” said Loew-Lipman, who graduated with degrees in plant science, horticulture and crop production and in communication.

The history that she's been piecing together from family memorabilia, handed-down stories and old press clippings begins with a family patriarch. In 1870, Meilech Loew started what the family believes was the first meadery to ship its products internationally, founded in what’s now western Ukraine, then a part of divided Poland ruled by Austria-Hungary. His son Eisig established a well-known meadery in Lviv, Ukraine (then known as Lwów by its primarily Polish-speaking residents).



*19th century M. Low mead ad*




**Topics:** [People](https://today.umd.edu/tags/people)


**Tags:** [Alumni](https://today.umd.edu/topic/alumni), [Communication](https://today.umd.edu/topic/communication), [Plant Science and Landscape Architecture](https://today.umd.edu/topic/plant-science-and-landscape-architecture)


**Units:** [College of Agriculture and Natural Resources](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-agriculture-and-natural-resources), [College of Arts and Humanities](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-arts-and-humanities)