Maven has since been updated and can use categories.
An example from the Surefire documentation:
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.11</version>
<configuration>
<groups>com.mycompany.SlowTests</groups>
</configuration>
</plugin>
This will run any class with the annotation @Category(com.mycompany.SlowTests.class)