O ur journey toward a vineyard and winery began in earnest in the middle of 2001, when after years of dreaming and armchair research, we decided we could make excellent wine in Maryland. Our approach started out with a heavy focus on research. We read books, attended seminars, surfed the web, and bent the ears of many patient grape growers and wine makers with endless questions. We traveled through Virginia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, California, France, Italy, and New Zealand (definitely the best homework assignment we have ever had) to ask questions and study methods that have worked (or not) for growers who share similar goals. We have learned a tremendous amount in the last few years, much of which was contradictory - there are as many opinions as vineyards! What we discovered is that, despite some promising theories, no one really knows why some sites produce great wines and others barely drinkable ones, and the techniques that work well in one place may not work in another. The best we can do is listen to all of the advice, then decide what we think is right for Black Ankle. We'll always be learning more about our vineyard, and that is what is so interesting to us.


Sean helping with
tractor research
When we weren't reading about grape growing or winemaking, we spent much of the next year driving all over the state of Maryland looking for the ideal vineyard site, most of the time with our newborn baby/research assistant in the backseat; Sean put in his two cents about which farms looked like the most fun to play on, while we tried to weigh secondary concerns such as soil type, slope orientation, altitude, and location. Finally we found what we were searching for: a beautiful 146-acre farm in Frederick County, with 40 (plus or minus) acres well suited to grape vines. The farm has all of the things we looked for: altitude (600 feet), relative altitude (higher than the surrounding land - grape vines love a view), well-drained and low vigor soil, and a mix of different eco-systems (creek, floodplain, steep hills, rolling fields, forests, and pond). We purchased the property in May of 2002 and immediately set to work preparing the site for planting.

We decided to plant a mix of red and white grapes, choosing among our favorite varieties ones that are known for high quality wine and which we believe would be most suitable for our climate. We started in April of 2003 by planting a parcel of red grapes: Syrah and the five Bordeaux reds (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec). In the spring of 2004 we added additional acreage of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Syrah as well as a small parcel of Pinot Noir, and a planting of white grapes: Gruner Veltliner, the most widely grown grape in Austria; Albarino, the noble white grape grown in Galicia, Spain and nearby areas of Portugal; Viognier, a grape from Southeastern France which has been grown in neighboring Virginia with excellent results, and Chardonnay. Since red wines tend to take longer to mature than whites, we will be able to release our first red and white wines simultaneously.

The timeline for starting this project was fairly long: we began our work in earnest in the summer of 2001, we picked our first grapes in the fall of 2005, and we bottled our first wines in April of 2008. In the meantime, we have met a great number of interesting people, seen some beautiful places, and had a chance to learn an untold number of new things—from how grape buds are formed, to how different species of earthworms live, to the least expensive way to ship six tons of dormant baby grapevines across the US. Our project is proving to be just as interesting and exciting as we had hoped it would be when we set out. We couldn't ask for a better experience!