Hokie Wino: Winery Visit - Black Ankle Winery

On March 2nd, a little over a month ago, my girlfriend, her dad, my mom and I together went on a tour of the Black Ankle Winery in Mt. Airy, Maryland. It was off the beaten path (as wineries seem to usually be) in the hills of Western Maryland, only about 35 minutes from my house.

My girlfriend Kayce, her dad, my mom, and I at the Black Ankle Winery in Mt. Airy, MD

While it was March, it was a very chilly day, probably about 35 degrees and breezy. Black Ankle is a pretty new winery, bought in 2002 and planted their first grapes in 2003. The land used, was an old 146 acre farm that was being sold at the time because the soil just wasn't quite fertile enough for crops and it didn't enough rain as well. This happened to be just the kind of conditions the wine-makers were looking for at the time because, as the tour guide explained, the more that grape vines have to struggle, they will generally produce sweeter grapes and make better wine.

Black Ankle makes all 100% estate wines, meaning that all the wine produced comes solely from the grapes they grow on property. They do not buy grapes from any other grape growers. They use a unique planting method as well, planting the vines 3 feet apart from each other, and only 6 feet between rows. Most vineyards usually plant their vines 6 feet apart, and 10 feet between rows.

Close vines, no grapes as its the end of winter still.

Because of the great growing conditions here (rocky soil, plentiful sunshine because of the topography, etc), they are able to get their grapes to have up to 25-26% sugars, which is extremely high for the east coast. Before this visit, I went to another winery nearby and talked to the winemaker who said he would be happy if his grapes got up to 20-21% sugar.

Our tour guide is the guy on the right facing the camera. Building in the back is part of the old barn from the farm.

They hand pick all their grapes in the fall , and press the grapes outside with their fairly new press (the press has wheels on it, but it always kept outside).

Mostly stainless steel press.

Barreling room with press out front.

After discussing the press (and how they will sometimes feed the skins to the cows they have), we went into the barreling room, the blue building in the picture above. The winemakers are very environmentally conscious and built the barreling room with mostly natural materials. The insulation inside is straw and mud, which keeps the building cool in the summer and warm(ish) in the winter. They use stainless steel fermentation tanks from South Africa for the majority of fermenting and aging.

Stainless steel fermentation tanks.

They age their wine in only French oak, as American oak is too overwhelming for their preferences. They use medium to medium-plus toasted barrels to impart the desired levels of smokiness and other flavors that the oak donates.

Me next to their French oak barrels currently full of wine. Yes it was still pretty cold in there.

After the tour we went into their tasting room to give their wines a whirl. The tasting notes are below. We ordered some delicious cheeses and bread to go with our great wines. I enjoyed every wine I tried there, and was pleasantly surprised by our little Maryland winery, which has actually won a few awards in the past couple years including:
-2011 Maryland Governor's Cup for Slate
-2009 Maryland Governor's Cup for 2007 Crumbling Rock
-Best Syrah in the 2009 Atlantic Seaboard Wine Competition for 2007 Leaf-Stone Syrah
-2008 Maryland Governor's Cup for 2006 Crumbling Rock

The winery looked like an awesome place to hang out in the summer, with lots of outdoor seating, and one of the walls of the tasting room was actually a giant garage door that could open up, allowing easy access to the bar if sitting outside. I definitely recommend anyone travelling through Maryland to stop at the Black Ankle Winery and try some of their exceptional wines.