Harvest time at Black Ankle Winery
Harvest time is a special time of the year for wineries. It usually starts from mid-September and goes through October, depending on weather. It’s the time of year when the tender loving care paid to the vine hopefully pays off in a bounty of fruit.
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- Victor Manuel carries bins down a row of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes on one of the last days of the harvest at Black Ankle Vineyards. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Miguel Rincon picks Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in the last days of the harvest at Black Ankle Vineyards. All of the grapes are hand picked into small hand-carried picking crates just when they have reached the peak of maturity. After picking they are immediately brought to the winemaking facility for sorting and the beginning of the transformation from fruit to wine.(Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Chickens wander in the pressing area at Black Ankle Vineyards try to eat grapes that have fallen to the ground. Little goes to waste on the farm. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Calletano Hernandez loads grapes harvested at Black Ankle Vineyards onto a belt that leads to the destemmer. When the red grapes reach our winery, they are carefully sorted twice; once as they are loaded into the destemmer to remove any stray sticks, leaves or imperfect fruit, and a second time after the grapes have been separated from their stems to remove any stem pieces or unripe berries that have managed to come through the destemming process.(Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Ed Boyce, co-owner of Black Ankle Vineyards, sprays carbon dioxide into a cannon ball tank of crushed grapes. This process keeps the grapes from oxidizing. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Ed Boyce, co-owner of Black Ankle Vineyards, shows a Syrah grape skin after fermentation as the wine is drained from a fermentation tank. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- A “cannonball” tank filled with lightly crushed grapes is moved into position over a fermentation tank at Black Ankle Vineyards. Once positioned over the small opening of the fermentation tank, the smaller tank is opened and the grapes fall into the vessel. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Freshly picked Cabernet Sauvignon grapes at Black Ankle Vineyards. There are approximately 800-900 grapes in each bottle of wine. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Crushed grapes and juice land in a “cannonball” tank. The cannonball tank is a small loading tank with a pneumatic valve on the bottom. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Victor Manuel picks Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in the last few days of the harvest at Black Ankle Vineyards. The grapes are hand picked into small hand-carried picking crates just when they have reached the peak of maturity. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Ed Boyce, co-owner of Black Ankle Vineyards, picks unripe fruit and stem fragments during the second sorting before they are lightly crushed. This double sorting ensures that nothing other than grapes makes it into the fermentation tank, giving the fruit a chance to shine without being burdened with green stemmy or leafy flavors.(Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Black Ankle Vineyards in one of over 50 in Maryland. Among the 22 acres of bearing vines are seven varieties of red and four varieties of white. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Ed Boyce, co-owner of Black Ankle Vineyards, sprays sulfite on Cabernet Sauvignon grapes to absorb oxygen as they fall from the crusher. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Cabernet Sauvignon grapes wait to be harvested at Black Ankle Vineyards. Black Ankle Vineyards is the culmination of a long-time dream of founders Ed Boyce and Sarah O’Herron. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
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- Ed Boyce, co-owner of Black Ankle Vineyards, tops off the Syrah in new French oak barrels. The lighter reds age 16-18 months in once used French oak, and the more concentrated reds age 16-18 months primarily in new French oak barrels. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
Black Ankle Vineyards owners Sarah O’Herron & Edward Boyce planted their first grapes in 2003 at their winery in Mount Airy, Maryland. Their operation has grown from seven and a half fruit-bearing acres to 22 with seven red varieties of grapes and four white.
Black Ankle Vineyards is the culmination of a long-time dream of founders Boyce and O’Herron. The more they learned about what goes into making a bottle of wine, the more fascinating the whole process became. When they decided to look for an alternative career, their fascination with wine-making led them to establishing Black Ankle.
They have searched for the methods of production that Boyce says are gentlest to the fruit from harvesting and sorting to readying the crushed fruit for fermentation.
For the red grapes, they use “cannonball” tanks to transfer red grapes to the fermentation tanks, allowing them to fall into the stainless steel tanks instead of being pumped.
Selling their first bottles in 2008, Black Ankle Vineyards has won Maryland Governor’s Cup, Maryland Winemasters’ and Atlantic Seaboard Wine Competition awards.
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