Vineyards anticipate production

Oenophiles will have even more choices in Frederick County in the next year

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Bill Ryan⁄The Gazette Charles Daneri grows grapes in Middletown and plans to open a winery in this downtown Frederick building in the next year or so.

Black Ankle Vineyards in Mount Airy and Frederick Cellars of both Middletown and Frederick both anticipate beginning commercial production within the next year. The two family-owned wineries are looking to find their niche in an industry that faces an uncertain future in Maryland.

Frederick Cellars, owned by Charles Daneri, who also co-owns a computer software company with his wife, is taking a different tack from most Maryland wineries: It will be in a bustling downtown, not out in the country near the vineyard.

Daneri, who has a vineyard in Middletown, is setting up his production facility and tasting room on North East Street in downtown Frederick, near Everedy Square and Shab Row.

That’s highly unusual for a winery, said Kevin Atticks, executive director of the Maryland Wineries Association, who said the only other similar arrangement in the state is a winery planned in downtown St. Michaels on the Eastern Shore.

‘‘Around the country, I think there are 10 or under in urban locations,” Atticks said. ‘‘Wineries tend to be where the grapes are. [Daneri is putting his winery] where the people are. There’s a lot to be said for being a local winery.”

Daneri’s Middletown vineyard is small, with only 2 acres of grapes on a 17-acre farm. Transporting them to a downtown production facility won’t add much cost, he said.

Maryland wine Frederick County, according to a 2001 survey of Maryland grape growers, was the largest producer of grapes in the state, with 27,891 vines grown. Carroll County was the third largest, behind Baltimore, at 21,305. The next largest grower, Harford, was at 13,860. In 2004, Maryland wineries imported more than 580 tons of grapes due to insufficient supply from state vineyards.

‘‘Most grapes are carted elsewhere anyway,” he said. ‘‘We have to load them on a truck in the field anyway. And downtown is where the people are.”

The downtown location makes sense for another reason, Daneri said. The vineyard is on Mountain Church Road, which he called ‘‘a pretty small back road. I don’t think it could handle the traffic” of customers.

The Middletown vineyard originally was planted in 1992, with the grapes sold to other Maryland vintners.

‘‘When we saw it in 2003, [the farm] had been neglected,” Daneri said. The owners had subdivided the property and it ‘‘was going to be sold as three building lots.”

Daneri expects to start producing wine in the next year after harvesting his first crop last year. He has invested $80,000 from his savings and has taken out $400,000 in small-business loans backed by his home and retirement.

Originally looking at only raising grapes, Daneri said he and his wife ‘‘came to realize that it would be difficult being profitable just growing grapes, so we decided to make wine.”

To supplement his own crop, Daneri is negotiating with a 9-acre vineyard in the Annapolis area and is looking at leasing other land locally. He also plans to expand his own vineyard by ‘‘about another 4 acres, but that’s all. Some of the property is too steep” and there are other topographical issues.

Black Ankle owners Sarah O’Herron and Ed Boyce, former management consultants who commute to their Mount Airy winery from their home in Silver Spring, decided they wanted a different lifestyle when the couple started to have children.

‘‘Our old jobs were not conducive to family life,” O’Herron said. While the two still put in what she calls ‘‘more than full-time” hours working on the winery, some of that time is spent conducting research at home while spending time with their four children.

Longtime wine lovers, the two decided to try their hand at winemaking.

‘‘The conventional wisdom is that [the farming itself] makes the difference for great wine,” O’Herron said. ‘‘The idea is to make high-end wines. [To that end] we have talked to some of the top growers” in the United States and abroad.

The project started in earnest about five years ago when the couple started scouting locations around the state. They settled on Mount Airy and had their work cut out for them. One of their first tasks was securing a special zoning exception for the 145-acre farm.

Currently, the vineyard is about 22 acres.

‘‘We think there are at least another 40 acres, and possibly up to 50 acres [suitable] for grape growing,” she said.

With an investment that already exceeds $1 million, O’Herron figures that considerably more will go into the winery before the couple sees a return.

‘‘We’re extremely committed to this project,” she said.

Maryland’s wine industry is set to almost double over the next three years or so, with 18 new wineries in the works, Atticks said. Half a dozen new wineries are poised to open in the next year and a half, including a winery in Dickerson.

Wineries in more preliminary planning stages are eyed for the Eastern Shore and Calvert and Baltimore counties, as well as four more in Western Maryland and Frederick County.

The legislature is considering proposals that could shape the industry’s future.

Currently, Maryland wineries can sell directly to restaurants and retailers, and many depend on such sales for the bulk of their revenue. One bill, codifying a Comptroller’s Office regulation announced last month, would force wineries to sell through wholesale distributors, as out-of-state wineries must; that could devastate the industry, Atticks says, as many distributors won’t do business with small wineries.

While O’Herron believes the proposal could force Black Ankle out of business, Daneri thinks his downtown location might help him weather the sales restriction.

‘‘I think we’re assuming that given the downtown location, we will be able to” register many sales through tastings, Daneri said, giving his winery an advantage over others if the restriction is adopted.

The legislature is also considering a proposal that would allow all small wineries — both in-state and out-of-state companies producing less than 40,000 gallons annually — to sell directly to restaurants and retailers. The state wine association backs this legislation.