When Sarah O’Herron and Ed Boyce founded Black Ankle Vineyards in 2002, people told them they couldn’t make fine Syrah in Maryland. HA! Not only is the Mount Airy winery well-known for its Syrah, but on Feb. 22, in front of the world, O’Herron and Boyce will open their Syrah from 2007 and 2022 and taste them along with a very famous French Syrah. “Throw down with that one,” O’Herron told us. “Go big or go home,” Boyce added.
Why Feb. 22? Because it’s Open That Bottle Night 2025, when so many of us, from Prague to Walla Walla, uncork memories from a special wine. We created OTBN in 1999, when we wrote The Wall Street Journal’s wine column, because the most common question we received was some version of this: “I have this bottle from our wedding/my grandfather/an auction that I keep saving for a special occasion. When should I open it?”
The simple answer was: right now. But we understood it’s not that easy, that we need a push. So we wrote that all of us, together, should take a deep breath on the last Saturday of February, open the bottle and free the memories. OTBN now has been celebrated for more than 25 years, all over the world, in homes, at clubs, at wineries and even at a research outpost in Antarctica. OTBN falls early this year.
At Fielding Hills Winery in Chelan, Wash., winemaker-owners Mike and Karen Wade will, like last year, open some of their earliest vintages, going back a quarter-century. “One of the most special things about making wine is our ability to time travel and OTBN encapsulates that,” said Karen. “Uncorking our wine is a reflection of decades of decisions and craftsmanship and that’s only to get it to the customer. Once it’s in their cellar, when they look at our label or the vintage they might remember a special person or memory and the wine takes on a whole new level of meaning.”
(Menu from Fielding Hills Winery's OTBN in 2024 in Chelan, Washington)
This year, they will open their red blend from 2000, their first vintage. They have eight bottles left and they will open two, plus their blend from 2010, 2017, current release 2021 and a barrel tasting of 2023. For their OTBN last year, the wine menu noted some events from the year, like 2022: “Will Smith slapped Chris Rock so hard the entire world heard it.” Said Karen: “The event was a huge success in 2024 and we hope to keep returning to it year after year.” It’s $35, with discounts for members.
OTBN will be celebrated for the first time at the world-famous Bien Nacido vineyard in Santa Maria Valley, with a mystery wine being shared. At Bien Nacido Estate – which, along with the vineyard, is owned by the Miller family – there will be live music, a food truck and a discussion with winemaker Anthony Avila. “We often hear our guests say they’re saving these wines for special occasions like X, Y, or Z. This event is a perfect way to encourage them to start creating those cherished memories now,” Marelina Wilford, the tastings room operations manager, told us.
“We have an incredible 3L bottle of wine that Anthony will be pouring for our guests during the Q&A. Plus, the top two guests who are the closest to guessing what the wine is will receive a special prize,” she added. The celebration is free and open to the public.
Long-time OTBN reveler Dobbes Family Estate in Dundee, Ore., is kicking off an entire celebratory weekend with one of our daughters’ favorite movies, “10 Things I Hate About You.”
Many wine groups and wine schools have adopted OTBN over the years as a way of sharing wine and stories. This year, in Pittsburgh, Palate Partners School of Wine & Spirits, for the fifth year, is urging everyone to bring a bottle to share on OTBN. “We ask each person to bring a bottle and we limit it to 12-14 people, so everyone gets a taste of all the wines,” said Deb Mortillaro, who owns the school with Mike Gonze.
(Mike Gonze and Deb Mortillaro, co-owners of Palate Partners School of Wine & Spirits in Pittsburgh)
“People love this event because it gives them a chance to taste older wines and a variety of wines that they are not familiar with. We have a couple that comes who bring amazing small-producer Champagne, one that is old enough to show some oxidation (because he and I both love some oxidation in our bubbles). As an educator, this event gives me a world of things to talk about and it’s a pop quiz for me that keeps me sharp,” Mortillaro added. Among the bottles they will open: 1998 Vincent Girardin Chassagne Montrachet “Le Cailleret.” Sigh.
Pepper Bridge Winery of Walla Walla is celebrating OTBN at all three of its tasting rooms, in Vancouver, Woodinville and Walla Walla, with re-releases of some of its older wines.
In Maryland, O’Herron and Boyce have celebrated OTBN for years, but this will be their first public OTBN for the 15,000-case winery, where all of the wines are estate grown. O’Herron told us: “We’re all about looking for excuses to have a good time, but also just the premise that you’re never going to find the right occasion, so just do it.” Boyce added: “It kind of combines some of the best things about wine, like the comradery, the kind of magic and timelessness of it.”
So here is the lineup, which O’Herron and Boyce and their team will open while winery fans joining them virtually open their own special Black Ankle wines. There is their 2007 Leaf-Stone Syrah, from the winery’s second vintage. They made only 324 cases of this. Then there is the 2022 Domaine, the first release of a special bottling of Syrah. It’s fair to say that the winemaker-owners are a little excited about this wine. Said Boyce: “We’ve always loved our Syrah. The way it comes out the last few years, oh my gosh, something has happened. The vines have gotten to 20 something years old and it’s just showing up as just fabulous wine.”
(Sarah O’Herron and Ed Boyce, founders of Black Ankle Vineyards in Mount Airy, Maryland)
And here is the ringer: They will be tasting these two wines against Paul Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle 1990, a world-class Syrah from a fine year with the advantage of serious age.
We asked O’Herron and Boyce what is it about OTBN that makes them want to create such a special night. Said O’Herron: “At least when I talk to people about it, people buy a bottle and they have an idea of a special occasion. The day has to be worthy of the bottle, right? Because you’ve invested a lot in it, or now you’ve held onto it for years or there’s some special story when you bought it.”
She added: “It’s so easy to let something sit so long that it loses its joy.”
Said Boyce: “And for me, I love the anticipation of having a cool bottle around. I see it and I’m like, oh, that’s going to be really good. And I get pleasure. But I, over the years, realized that I get even more pleasure remembering a great wine when it’s really great. I remember how good that wine was and how good that night was.
“And that’s what your invention did to me a little bit. It reminded me that the memory is every bit as good and maybe better than the anticipation.”
We truly could not have said that better ourselves. In fact, Boyce’s comment convinced us to finally, finally open a bottle we should have drunk many years ago but was, of course, always too special. Forty years ago, on our first trip to Tuscany, we had a lovely dinner and drove back to our inn. Except that we got lost – very lost. The sky got darker, the roads got narrower and the hills got steeper. Then it started to rain. We couldn’t turn around. We kept driving and it was so very dark. Finally, at the end of the dirt road, we saw a house. We turned around, but it looked like a winery and we vowed to return.
(Dottie with 2025 OTBN wine)
When we did, a charming man greeted us warmly with his young son, who was eager to speak with us since he was learning English. The man said he was a winemaker and brought out a bottle with the most extraordinary label called Etrusco Rosso di Panzano, vintage 1983. He’d made 3,000 bottles and opened it to share with us. It was gorgeous. He gave us a bottle to take with us, along with some giant fava beans to have with our dinner back at the Villa Le Barone, where we were staying.
That wine rested comfortably in our wine cellar in Miami for years. It has been in New York with us since 1990. It is the very last bottle from that trip to Tuscany. Every time we think about opening it, even on OTBN, we can’t do it. But Boyce is right: Long after we open it on Feb. 22, we will still have the memory of a kind winemaker and his son. And that really is what OTBN is all about.
What memories will you open?
Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher conceived and wrote The Wall Street Journal's wine column, "Tastings," from 1998 to 2010. Dorothy and John have been tasting and studying wine since 1973. In 2020, the University of California at Davis added their papers to the Warren Winiarski Wine Writers Collection in its library, which also includes the work of Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson. Dottie has had a distinguished career in journalism as a reporter, editor, columnist and editorial writer at The Miami Herald, The New York Times, and at The Journal. John was Page One Editor of The Journal, City Editor of The Miami Herald and a senior editor at Bloomberg News. They are well-known from their books and many television appearances, especially on Martha Stewart's show, and as the creators of the annual, international "Open That Bottle Night" celebration of wine and friendship. The first bottle they shared was André Cold Duck. They have two daughters.
