Flavor Magazine Winter 2009 by Flavor Magazine

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winter 2009

P i e d m o n t seasonal • local • sustainable • artisanal • unique

Hand-Crafted

Our Wine Section virginia

• Winter 2009

Pairing Virgina Wine & Chocolate Tarara at 20

confections Maple Syrup from the Mountains The Politics of Local Food Grow Your Own Truffles

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22 10

8 features

columns

Small Farms & Big Government

When it comes to getting food from local farms to your table, regulatory shackles abound.

Tapping Tradition

On a visit to western Virginia, you will gain an appreciation for the centuries-old craft of making maple syrup.

kathryn russell

walker elliott rowe & jennifer conrad seidel

Rebel with a Cause Insurance

The obstacle to getting our products served in UVaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dining halls was not volume or distribution but expensive liability insurance.

joel salatin

Tales from the Field Seeds of Hope

Heirloom seed catalogs keep your garden dream alive during the cold winter months.

trista scheuerlein

in every issue

virginia

â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2009

Terroir, our wine section, starts on page 47.

Letters from the Publisher & Editor

Letters from Readers & Eaters

Seasonal Table

Directory

Events

Flavor_cover_2008summer:Layout 1

7/7/08

9:56 AM

Page 1

p i e d m o n t Supermodel Veggies • Blind Tasting • The Screw Cap Debate • Local Whiskey Rocks! Rebel Farmer Joel Salatin • Farm-to-Conference Center • Seasonal Recipes

Job Name: 243932Flavor_Magazine Time: 08:34:42 Date: 08-07-11

Flavor zeroes in on Virginia’s dynamic Piedmont region.

Soft Proof

PDF Page: C1flavor0708.p1.pdf Process Plan: SoftProof

fall 2008

—The Washington Post P i e d m o n t seasonal • local • sustainable • artisanal • unique

Schools Fight the Good Food Fight Cheesemakers, Vodkamakers, Troublemakers

Give bees a chance The Inn at Little Washington Local Before It Was Cool

Heirloom Apples Fall Recipes

Introducing our new wine section

The FoundingFathers of Virginia Wine: Luca Paschina, Jim Law, Gabriele Rausse free

free

winter 2009

P i e d m o n t seasonal • local • sustainable • artisanal • unique

Yes, there is a new Flavor in town, but it won’t be stimulating your taste buds as much as your brain . . . and it already has local foodies talking. —The Hook (Charlottesville)

I have personally been incredibly impressed by the response we have received to our presence in Flavor. We have had dozens and dozens of people respond directly to our ad in Flavor—people who come to visit us and learn about how we make our whiskey. We have many new fans of as a direct result these ads. Flavor is really hitting our target audience in a big way, and we could not be more pleased on every level. —Rick Wasmund, Copper Fox Distillery

Our guests love reading the magazine. We can hardly keep them in stock! —Sherri Fickel, Hopkins Ordinary

Hand-Crafted

confections Maple Syrup from the Mountains

Our Wine Section

The Politics of Local Food

Pairing Virgina Wine & Chocolate Tarara at 20

Grow Your Own Truffles

Flavor’s readers love and support local food and wine as much as you do. Now bi-monthly!

virginia

• Winter 2009

For information on advertising in Flavor, or in Terrior, our wine section, call us at (540) 987-9299, send us an e-mail at advertising@flavormags.com, or download a media kit at flavormags.com.

departments 6

Happenings on the Foodie Front

News on local chutney, cooking classes, and the call for a food distribution hub in Charlottesville.

autumn reynolds

Flavor Café

Owners Mark and Vicki Gresge and chef Brian Wilkinson charm locals in Charlottesville with French techniques, regional traditions, and seasonal produce.

theresa curry

In the Garden

Plant an Oak, Harvest a Truffle

Instead of gawking at truffles priced at hundreds of dollars per pound, grow your very own.

cristina santiestevan

Petite Appetites

L’Étoile

Local Grazings

Farm Foods for a Flavorful Holiday Meal

The winner of our essay contest at Madison’s Wetsel Middle School extols the delights of family farming.

cassity lacy

Artisans & Entrepreneurs

Virginia Is for Fine-Chocolate Lovers

With each bite, you’ll taste the care that goes into Gearharts transcendent handmade chocolates.

mollie cox bryan

Cover photo of chocolatier Tim Gearhart by Jen Fariello Photography. www.flavormags.com

fromThethe publisher times, they are a changin’ could

jules coon

from the publisher

CARL ZITZMANN

be my mantra for this year. We have a president in the White House whose

platform is based change. The economy thatEven chased us into 2009 When I think of entire Paul Cézanne’s quoteonon the cover, I get chills!

was awere forcefirst of change, all reevaluate spend and what though those words spokenmaking over aus hundred yearshow ago,we the we really need. The end of 2008 brought about some realities and vulnersentiment is still true today. It is actually true now more than ever. abilities that we have not felt in a long time—or ever, if you’re young. Most

All you haveAmericans to do is pick a newspaper or watch evening news average wereup united in their anguish overthe skyrocketing food and fuel prices to find yourself scared to death about the world food crisis and the and the rising cost of living, in their disdain of the crashing financial infrastructure and statethe of greed our local areupsurrounded by in contaminated food, infected of thefood elite.systems. We couldWe strike a conversation the grocery line, at the gas livestock, genetically modified foods, and overprocessed artificial foods. We have pump, or on the ball field with a perfect stranger about the failing economy with no gotten accustomed to feeding our school-age children unhealthy food and yet we fear of disagreement or offending our neighbors whatsoever. wonder why our country has obesity rates like no other. I think we have become spoiled in 2009, withour a new president, the economy on eggshells, war in more in and, So in here turn,we weare, have spoiled local food systems. We want fresh strawberries countries than arugula I care towhenever count—heck, yeah, atimes are that changing. Butit.those who were January. We want we have recipe calls for

PUBLISHED BY

Piedmont Media, LLC PUBLISHER

Melissa J. Harris

paying attention to the signs We are now ahead of thethese curve,demands nearly insulated from big We want it all. We want it now. wantway it cheap. But have sabotaged city corporate woes. Who, you ask? Those who have been supporting and contributour most vital resources—our community’s sustainable farms, food artisans, restaurato the localtomarket. Why didand we ever move away from suchina simple, fundamentalour teursing committed seasonal fare, family-run businesses general—without first place? my eggs from Bob and brave he willsouls buy my cheese, and evenpractice realizinginit.the Flavor exists Itobuy reintroduce you to those in the Piedmont we buy to Mary’s the money stays rightfresh, here in our community. This is who then are fighting bringgoats, all ofand us the most delicious, sustainable goodies.

EDITORIAL STAFF editor

art director ad design

not rocket science.

Cézanne’s quote embodies our new marching orders: Start the revolution. Get back to As I travel Piedmontlocal and talk to businesspeople of everyKnow variety,and the be common our local roots.theEmbrace markets like never before. knownthread by the among those who are doing really well and not closing up shop is that they sell local, people and places feeding us. Reclaim our local food systems. Demand locally prothey buyatlocal, and they stay away thepurpose box stores andmission franchises that pull money duced food every opportunity. Thisfrom is the and of those who create andand resources of their community. So like-minded I’ve made it my goal to ask, Piedmont. to challenge,We Flavor, we areout ready to join with other people in the you—our readers—to source as much as you can from within our comhopetotoencourage see you on the front lines!

webmaster

ofbeauty local food. I wason—champions awakened to the and cause of local, sustainable agriculture during I lived in Berkeley, California. The local movement there two events in December: The food first was the Virginia In the thatnear vein,decade Flavor co-sponsored thrives off Berkeley’sConference, suspicion of government corporations and its back-to-nature Farm-to-School which brought and together farmers, school nutrition direcattitude. these and years I first read representatives. the writings of farmer, poet, essayist, and novelist tors,During distributors, government We discovered, for instance, orgaWendell Berry. Most importantly, it was there that I grew and ate my first tomato. nizations in western North Carolina and Appalachian Virginia that help small farms to marketeating their produce. Weseasonally heard aboutisVermont’s farm-to-school program, In California, locally and not very difficult. Living this out inwhich Virginia has grown beyond what you’dwhile expectI’ve in asworn state with such a short growing Iseason. has been harder. For instance, off buying avocadoes, do stillWe buy listened to school nutrition workers have Ishrinking budgets lemons and limes grown in the U.S. Thiswho last year vowed not to buyand anyinsufficient tomatoes or squash out ofAnd season, whichthat wasalthough a genuine Sofaces when I went to pickthose up my facilities. we found thesacrifice. movement many obstacles, produce subscription in June and saw yellow crookneck squash waiting for me, I began involved are passionate and resolute. to cry tears of delight. I am sincere, despite my tendency toward hyperbole, when I The second event we co-sponsored was the launch of Meet the Farmer TV: From the say that I felt like a chaste lover who had been faithful to an absent beloved (in this Farm to the Plate, a program that introduces viewers to the myriad participants in case, summer squash), and I was overcome with joy at his return. Central Virginia’s local food movement. Michael Clark of Planet Earth Diversified

Berryhosts writes fidelity, show, this faithfulness a placechefs, and its people. Hegrocers, reminds theabout weeklythis 30-minute interviewingtofarmers, food artisans, us that our communities need and are needed by farmers, an interdependence easily and other locavores. The program can be seen on Charlottesville’s channel 13, and forgotten in Stuff Mart’s over-lit aisles. The slow-food movement also calls attention archived episodes and viewing schedules can be found at meetthefarmer.com. Meet to the seasons, to the of sustainability, and to the farms consequences of our choices. the Farmer has boundaries already covered topics like mushroom and the Jefferson Area

Board of Aging’s commitment sourcing locally. This inspiring, informative show As part of this movement, Flavor to was created to champion the local food and wine honors who bring local foodIt to plates every day.Piedmont, by people of the culture that those thrives in the Piedmont. is aour magazine of the Piedmont, forforward peopletoofcelebrating the Piedmont. we hope it willheroes fosterinrelationship among We look these And and other locavore 2009. those who believe we can live well in this place. Gratefully, Jennifer Conrad Seidel

flavor magazine • winter 2009

ADVISORY BOARD

cheri CHERI bowling BOWLING

than want 15 minutes thatgoal I’m was an avid NPRalistener, that Ioflove a to read,will ourlearn greater to foster community people bandcommitted called Over the Rhine withwine, an adolescent fervor, thatplace— I am to local food and to one another, andand to this passionate about local, sustainable, seasonal alongside—not food. Virginia’s Piedmont. We would participate just report

Jennifer Conrad Seidel

Travis Bjorklund

Emily Rose Gum Annette Kaufman-Horner Laura Merricks Anne Raustol

from the editor

from the editor When Melissa and I launched Flavor, I wear heart sleeve. who has known me for more we my agreed thatoninmy addition to Anyone producing a magazine we ourselves would

Nora Monroe

Wendy Stark

proofreaders

munities. Be discerning with your money: give it to sustainable farmsMelissa and ranches, to J. Harris artisans and family-run businesses. Support your local community and it will in turn support you! Buy local and prosper, Melissa J. Harris

Jennifer Conrad Seidel

Stephanie Anderegg-Maloy Matt Benson KeriAn Dodson Stephanie Giles Susie Haas Sandy Huckstep Mike Kane Maggie Rogers Julie Thompson Melissa Wiley Chad Zakaib OPERATIONS office manager

Savannah Masters

LETTERS & CALENDAR

Send letters to the editor, newsworthy items, calendar events, and other correspondence to editor@flavormags.com SUBSCRIPTIONS & ADVERTISING

A one-year subscription is $28. Send subscription and advertising inquiries to

Flavor Magazine P.O. Box 100 Sperryville, VA 22740 voice fax

(540) 987-9299

(540) 518-9190

www.flavormags.com Copyright ©2009 by Piedmont Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission of the publisher is prohibited. Flavor is published bimonthly. Flavor is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts and photographs.

letters from readers & eaters I am so impressed with your magazine. If only something of its quality was offered in our area! Any hopes of venturing south of the Piedmont? A friend from Charlottesville shared a copy with us during her last visit. It is the first magazine I have read that didn’t take me 30 minutes to finish. I keep going back to it to re-read it and learn more. The layout is wonderful and the articles are very informative. My hat goes off to everyone who makes each issue such a treat.

Libbie Hall Beaverdam, VA

P.S. We are located in western Hanover County and would love for you to widen your readers’ audience. I plan on asking for a subscription for my birthday.

Send your letters, thoughts, suggestions, and questions to editor@flavormags.com.

Best wishes for Flavor. It’s really lovely. Leigh Ann Carver Charlottesville, VA

www.centralcoffee.com

Central n

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I take them with me when we go away for the holidays. My husband is from a huge Gulf Coast family with their own wonderful food traditions, but they have appreciated the invasion of Virginia apples into the land of spicy seafood and have come to rely on them being at holidays as much as I do.

tch all ba

sh roas

Libbie, we will continue to grow Flavor’s reach in 2009. In the last issue, we featured Cirrus Vodka from Richmond, and in this issue we travel west to Highland County to profile maple syrup producers. Be sure to let us know about the local food and wine stories that you and your friends are talking about!

I recently picked up Flavor for the first time at Shenandoah Joe in Charlottesville. I enjoyed seeing the lovely pages and finding personal, local favorites—from chef Martha Stafford to the Albemarle Pippin. My grandmother introduced me to the Albemarle Pippin years ago, and ever since, I’ve had a tradition of buying them in the late fall from Integral Yoga or wherever I could find them at the time.

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local grazings

Happenings on the Foodie Front Virginia Chutney Company

Local Food Distribution Hub

The chefs at the Inn at Little Washington aren’t the only ones creating sensuous flavors in this little town. Right down the street from the inn, the Turner family is slow-cooking peaches, plums, and cranberries into Southern-style chutney. Every day at the family-owned and operated Virginia Chutney Company, workers stop for a ploughman’s lunch of bread, cheese, and (you guessed it) chutney. Based on traditional Southern recipes, this chutney has gotten rave reviews from connoisseurs and critics alike. The company website (www.virginiachutney.com) features recipes, chutney history, and ordering information. Jars of Spicy Plum, Cranberry, Sweet Peach, Hot Peach, and Rhubarb Virginia Chutney can also be found on store shelves.

Distribution is one of the biggest challenges faced by local food producers, who lack the vast networks of national grocery chains. Kate Collier, who has owned and operated Feast in Charlottesville since 2002, and Marisa Vrooman are coordinating the effort to create a not-for-profit local food hub that would retrieve food from farms and deliver it to community organizations that want to purchase local products. Such organizations, like the Jefferson Area Board of Aging, presently need to purchase from many sources scattered across the commonwealth. By eliminating the burden of delivery borne now by the purchaser, the hub would increase farmers’ access to markets hungry for local food. Nelson County has already pledged funds to support this project. If you live in the Thomas Jefferson Planning District, contact your county supervisors and urge them to support this key investment in local food production.

Locallectual Where do the information superhighway and the buy local movement meet? At www.locallectual.com. Locallectual offers a way for users to find products made in a certain geographical area. For example, you can find pastries within a given radius of your home or look for blue jeans made in Virginia. You can also find retailers and restaurants that source locally. The site has more than 20 categories, from apparel to furniture, and from food to office supplies. Go online to search, shop, suggest new listings, or see news of interest to “relocalizers” posted on the founders’ blogs.

Rainbow Market Rainbow Market is the newest place in Rappahannock County to offer healthy, great-tasting food and natural goods. Located two miles west of Sperryville on Rt. 211, this holistic market sells food that is natural, organic, and—whenever possible— locally sourced. The market’s gift shop sells everything from skin care products to local arts and crafts to organic clothing. Future plans include offering a variety of deli-style lunch items, like hot soups, sandwiches, and an assortment of homemade breads. Rainbow Market, a non-profit organization, donates all of its proceeds to local charities and families in need. The store is open Monday–Friday from 9:00 to 5:00 and Saturday from 10:00 to 5:00. To learn more, stop by or call (540) 987-3341.

flavor magazine • winter 2009

Hopkins Ordinary B&B The Hopkins Ordinary Bed & Breakfast in Sperryville is presenting a tasty solution to dreary winter weekends. Starting in January and continuing every other weekend through March, the proprietors will be offering weekend-long wine pairing and cooking classes. Each weekend will have a theme, such as traditional Latin cuisine, Mardi Gras favorites, or tantalizing aphrodisiacs. The instructors offer a fun approach to learning and welcome students of all skill levels. The package includes a room at the historic inn, complete with porch and fireplace, full breakfasts that focus on local food, and time to explore the Sperryville area. The food-andwine pairing discussion will take place on Friday and the cooking class, with dinner to follow, is on Saturday. For more information, visit www.hopkinsordinary.com.

kendall singleton

Autumn Reynolds

local grazings University of Virginia Dining Services As part of its efforts to create “greener grounds,” the University of Virginia has made changes to its dining halls, such as recycling waste products like cooking oil and packaging material. And by removing trays from the dining halls, the university has not only reduced food waste—without trays, students tend to take less—but also eliminated its consumption of the water, energy, and chemicals needed to clean the trays. Menus feature locally produced (within a 250-mile radius) food items including cage-free eggs, beef, tofu, and salsa, and a significant amount of the food purchased comes from sustainable sources. Some of the dining halls have begun using biodegradable to-go containers and composting food waste. Even the vehicles used by Dining Services now run on biodiesel. The numbers for 2008 are not yet available, but in 2007 Dining Services sourced over 11 percent of its food from local producers. You can read about these other steps toward sustainability at UVa at www.virginia .edu/sustainability.

Miller Farms Market You don’t have to wait until spring to enjoy shopping at a local farmers market. Miller Farms Market in Orange County is one of the few places still providing delicious produce throughout the winter months. A variety of greens—including pac choi, spinach, red romaine, green mustard, and arugula—are growing in the greenhouses and are available fresh all winter long. The family-operated farm and market also offer natural meats, dairy products, and a variety of canned goods. Call (540) 9722680 to ask about the availability of free-range eggs and creekraised fresh rainbow trout, or pay the Millers a visit in person or online (www.millerfarmsmarket.com). Born and raised in Rappahannock County but now residing in Linden, Autumn Reynolds has spent many years in the food and wine industry.

www.flavormags.com

tales from the field

Seeds of Hope

Trista Scheuerlein

Heirloom seeds tie us to our region’s history, ensure the best flavor, and preserve biodiversity.

oday my favorite seed catalog came in the mail. Its fullcolor photos and adjective-laden descriptions keep me happy in my field of dreams all winter. I will sit, as most gardeners do, at my kitchen table for hours at a time while I browse seed catalog after seed catalog, planning my 2009 garden. How many seeds will I need for five successive plantings of lettuce and mesclun mix? Which beds will I prep this year, and which ones will I leave in cover crop to build up organic matter and rid the bed of pathogens? Will I finally get that cold frame built this spring? Shall I try that new broccoli that looks so pretty but may not yield as well as my tried-andtrue variety? As I sit beside the wood stove, a perfect garden blossoms in my mind—right there in full color even as snow swirls and wind bites outside. The garden is not dead in winter, dear reader. The garden lives in the mind as a seed of hope for the future. I will draw it out, color it in, plan the row feet, try not to be overly ambitious on my seed order. I will decide which of last year’s varieties earned a place among the keepers and which new plants will lure me in by their beauty or their flowery description.

kristen taylor

Of special importance to my garden are the heirloom tomato varieties that have won my heart: Tangerine, Cherokee Purple, Yellow Pear, Pink Lady. These tomatoes vary in their acidity, sweetness, and texture. I grow the Tangerine tomatoes because they look so beautiful in jars and they taste good. Cherokee Purples and Pink Ladies vie for the esteemed position on my ’mater sandwich. Yellow Pears are for salads, for field snacks,

flavor magazine • winter 2009

and for halving and sautéing in butter and sage—my favorite summer pasta sauce. Heirloom varieties are a hot topic among farmers market attendees. Heirloom vegetable, herb, and flower seeds have withstood the test of time and have been saved generation after generation in wax envelopes and mason jars because of their unique flavors, appearance, and regional viability. There is a new sense of urgency in the local food community to save seeds and maintain biodiversity. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE), based out of Mineral, Virginia, justifiably prides itself in its vast array of more than 500 varieties of heirloom seeds, all of which grow well in the southern midAtlantic region. Up until World War II most produce was grown locally, and regional cultivars adapted to the bioregion. During World War II, the U.S.—needing to transport a lot of produce to Europe—developed an infrastructure to ship large amounts of food over long distances. With this major shift in distribution, storage and shipability took precedence in bioengineering over flavor. For example, the FlavrSavr tomato was the first genetically modified vegetable to be approved as safe to eat by the Food and Drug Administration. Developed for an extended vine and shelf life and for its ability to ship well, this tomato, bioengineered by Calgene (which was later bought by Monsanto), hit the markets in 1994. According to the non-profit Center for Food Safety, we have good reason to be concerned about the patenting of seeds. Starting in the 1930s, genetic engineers were granted the right to patent their work. With the boom in biotechnology, engineers now have the right to own any animal or plant that they insert their patented genes into. And if that is not disturbing enough, large corporations such as Monsanto are patenting heirloom seeds. They now literally own corn varieties that were developed by ancient Mayans. As long as a company is the first to apply for a patent, it is granted the patent. It is estimated that Monsanto now owns over 11,000 seed patents.

Not only are heirloom varieties important pieces of history, but they also have the best flavors and colors. They represent the genetic diversity essential to keeping food on our plates if the few standard hybrid varieties, the majority of what is grown worldwide, no longer produce for one reason or another. I am happy to know that my local seed savers at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange have so many great heirloom seeds available. Ninety-nine percent of their seeds are non-hybrid, and many are organic or are grown without pesticides. I plan to incorporate as many heirloom varieties as possible in my garden this year to both support small-scale seed savers and help ensure biodiversity.

The garden lives in the mind as a seed

Old World Charm

of hope for the future.

in the heart of Virginia’s scenic vineyards & Hunt Country

Because I am eating my food, giving it to low-income people, and stocking the school salad bars with it, I can turn my nose up without remorse at the genetically modified vegetables developed for global food systems instead of local ones. Until planting season, you can find me drawing my garden map, refining my seeding schedule, harvesting delicious food from the new hoophouse, and waiting for the ground to thaw. Trista Scheuerlein has been in the field of sustainable agriculture for 14 years. She is the program director for the Headwaters/ Rappahannock County Public Schools’ Farm-to-Table Program, which teaches students about seasonal and local foods and grows pesticidefree foods for the school cafeteria, local events, and low-income senior citizens.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (540) 894-9480 www.southernexposure.com In addition to hosting SESE’s online store, this website includes information about heirloom and open-pollinated varieties, a resources page, and the most recent catalog.

The Future of Food This 2004 documentary examines the GMO debate and includes a tutorial on saving your own seeds. Order the DVD online at www.thefutureoffood.com or purchase it at your local Whole Foods Market.

Weddings • Garden Receptions • Tent • Dining Rooms Gazebo • Irish Pub • Canopy Beds • Fireplaces Corporate Catering & Retreats • Live Entertainment Weekly VALENTINE’S DAY MENU SOUP Curried Carrot and Coconut Milk with Roasted Red Pepper STARTERS Artichoke Vinaigrette with Marinated Roasted Shallots Lobster Salad with Tender Greens and Salmon Caviar Duck Breast Carpaccio with Shaved Irish Cheddar Baby Spinach with Pancetta, Gorgonzola and Toasted Walnuts MAIN COURSE Mustard and Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb with Pinot Noir Garlic Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Porcini-Marsala au Jus Mixed Grill of Gulf Shrimp, Red Snapper and Jumbo Scallops Veal Porterhouse with Smoked Bacon and Wild Mushrooms DESSERTS Roasted Pineapple and Banana Napoleon Chocolate Soufflé with Coconut Gelato Strawberries in Custard with Gran Marnier Whipped Cream VALENTINE ROMANTIC GETAWAY AT THE BLACKTHORNE INN Wed., Feb. 11, 2009 • Thur., Feb. 12, 2009 • Fri., Feb. 13, 2009 Standard Package $275.00 Includes: A one night stay in one of our guest suites A complimentary bottle of champagne A Four course Dinner for two including: soup, salad, an entrée choice from a selected menu, and dessert Breakfast for two Premium Package: $325.00 Includes: A one night stay in one of our spacious cabins A complimentary bottle of champagne A Four course Dinner for two including: soup, salad, an entrée choice from a selected menu, and dessert. Breakfast for two Check in time is 2:30 pm and check out is at 11:00 am Taxes, additional alcohol, and gratuities, are not included.

TrT

Inn & Restaurant

540.592.3848 • www.blackthorne-inn.com 10087 John S. Mosby Highway · Upperville, VA 20184 www.flavormags.com

Small Farms and Big Goverment Kathryn Russell

Local food producers battle more than the elements.

Artwork based on a poster for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, created by the WPA Federal Art Project, 1941.

he demand for locally produced food has never been greater. Even during the hippie days of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the general population wasn’t giving a lot of thought to where and under what conditions—environmental and social—their food originated. The new millennium, however, has seen an increased emphasis on local food. Dictionaries have even added a new term, locavore, to describe people who seek out food from their immediate region. These eaters are evaluating not only what food they eat, but where this food comes from, the environmental impacts of raising and transporting it, and the sales practices used by the people who produce it. Best-selling books have been written touting the benefits of eating locally, including Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma—which celebrates local farmer and Flavor contributor Joel Salatin—and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle—an account of her family’s commitment to farming in southwestern Virginia. These books have helped further the national discussion about the health, societal, and environmental benefits of local eating.

Obstacle Course Efforts to get local food into home kitchens are not always successful. This is hard to understand, especially in central Virginia, where productive land is visible on almost any drive through the area. Thwarting the distribution of locally produced food are the myriad regulations that farmers and culinary artisans face as well as the many statutory requirements that are intended more for industrial production and distribution than for direct producer-to-consumer distribution. A Virginian can’t buy fresh, raw butter not because the dairy farmer doesn’t have it, or is not interested in providing it, but because the commonwealth of Virginia does not allow the retail sale of raw dairy products. Nor can Virginians buy fresh raw cheeses, yogurts, or other in-demand farm items. (The only exception to this is cheese that is aged at least 60 days and originates from a state-inspected facility.) Consumers and farmers seeking to have direct trade are also often frustrated, ironically, by laws designed to protect eaters. State law does not adequately reflect that risk increases and transparency decreases each time a product changes hands. For example, when a dairy farmer milks his cows, processes the milk into a value-added product, and sells directly to a consumer— be he a chef, a baker, or an individual—the chain of custody is short and accountability is determinable. If that same farmer provides his product to a retail store and then a consumer purchases it, the farmer is now a step removed from the eater. This relationship is further diluted when a dairy farmer sells his milk to a processor, who in turn combines this milk with milk from other farms and transports it to a plant for processing, after which it is sent to a wholesaler and then transported to a retail store and bought by a consumer. Yet the commonwealth does not have statutes that reflect the various levels of risk and accountability in these different situations. Virginia has no tiered approach based on the real risk factors that are associated with changes in the chain of custody. By bringing this problem to the attention of state legislators, consumers can improve the availability of local, fresh, sustainable, and nutrient-dense foods.

There and Back Again Historically, families used the seasonal excesses of their garden and barnyard—as well as food they hunted and foraged—to supplement their incomes and to enrich their neighbors. These unique and flavorful treats were, obviously, all grown and processed locally. Such practices have diminished and been replaced by supermarkets teeming with food products from afar that are often processed beyond recognition, boxed, bagged, and frozen for extended shelf-life—products designed for a national, if not global, market. As writer-farmer Wendell Berry has articulated, we have gone from a society where households were active producers to one in which most of us are passive consumers. Locavores, resisting the lure of megamarkets, are seeking out community-based foods, which are regionally unique, seasonal, and full of character. For these eaters, the period during which, say, raspberries are available is short, but it’s made memorable by saving the fruit in traditional forms of pantry filling: the raspberry purée from a special aunt, the sweet-and-savory sausage created in fall by a neighborhood butcher using his homegrown forest-run hogs, and some jars of jam. Until the last half-century, this was how all people ate raspberries—fresh in season and frozen, canned, or otherwise preserved for eating in the other seasons.

Consumers and farmers seeking to have direct trade are also often frustrated, ironically, by laws designed to protect eaters. Despite the fact that most produce can be shipped into Virginia in season and out, demand for seasonal, local food is growing, and area farmers and artisanal food producers are ready to meet the demand! Our state and federal governments, however, are slow to reflect this trend and need to be brought into the 21st century, where local foods as a choice make good global sense. For as laws and policies have evolved over the last several decades to accommodate large-scale, industrial agriculture, they have both jeopardized the financial viability of small farms and curtailed the rights of eaters to procure food from local growers and producers.

Home Turf Battles Each year, Congress and the Virginia General Assembly consider new legislation that affects local food production and distribution. In addition, various agencies and departments— particularly the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) and the Virginia Department of Health (VDOH)—promulgate regulations that affect commerce in local foods. It is usually the case that the Federal Department of Agriculture’s Food Code is adopted into Virginia regulations. Legislation exempting farmers markets and on-farm sales from these requirements was proposed by the Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association (VICFA) and passed by the General Assembly. This bill preserved many more local food options than would otherwise have been possible. In www.flavormags.com

2007, VICFA was instrumental in opening up the market for sales of jams, jellies, candies, and baked goods with the passage of SB 272, also known as the “kitchen bill.” One of the bills being considered during the current legislative session, SB 813 (introduced by Sen. Ken T. Cuccinelli II), is designed as a corrective action to a previous Virginia Department of Taxation administrative ruling to make custom slaughterhouses, which process game and domestic animals for food, charge a 5 percent fabrication tax for their services. This tax will be especially costly for local farmers and hunters. If passed, SB 813 will create an exemption for meat that is intended for consumption by the owner of the meat and his or her family.

Big Brother on the Farm On a federal level, one of the biggest impediments to local eating is not a legislative initiative, but a U.S. Department of Agriculture promotion: the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Designed to quickly identify infected animals involved in an outbreak of something like mad cow disease or bird flu, NAIS is being actively promoted for implementation by the USDA without specific funding or statutory authority. While promoted as a health program and trace-back initiative, it is actually a global marketing strategy that is intrusive and burdensome to diversified traditional farms and ranches. Because it is subsidized by taxpayers and because individual heritage livestock farms are unable to compete under such requirements, agri-industry stands to benefit from NAIS. Although the U.S. imports more beef than it exports, the export market is the supposed benefactor of this program: it is thought that other countries will consider NAIS-tagged meat as safe. It should be noted that although NAIS may be made mandatory for all livestock, the U.S. exported only 2.5 percent of the beef it produced in 2005—and your local cattle ranchers are not likely among those exporting. NAIS will affect not only beef producers, but every owner of livestock. Even if you just own one horse, or a few dozen sheep, or a couple of bunnies, you must tag each animal. The overburdensome record keeping related to NAIS and the intrusive and costly requirements and penalties imposed by the USDA will—among other things—discourage many potential farmers 12

flavor magazine • winter 2009

Rep. Tom Perriello After a close election and a careful recount, Tom Perriello has been named the next representative of the 5th District in the U.S. Congress, succeeding Virgil Goode, who represented the farmers of this district for 12 years. I was one of five farmers from his district invited to have dinner with Perriello and an aide in September 2008, when he was a candidate, at the home of local food advocate Carroll Ann Friedmann. After enjoying an incredible feast of local foods, we chatted with the candidate over dessert. Listening to our complaints, wish lists, and critiques of how the system is failing consumers and farmers alike, Perriello repeatedly indicated he would listen to us, his constituents, and support a reasonable food policy. He was quick to point out that a farm bill should be a “food bill,” because farms are not in isolation from their products. “Buying from your neighbor should be an easy thing do,” he said. “It only makes sense.” After the election, I interviewed Perriello about his thoughts on food policy. We covered many areas, from the negative effects of globalization and a food policy that bankrupts indigenous farmers, to issues facing our local farmers markets. Perriello pointed out that 30,000 people die of starvation each day and that we need to look more broadly at the policies in our system which contribute to the disruption of food supplies internationally. He was interested in pursuing how subsidized food from the U.S. outcompetes indigenous farmers in their own markets—the same system that puts U.S. consumers and traditional farmers at a competitive disadvantage. Perriello’s interests include transportation, agriculture, and small business, and he understands that access to healthier food can help reduce the escalating costs of health care in the region. In our discussion of NAIS, Perriello asserted the importance of food safety and disease control. But he also acknowledged that many of the arguments for NAIS are specious. His vision of a sustainable economy considers more than just current crises. He also seeks to reduce small farmers’ regulatory burden— he embraces a tiered approach to regulatory processes—and to address the environmental impact of continued federal subsidization of agri-industry. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Perriello listens and is teachable. He acknowledges that his knowledge of farming issues and food policy is somewhat limited. He ended our interview saying, “While we will not always agree on every issue, I will always give my constituents a good hearing and a direct answer, and we can fight it out from there.” Fair enough. Let us take him at his word and let him know what we think.

mary johnson

spicy bear media

Unable to sell raw-milk goat cheese, the proprietors of Satyrfield Dairy Goats give their cheese away for free at the Charlottesville farmers market, accepting only donations, all of which go to fund efforts to change restrictive state regulations.

from entering the marketplace. In 2002 the average age of U.S. farmers was 55, so discouraging new farmers is the last thing our communities need. Many other objections to NAIS can be found. For example, the cost of implementing NAIS is disproportionate for small farmers, who are required to tag every animal. Owners of industrial feed lots, on the other hand, are permitted to tag only a percentage of their animals. Smaller operators also struggle to buy the programming and reading equipment that works with the radio frequency identification (RFID) tags used in NAIS. In addition, critics point out that the diseases NAIS seeks to address are rare, if not altogether nonexistent, on small farms. Such diseases are caused by feeding cows a mixture of grain and ground cattle (turning herbivores into cannibals) and by housing poultry in unsanitary, crowded buildings. In fact, the safest food comes from small-scale farms, which may be made extinct by such programs. The federal government hits small, local farmers with a double-whammy: NAIS and the reverse incentive of subsidies for large-scale horticultural farmers. According to the Citizens Against Government Waste report on the 2007 farm bill, 60

percent of farmers don’t even produce crops eligible for subsidies, which means that subsidy payments really amount to corporate welfare for the rich. The crumbs that the farm bill leaves for sustainable, direct-marketed products are underwhelming in view of the enormous federal subsidies granted to agribuisness.

Vote with Your Fork Can locavores change this political climate? Of course we can! Start by making every effort to eat seasonally, to buy in bulk like your forebears did, and to consider each meal a celebration. Recall simple meals like the cheese, milk, and fresh bread Heidi savored with her grandfather in the book that bears her name. A fresh local tomato with basil and garlic in summer, or local pork, apples, and root vegetables in fall—these meals can bring about change. Farmers, get to know those who eat the fruits of your labor. Eaters, learn where your food comes from and who is working to provide it. As Albemarle County nurseryman and cattle farmer Bill McCaskill says, “One of the greatest joys of my day is when one of my friends from just down the road stops in to pick up a dozen eggs, some cut flowers, or a potted plant from the greenhouse to take to a sick friend. It does my heart good to know that I can improve the lives of my neighbors with these simple but meaningful products. I know from some of the comments of my neighbors that they feel the same way about the relationship as I do.” Your Politicians and Your Plate Call and write your legislators to let them know that you support food raised and produced locally and that you want less government intrusion on Virginia farms. Communicate that NAIS is not a necessary program, especially in these difficult economic times. Some Virginia politicians work to preserve small farms, and you can let them know that you appreciate their efforts. Sen. Creigh Deeds, patron of the “kitchen bill,” has consistently supported local food issues and farms. He received a standing ovation after speaking at the VICFA Legislators on the Farm Day last year. Del. Rob Bell and Del. Bill Janis have voting records that reflect their support of local farmers and their opposition to a mandatory NAIS program, and they have always welcomed public input. Del. David Toscano, a newcomer, has indicated that he will endorse initiatives to minimize restrictions on local producers. His support of the Charlottesville Farmers Market is well noted. Ed Houck, the long-serving senator from Spotsylvania, has also been a friend to small farms. On the flip side, Robert D. Orrock’s voting record on local food issues has been nothing less than abysmal. The locavores in his district should be sure to let him know that they disagree with his positions. If politicians like Orrock hear only from industry lobbyists, they are not likely to see a need to change state law and regulation. Although he has been in office only a few weeks, Rep. Tom Perriello (see sidebar) has shown an eagerness to promote local foods from environmental, health, and economic standpoints. Unfortunately, neither of Virginia’s senators, incoming Mark Warner or seated Jim Webb, have made themselves accessible

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to local food advocates or have appeared interested in hearing constituents’ views on local food issues. As governor of Virginia, Warner signed regulations that made it illegal to use milk from your own cow to make products for your family unless the milk was pasteurized and your kitchen had passed inspected by the state! VICFA immediately promoted corrective legislation, which passed handily.

Citizen Advocates Access to food grown and made locally is not guaranteed. The best way to ensure that you can get fresh, seasonal food from farmers and producers who employ humane and sustainable practices is two-fold. First, engage in direct farm-to-consumer commerce as often as possible and become an advocate for local food. Second, keep a list of your legislators’ contact information handy and stay informed through organizations like VICFA, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, and the Weston A. Price Foundation. A visit to the latter’s website will reinforce that this is not just a lot of fuss and bother. These struggles are real—as evidenced by the December 2008 arrests of people participating in a co-op in Ohio and of a cheesemaker in California. You have the power to help change the laws that these locavores are accused of breaking. Use it. Kathryn Russell is the proprietor of Majesty Farm, a diversified family farm in Albemarle County. Her farm provides dairy, beef, lamb, and chevon for her community. One of the pioneers in dairy-share operations in Virginia, she is the president of the Virginia Dairy Agisters Coalition and Shareholder Association (www.vdacs.org) and a board member of VICFA and NICFA.

USDA’s NAIS site animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais No NAIS www.nonais.org National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association www.nicfa.org Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association (434) 760-5513 info@vicfa.org www.vicfa.org Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund www.ftcldf.org Weston A. Price Foundation www.westonaprice.org Your Legislators To find contact information for your state and federal representatives, visit these sites: legis.state.va.us/1_cit_guide/contacting_my.html www.congress.org

flavor magazine • winter 2009

flavor café

photos by eric kelley

L’étoile Theresa Curry

For almost 10 years, Mark Gresge and the staff at L’étoile have been crafting French-inspired food with ingredients found nearby.

harlottesville’s L’étoile is a little jewel, the star of the Starr Hill neighborhood. It helps that this restaurant, the creation of Mark and Vicki Gresge, occupies one of the best spots in town—about halfway between the University of Virginia and the city’s popular downtown pedestrian mall. Its side balcony overlooks the trains that still bring students to the

university and tourists to the town, and it’s in a visual corner before the railroad bridge. There are a lot of little touches adding to the charm of the structure, from the brave pansies holding on in the outdoor planters to the sunny, earthy colors of the walls inside.

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flavor café It’s the kind of place that has regulars, people who come by at least weekly to soak up the warmth of the welcoming rooms and breathe in the fragrance of butter and garlic. Mark Gresge, who shares his kitchen with chef de cuisine Brian Wilkinson, estimates that almost half of his diners are in this category. They come for the bistro-style lunch that always includes seasonal homemade soup, sandwiches, and a number of creative salads—chicken, salmon, beef, mushroom, and Caesar—and a pot pie with puff pastry. They return for the innovative dinner menu, featuring carefully selected Virginia produce, meat, seafood, and wine. If you order a bowl of seasonal soup or a salad, you’ll get a fat slice of the signature pepper-cheese bread. Like the sweetbreads, the chicken salad, the duck, and the coconut cake, this bread has become a L’Étoile staple. This consistency is part of having an army of regulars, Gresge explains. “I might try to take something off the menu, feeling it’s time for a change, and they’ll protest.”

Gresge consulted with food historians to find out what a Virginia meal might have looked like years ago. The combination of flavorful salads and luscious desserts at lunchtime made L’Étoile a darling of ladies’ lunch groups back in the day when the place was named the Tea Room Café. In an effort to cast a wider demographic net, the Gresges searched for a new name. “L’Étoile—French for ‘star’—seemed perfect, since we’re here on Starr Hill,” says Gresge, referring to the name of the gently sloping neighborhood where the restaurant is found.

flavor magazine • winter 2009

French-Inspired Virginia Flavors Another change came almost 10 years ago when Gresge noticed the enormous variety and wonderful quality of produce and meat sold locally. “We were always inclined this way, but in 1999, we decided to make a very dedicated effort to buy Virginia products,” he says. He also went on a search for traditional dishes, consulting with food historians to find out what a Virginia meal might have looked like years ago. For example, Gresge has become a fan of duck eggs for baking and quiches. “The truth is, just about everything is available here,” Gresge says. He buys beef and pork from Polyface Farm in Swoope and vegetables from Randy’s Produce Farm in Louisa. Gresge creates L’etoile’s wonderful soups from seasonal produce. “I like to let the vegetables shine in the soups,” says Gresge. “They have such great flavor and color.”

Pumpkin Bisque Total cooking time: 45 minutes Serves 6. If this velvety and golden bisque seems too thick, thin it with a light touch of extra stock or cream.

1 tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon sweet butter 1 cup onion, peeled and chopped ½ cup diced carrots ½ cup chopped celery 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 Granny Smith apple, chopped 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger 1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped 1 cup white wine ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon nutmeg ½ teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon white pepper 3 cups roasted and puréed pumpkin (or canned pumpkin) 8 cups vegetable stock 2 cups heavy cream

In a large saucepan, heat the oil and butter. Add the onion, carrots, and celery and sauté for 5 minutes over mediumlow heat. Add garlic, apple, ginger, and sweet potato. Then add wine and spices. Sauté for 3 minutes. Add pumpkin and stock. Stir well and bring to low simmer for 30 minutes.

Turn heat down and let sit for 20 minutes before puréeing. I suggest using a hand blender (also known as an immersion blender), as hot soups in standing blenders are very dangerous—they may blow the lid and cause burns. Return soup to pot.

Add the cream. Reheat but do not boil the soup before serving.

O Virginia Wine Pairing

Gresge suggests pairing this soup with Blenheim Vineyards Ox-Eye Chardonnay.

He said he often thinks about his father, a Midwestern shopkeeper, who would make the rounds of neighboring farmers to buy the groceries he sold in his store. “After people found we were looking for local suppliers, they began to bring us things,” Gresge recalls. “We’ve had people come in with chestnuts and cherries. And we also buy apples and peaches from Henley’s Orchard in Crozet.” Wilkinson, L’Étoile’s chef, is a familiar figure at Charlottesville’s farmers market. “He’s persistent,” Gresge says. “He goes to see the vendors, explains what he needs, and tastes everything.” Wilkinson applies the same standards in the kitchen, according to Gresge. “He’ll practice with a dish until it’s absolutely perfect.” He says his restaurant manager, Jonathan Corey, is just as particular about the service: “No matter if it’s a regular with just a bowl of soup or a party of 20, he wants to make sure their experience is perfect.”

Follow the Star

None of this has come about by accident. Gresge, a former packaging engineer, moved from Chicago for a job with Klockner Pentaplast in Gordonsville. He had always been interested in food, so in 1992, when he and Vicki became the innkeepers at 1817, a bed and breakfast, he took over as breakfast chef. “I had to learn on the job,” he said. In the morning, he’d cook eggs for the guests at 1817 (now known as the Dinsmore House). In the afternoon, he worked

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kristen taylor

Our cooking classes will stimulate your creativity in the kitchen

Gresge can usually be found offering samples and advice for preparing local produce at Charlottesville’s City Market.

in the kitchen of Kafcafe, a former coffee shop on Elliewood Avenue, across from the university, that became known for its wonderful little dishes. And on weekends, he helped in the kitchen at Memory & Company, just off the downtown mall. To make it all work, he and his wife lived in a section of the old inn—without any running water.

47 Main Street ~ Sperryville, Virginia 540.987.3383 ~ www.hopkinsordinary.com

“We were always inclined this way, but in 1999, we decided to make a very dedicated effort to buy Virginia products.” —Chef-proprietor Mark Gresge They left the inn when Gresge bought the Tea Room and took on the double mantle of chef-proprietor. Vickie has stayed involved, even as their family has grown. She does the bookkeeping for L’Étoile at home and is in the restaurant every Friday and Saturday night. “Looking back, I sometimes don’t see how we did it,” he says, “but ever since we began, I’ve never wanted to do anything else. I just want to keep doing it better.” Theresa Curry is a Virginia-based freelance feature writer. She writes for a number of publications, including Charlottesville’s Daily Progress and the Augusta Free Press.

L’Étoile (434) 979-7957 letoilerestaurant.com Lunch: Tues.–Fri., 11:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dinner: Wed.–Sat., 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. 817 West Main Street, Charlottesville

flavor magazine • winter 2009

in the garden

Plant an Oak, Har vest a Truffle Cristina Santiestevan

It used to be that you needed to train a pig and tramp through an oak forest in the middle of the French winter in order to hold a fresh black Perigord truffle in your hand. Now you can grow them in your backyard. Ancient poets and scholars once believed truffles were the fruit of lightning bolts hurled at oak trees by Jupiter, king of the gods. Today we know these warty, knobby, fist-shaped tubers are the fruiting bodies of a particular type of fungus, just like all j. r. accettola · www.accettola.com

mushrooms. Thanks to the pioneering work of truffle farmers like Virginia Truffle Growers, these earthy delights are the next

identical to the gastronomically adored Perigord region of

French import to Virginia’s Piedmont—right after wine.

south-central France. Famous for its wine, foie-gras, and native black truffle, France’s Perigord region has long supplied some

From France’s Perigord to Virginia’s Piedmont

of the most coveted ingredients for food lovers around the

With hot, dry summers and mild winters, combined with roll-

world. Already dozens of dedicated winemakers have proven

ing hills of limestone-rich soil, the Piedmont’s climate is nearly

our region’s ability to nurture fine wine-producing grapes among local hills and valleys. Will the famous black Perigord truffle be next? Truffle farmers in Rixeyville think it will. “This whole area is . . . very much like the [Perigord region] of France, where black truffles grow naturally,” explains Pat Martin. She runs Virginia Truffle Growers with her husband John, Tim Terry, a successful Tasmanian truffle farmer, and Maggie Shumack, who works directly with customers to establish their own truffle-producing orchards. While they eventually expect to have about 3 acres planted with truffle-producing oak trees, the Virginia Truffle Growers are actually more interested in growing truffle farms than

jules coon

truffles. Their Culpeper County farm is home to a commercial

Oak saplings dot a hillside on the farm at Virginia Truffle Growers, which the owners have dubbed Le Clos de la Rabasse, or the Cul-de-sac of the Truffle.

greenhouse and a sterile lab, where they inoculate oak seedlings with the fungus that produces black Perigord truffles. An independent mycologist confirms that each seedling is properly inoculated before it is offered for sale.

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Pat Martin believes truffle growing is a great option for farmers or vintners who are looking to diversify their crops or to transition to “something that doesn’t require 24-7 labor and intensive attention.” Local soybean and corn farmers are already beginning to inquire about the truffles, and the Virginia Department of Agriculture is interested in their potential as an alternative or specialty crop. Martin suspects our local vineyards may be especially well suited for truffle production. “We have every reason to believe the trees and the truffles are good companion products to the grapes,” explains Martin. “They certainly grow in very much the same kind of soil.” Enthusiastic home gardeners are also encouraged to join the truffle-growing adventure. In fact, anyone with space for a few oak trees—and patience to wait the four or five years until harvest—could be a future truffle grower. “We’ve been contacted by people who want one or two trees,” says Martin, “and by others who want to plant many acres.”

j. r. accettola · www.accettola.com

It Takes an Oak to Grow a Truffle Truffle-producing fungi form an intimate relationship with tree

Truffle-Growing 101

roots—creating a radiating fan of delicate fibers—known as mycorrizae, that look and act like root hairs. The edible truffles are the fruits of this mycorrizal relationship. The black Perigord truffle (Tuber melanosporum) grows best on the roots of oaks, and Virginia Truffle Growers currently offers holly oaks and English oaks. Both varieties have been producing ample crops of truffles for partner Tim Terry on his Tasmanian truffle farm. In some ways, truffles are no different than any other orchard crop. The trees are planted and carefully tended, and then the harvest begins around the fifth year. But there the similarity

Virginia Truffle Growers sells truffle-bearing oak trees and offers advice and support to aspiring truffle growers. Here are some of their cultivation tips:

ends. Rather than picking an apple from a lofty branch, harvesters dig the truffles from the soil in the tree’s root zone. And it takes a carefully trained dog to find them in the first place.

• Prune truffle trees to an inverted-cone shape. Truffles do best with access to light and heat.

Bring Out the Truffle-Hunting Dogs

• Irrigation is recommended, especially during the dry summer months.

used across France and Italy by generations of truffle collectors.

• Alkaline soil is best for truffles: amend as necessary to reach a soil pH of 7.5–8.5. • Large growers are encouraged to invest in a specialized soil test available through Virginia Truffle Growers.

Large, hungry pigs are the traditional truffle-hunting animal, Today—largely because the pigs enjoy eating truffles as much as we do—trained dogs have become the animal of choice. Whether in the forest or the orchard, trained truffle-hunting dogs rely on their noses to find the hidden tubers. Once the truffles are found, it’s a simple matter for the dog’s handler to scoop the treasure from among the soil and roots. According to Martin, any dog can be trained to find truffles. But anticipating that some future truffle growers may not want

flavor magazine • winter 2009

to get into the dog-training business, Virginia Truffle Growers will offer contracted truffle-hunting dog services through their second company, Virginia Truffle Marketing and Sales, which will also distribute truffles for participating regional truffle growers.

Three Weeks of Culinary Euphoria As should be expected with anything so evocative, the season for truffles is fleeting. “The fresher they are when you use them, the better,” insists Martin, who warns that truffles lose their potent flavor about 2 weeks after harvest. Martin suggests “truffle virgins” seek out a quality restaurant for their first experience of this strongly flavored delicacy. More adventurous home cooks can try pairing shaved truffles with simple foods, such as scrambled eggs or mashed potatoes. Despite its recent domesticity, the truffle maintains the allure and mystery that has held food lovers captive since the days of Pliny the Elder. “It’s hard to describe the taste because it’s not like anything else I’ve ever eaten—it is so pungent, so wonderful,” says Martin. At a loss, she admits, “I’m not good at describing truffles because I don’t know what to compare them to.” And, really, that is the point. In a world filled with countless flavors and cuisines, truffles remain incomparable. They are like nothing else. Cristina Santiestevan writes about science, nature, and sustainable living from her home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Recommended Reading • The Truffle Book by Gareth Renowden • Truffles, The Black Diamond and Other Kinds by Jean-Marie Rocchia Virginia Truffle Growers maggie@virginiatrufflegrowers.com (540) 937-9881 www.virginiatrufflegrowers.com Greenhouse and Truffiere 11047 Settletown Place Rixeyville, VA 22737

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Highland County may be Virginiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s least-populated county, but it has a big maple syrup tradition.

flavor magazine â&#x20AC;˘ winter 2009

Tapping Tradition Walker Elliott Rowe and Jennifer Conrad Seidel

ith the rise of the local food movement, the general public is increasingly aware that we don’t have to eat grapes flown in from Chile, tomatoes trucked in from Florida, or lettuce ferried across the nation from California. Well, Virginians, add this to your list: you don’t need to buy maple syrup shipped from Vermont. Maple syrup is being produced in Virginia’s least-populated county, Highland County, about an hour west of Staunton on U.S Route 250. Southernmost Maple Mike Puffenbarger and his family are the proprietors of Southernmost Maple. Collecting and processing maple syrup is a family affair for the Puffenbargers, who are Mennonite. “Everybody has a part in everything about the business, especially syrup making,” Puffenbarger says. “We’ve been here for 31 years and have not missed a year.” Because sugar maples are not abundant in this part of the state, the Puffenbargers harvest from trees spread out over a 25-mile arc of forest, much of which is leased. Most of the hardwoods in Virginia are oak, hickory, poplar, and maple—but red maple is more common than either sugar or black maple. “Sugar maple is not the same as red maple,” explains Puffenbarger. “The sugar content in a sugar maple or a black maple is higher. It takes a little more red maple sap to make syrup. Red maple will bud up in the spring quicker, and that produces unflavorable syrup.” One cannot easily “farm” maple trees because they take so many years to grow. But, taking the long view, Puffenbarger is planting a super-sweet variety developed at Cornell University, which he says is “three times sweeter” than other sugar maples and has a higher yield. “It will be awhile before they are big enough to tap. One of these days the kids will be able to tap them,” he predicts. Maple syrup is made by collecting sap—called sugar water in this part of the country—and then cooking it over fires in giant pans or in evaporators. It takes 40 to 50 gallons of sugar water to make one gallon of the maple syrup we know and love. In one hour, Puffenbarger’s mammoth evaporator consumes 22 gallons of diesel fuel and produces 550 gallons of syrup. That would cover a lot of pancakes for sure. photos by brian w. jones

New sugar shack at Back Creek Farms. www.flavormags.com

the mountains putting up tubing,” says Heatwole. They bottle four grades of syrup; grading depends on when in the season the sugar water is collected: For instance, Grade A Light Amber is made early in the season, when it’s colder, whereas the darker Grade B is made later in the season, as temperatures rise. Each year the trees give different yields, depending on temperatures and precipitation. If cold weather holds, the lighter syrup may make up most of the season’s bounty.

Above: In areas where sugar maples are close together and on a downhill slope, sugar water can be collected with hollow tubing instead of individual pails. Below: This wood-fired evaporator sits in a new sugar shack at Back Creek Farms.

When asked to compare what his family creates to the inexpensive syrup found on grocery store shelves, Puffenbarger dismisses those pancake dressings—a blend of corn syrup, food coloring, and flavoring—as barely digestible “junk” and notes that, contrary to popular belief, the real thing is just as sweet and appealing to kids. Puffenbarger says, “Once kids get to eating it, I have people coming back saying, ‘My kids won’t eat anything else.’” Sugar Tree Country Store The Heatwoles are another Mennonite family tapping sugar maple trees and making syrup in the region nicknamed “Virginia’s Switzerland.” Fern Heatwole, along with her husband, Glenn, and two of their grown children, Sharlene and Timothy, makes maple syrup and other maple syrup products for sale in Sugar Tree Country Store in McDowell. Dairy farmers in Rockingham County until recently, the Heatwoles “went from milking cows to milking trees.”

Virginia’s sugar maple trees are being stressed by environmental changes, including warmer winters and nutrient-depleted soil. “Our main offerings,” says Heatwole, “are maple syrup and maple products such as maple-covered nuts, maple candy, and maple cream” (which she describes as maple syrup that is heated and whipped to the consistency of peanut butter). For their pure maple candy, Heatwole and her family heat the syrup to 240 degrees and pour it into leaf-shaped molds to harden. They also sell granulated maple sugar, which can be used in place of brown sugar. The Heatwoles connect all their trees together with hollow tubing, which carries the sugar water downhill to a collection tank. “Our youngest two children help in the store and out in 24

flavor magazine • winter 2009

Eagle’s Sugar Camp Jay Eagle, 61, has been making maple syrup in Highland County since he was a boy, having learned from his father, Ray, who in turn learned from his father and so on—five generations over 200 years on this same piece of land. It appears that the next two generations will be continuing this tradition: Eagle’s son, Eddie, 36, joined the family business, and 12-year-old grandson Tyler already has two years of experience. In addition to harvesting their own 150 acres, the Eagles lease another 1,000 acres, over which they tap 12,000 trees and string some 32 miles of tubing. Like other syrup producers, they use pails for those freestanding maples not easily connected by tubing and those on level ground, from which tubing cannot draw sugar water downhill. Eagle says that each December, he starts the laborious task of laying tubing in the steep terrain. He then takes it down once the season ends so that it will last from year to year. He sells half of his yield at the Highland County Festival in March; the rest is sent to customers by mail. Back Creek Farms When Valerie Lowry’s husband, Pat, was growing up in Highland County, the spring landscape was dotted with steam rising from the sugar houses on Back Creek, which families used to

Sugar Tree Country Store’s Maple Walnut Cookies Makes approximately 6 dozen cookies. For the dough ½ cup butter 1½ cup brown sugar, packed 2 eggs 1 cup sour cream 3 tablespoons maple syrup 3¼ cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon maple flavoring (optional) 1 teaspoon salt ½ cup chopped walnuts Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Blend butter, sugar, and eggs in large bowl. Stir in sour cream and syrup. Blend in flour, soda, maple flavoring (if desired), and salt. Fold in nuts. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 8–10 minutes. Remove from sheet and cool.

For the glaze 5 tablespoons butter 2 cups powdered sugar 2 tablespoons maple syrup ½ teaspoon maple flavoring (optional) 1–2 tablespoons hot water walnut halves (one per cookie) In small saucepan, heat butter until golden brown. Blend in powdered sugar, syrup, and maple flavoring (if desired). Add enough hot water to make glaze a nice spreading consistency. Keep over very low heat, stirring occasionally, as you spread glaze on tops of cookies. Place a walnut on top of each cookie as soon as it is glazed.

make their syrup and sugar. Some of those properties have since been sold off or left unused, so the Lowrys have made arrangements to tap three farms in addition to their own property, which has been in his family for over 200 years. They are careful not to overtap trees and watch to be sure the tap holes heal completely each year. Unlike the major producers who generate 1,500 to 2,000 gallons of syrup a year with large evaporators, the Lowrys bottle about 150 gallons a year from their few hundred trees. They stoke their fires with firewood collected year-round—“This is a three-month job that lasts all year,” says Lowry—and boil some of the syrup in a heavy tin pan passed down from Pat’s greatgrandmother. According to the Lowrys, you may not discern a variation in syrup from different regions, but you will be able to taste a difference depending on how the syrup was made. They sell their syrup from a booth on the courthouse lawn during the annual festival, and at home, they use syrup in everything. “Pat makes

Paul Harris tree and stone works preserving & defining memories

harristreecare@verizon.net 540-989-9871 www.flavormags.com

chili with syrup in it,” says Lowry, “and his maple-glazed sautéed asparagus is the best thing in the world.”

Walker Elliott Rowe farms wine grapes and meat goats in Rappahannock County, has written two books on wine, and writes a blog on agriculture at rosewoodhillfarm.com. Jennifer Conrad Seidel (who eats her pancakes with peanut butter and maple syrup) is the editor of Flavor.

steve tuttle

The End of a Tradition? Demand for maple syrup, a uniquely American product, continues to grow both in the U.S. and abroad. But our local syrup production is threatened by several factors. For one, Virginia’s sugar maple trees are being stressed by environmental changes, including warmer winters and nutrient-depleted soil. It is also difficult to find people to take over the difficult work of tapping and processing in this rural county as local producers age and retire.

Unlike sugar maples in crowded forests to the north, trees here are not densely clustered, which makes collecting sugar water a difficult and time-consuming task. Small-batch producers are few and far between. All of the producers need to supplement their income with other work, such as cattle farming, innkeeping, or construction. Your patronage—visiting Highland County during the festival, buying Virginia syrup at stores that stock local food, and ordering products online—will help preserve the product, the craft behind it, and the families dedicated to it.

Highland County Maple Festival March 14–15 and March 21–22, 2009 www.highlandcounty.org · (540) 468-2550 This festival, which was designated a Local Legacy by the Library of Congress, has been held annually since 1958 and includes a Maple Queen contest, tours of the sugar “camps,” and, of course, maple doughnuts and pancakes. See how syrup is made and enjoy the arts and crafts created in this part of the commonwealth.

Southernmost Maple (Bolar, VA) (540) 468-2682 www.southernmostmaple.com Sugar Tree Country Store (McDowell, VA) (540) 396-3469 www.sugartreecountrystore.com Eagle’s Sugar Camp (Doe Hill, VA) (540) 396-6126 Back Creek Farms (Monterey, VA) (540) 499-2302

flavor magazine • winter 2009

petite appetites

Farm Foods for a Flavorful Holiday Meal Cassity Lacy

Flavor invites members of the next generation to share their thoughts on food, agriculture, and meals of celebration.

ood has been an important part of everyday life for me. I work on a farm with my grandfather. We grow, pick, and sell vegetables and fruits. Some foods that we grow are potatoes, apples, pump-

kins, and green beans. Potatoes play an important role to many families. They symbolize hard work and determination for my family’s farm. During the growing season, we have to plow down to get them. We pick all of them up (except for the rotten ones) and store them for our meal. Man, when we eat them, they taste as if we had just collected them. Potatoes are great mashed, boiled, or baked. They have a lot of flavor to offer. Apples have been so ripe and red this year, my family has to have them. We pick them and turn them into a delectable homemade sauce. I will make sure to get some and sprinkle a

part of holiday meals for centuries. Pumpkins have always been a piece of any of my holiday meals. Whether it’s in pie form or any other form, I’ll eat it. I love all

jack looney

tad bit of cinnamon to give it some spice. Apples have been a

of them! On the farm we have only about ten plants, and we

All of these things are wonderful to have for any holiday meal.

have gotten nine pumpkins. When my grandparents turn them

The fact that we grow these things ourselves makes them even

into a pie it will be spectacular. I will gobble it up like a pig!

more special to me.

My relatives who come will, too. We have lots of food on the farm, but pumpkins are one of my favorites. Green beans are the best for a holiday meal. They are easy to grow, too. My grandparents and I pick them individually. We peel off the ends to get the maximum taste. We usually prepare and cook them with bacon to add lots of flavor. Green beans

Our Petite Appetites series features the winning entries to essay contests held at middle schools throughout the Piedmont. This essay was written by Cassity Lacy, a student at William H. Wetsel Middle School in Madison County.

are the best!

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artisans & entrepreneurs

flavor â&#x20AC;˘ winter 2009 photos magazine by jen fariello photography

Fine-Chocolate Lovers

Virginia Is for Mollie Cox Bryan

Craving chocolate? Step away from the vending machine and visit Gearharts Chocolates, Charlottesville’s celebrated fine-chocolate establishment.

magine, if you can, these flavors: Maya—cocoa-dusted ganache with Ancho chili, cinnamon, and orange. Taj— bittersweet ganache with cardamom, rose, and candied ginger. Raspberry Zin—semi-sweet ganache with raspberryzinfandel conserves. Even the more traditional flavors will surprise you: Almond Mocha—milk-chocolate-and-espresso ganache with marzipan and a whole, roasted almond. Vanilla Bean Brulee—whitechocolate ganache with caramel made from torched-sugar and vanilla bean. Mint Julep—milk-chocolate ganache with fresh mint and Kentucky bourbon.

Local Talent, National Recognition Named one of Chocolatier magazine’s Top 20 Artisanal Chocolatiers, Tim Gearhart has a beautifully appointed shop in Charlottesville’s Main Street Market, home to several gourmet-food business. He co-owns the shop with Bill Hamilton, proprietor (with his wife, Kate Hamilton) of Hamilton’s at First and Main restaurant on Charlottesville’s downtown mall. For the eighth year in a row, chocolatier Tim Gearhart is preparing for a busy holiday season. On December 15, 2007, a line of customers snaked around the warehouse building and the shop sold 200 boxes of chocolates in 6 minutes. Between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day, Gearhart and his assistants make between 3,000 and 5,000 chocolates a day. “We produce more and more chocolate every year,” Gearhart says. “It’s a fine line to walk between providing attention and care to every piece of chocolate and planning for ever-more growth.” These unforgettable flavors are hand-crafted with intoxicating, deep, rich chocolate from Venezuela—what Gearhart deems the best chocolate in the world. “Some people claim they can tell a point of origin—where the chocolate is grown—just from one bite,” he says. In addition, he uses neither wax nor preservatives, which means the luscious chocolates have a shelf life of about 3 weeks. So you won’t find the chocolates on grocery store shelves or even in gift shops throughout the state.

“This is another thing that sets us apart from some of the other fine-chocolate makers, like Godiva. Their products are made to stay on the shelves for quite some time. I am not saying there’s anything wrong with that,” he explains, “but we made a choice to keep our chocolate as fresh as possible and to offer that experience to our customers.” For years, serious chocolate addicts’ best options came from European companies and chocolatiers. But about 10 years ago, the artisanal, fine-chocolate movement took hold in the United States. Gearhart is among the leaders of America’s small-batch, high-quality chocolatiers. “Now there is a kind of chocolate movement. It is sort of like America was with wine and then microbreweries a few years back,” says Gearhart. Americans, he suggests, are looking for different food experiences. They want to be challenged.

Life Before Chocolate Gearhart, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, credits his 5-year stint with the Marines for giving him the cooking skills that contribute to his success—a strong attention to detail, the ability to handle the repetitive nature of the job, and the perfectionism to bring about consistency. “The chocolates have to be the same all the time. Imagine that you have a chocolate you love in December. You love the look of it and the taste of it, so you go back to get more in April. If it’s not the same, you will be an unsatisfied customer. We don’t want that,” Gearhart explains. In 1993, after his time in the Marines, he went into the Culinary Institute of America’s pastry program. He did his externship at Keswick, held a number of positions around Charlottesville, and landed at Hamilton’s as a pastry chef.

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“From the beginning, we gave great thought to exactly what kind of chocolate we would offer. We didn’t want to be like anybody else.” —Tim Gearhart “Everything really seemed to come together then. The Hamiltons are now my business partners and have been great. All the stars aligned perfectly,” he says, smiling. Even the shopping center where Gearharts is located fits right into that stellar alignment. Housed in an old warehouse space in historic downtown Charlottesville, the Main Street Market is an enclave of locally owned gourmet shops frequented by shoppers looking for local cheese, meat, seafood, and other locally grown and crafted goodies—including Feast, Albemarle Baking Company, and the Organic Butcher. Gearharts, with its reclaimed-wood floors and a display case that is reminiscent of an exclusive jewelry store, is situated between the Albemarle Baking Company and Orzo Kitchen and Wine Bar.

Only the Best Ingredients “From the beginning, we gave great thought to exactly what kind of chocolate we would offer,” Gearhart says. “We didn’t want to be like anybody else.” Gearhart chooses his suppliers as carefully as he chooses ingredients. He is committed to buying chocolate from companies and plantations that do not use child labor. “We make every effort to deal with reputable companies.” Even though the Venezuelan chocolate Gearhart uses is not local, many of his other ingredients are: cream from Shenandoah’s Pride, maple syrup from Highland County, and coffee roasted locally at Greenberry’s. “We try to work seasonal fruit into our mix sometimes. We’ve used locally grown peaches, for example,” he explains. Cacao beans grow in environments more tropical than ours. For the record, there are three kinds of cacao beans from which chocolate is made—Criolla, Forastero, and Trinitario. The products of these beans are used to make three types of chocolate: dark (bittersweet), milk, and white. “Some people say that white chocolate isn’t really chocolate, that it’s really cocoa butter. But I like it, and we offer a number of white chocolate options.” One of their white chocolates is Tequila Lime, with aged añejo tequila and fresh-lime fondant. “If we stopped making this, there would be a huge rebellion among our customers,” Gearhart jokes. 30

flavor magazine • winter 2009

In addition to offering hand-crafted chocolates in boxes, Gearharts has several specialty items showcasing its chocolate, like crystallized Australian ginger, candied oranges hand-dipped in Venezuelan chocolate, and pistachio toffee. Among the newest offerings are 2.5-ounce hand-molded Venezuelan chocolate bars, which come in four varieties: Criolla, Ginger, Espresso, and Maya. Gearharts also offers beautiful Jewel Bars—handstudded with roasted almonds, dried cherries, orange peels, and candied flowers. The care and creativity that goes into each confection is evident in every bite, which makes Gearharts the perfect indulgence. But don’t save these chocolates for special occasions. Life is too short for that kind of restraint. Mollie Cox Bryan is the author of Mrs. Rowe’s Restaurant Cookbook: A Lifetime of Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley (Ten Speed Press, 2006) and the forthcoming Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pie (Ten Speed Press 2009).

Order Gearharts online, over the phone, or visit the store—located in the Main Street Market at 416 West Main Street in Charlottesville— which is open Monday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Gearharts Chocolates (434) 972-9100 www. gearhartschocolates.com www.themainstmarket.com

Joel Salatin

Polyface products are available at many locations in Charlottesville, but UVa’s food-service contractor wouldn’t accept our meat unless we had burdensome liability insurance. The logistics I face as a farmer trying to get food into colleges that are experiencing student-led buy-local initiatives are a veritable nightmare. What is at the heart of this tangled web? Product liability insurance. In an effort to demystify why, for example, the University of Virginia dining services won’t serve (or at least, hasn’t yet served) local food, let me relate the true drama as it unfolded over the last year. One of the chefs at UVa wanted humane, pasturebased meat and asked our farm (Polyface) for some chicken and pork. That’s easy. We deliver every week to restaurants in Charlottesville anyway. This chef told us UVa students were asking for local and higher quality food. Great! We delivered product and all was well . . . we thought. A couple of weeks later, he had a special function and ordered more. No problem. And then came a third order. And then came the end. Aramark—a food-service and facilities-management company—found out about this little clandestine operation.You see, Polyface Farm was not a registered Aramark vendor. What many folks don’t understand is that most institutions have dining-service contracts with large corporate providers like Aramark or Marriott. These businesses, in turn, contract food vending to outfits like Sysco, U.S. Food Services, or Atlantic Food Services. And virtually all of these have non-compete clauses to prohibit food from any non-registered vendor from entering the premises. Most colleges have a board of trustees that is dominated, of course, by lawyers and country club types who bow at the altar of Wall Street. This is not a conspiracy, but it is an ideological fraternity, enslaved to certain expectations and norms. A shared protocol for conducting business insures that creativity and innovation stay outside the institutional fraternity’s protective perceptions. In their minds, the way to get food for the university is not to procure it themselves but to “outsource.” After all, these

fred first

e c n a r u Ins

· fragmentstfromfloyd.com

rebel with a cause

high-bred blue hairs seldom peel potatoes. (That’s for other people to take care of. You know, those kinds of people.) What successful people do is farm out (no pun intended) everything to experts—preferably, college-educated experts, properly credentialed experts. (It’s quite a comical circuitous selfjustification system, really. My college sells you a diploma that says you’re good enough to serve my college.) In this paradigm, then, dining services are farmed out to the institutional experts. The institutional experts, of course, have been advised by their business experts that huge liability insurance policies are the cornerstone of business. Amazingly, every

Meanwhile, I had students and a chef begging for my product, my delivery truck was servicing 20 restaurants within a couple blocks of UVa every week, and I had the product—but no dice. one of these outfits requires their vendors to have the same amount of coverage: $3 million. (Do I hear collusion here? No, it’s just the fraternity.) After our third delivery to UVa, the Aramark folks found out what we were doing, slapped the chef’s hand—“How dare you get food from an unapproved source?”—and kicked us out of UVa. I called Aramark and got the scoop: my insurance coverage wasn’t adequate. For the requisite policy I called my insurance agent, who responded incredulously, “Who in the world writes that kind of insurance?” He looked and looked for an underwriter, but nobody writes that kind of insurance for a direct-sales farm. And even if they did, who knows how expensive it would be. Our farm carries a $300,000 product-liability policy, which is customarily required by restaurants and farmers markets. It costs us less www.flavormags.com

than $1,000 per year. Our insurance agent did find a $1 million policy, but that was a far cry from $3 million. The UVa chef was frustrated; the students were frustrated. As far as I know, UVa’s board of visitors didn’t have a clue. Meanwhile, I had students and a chef begging for my product, my delivery truck was servicing 20 restaurants within a couple blocks of UVa every week, and I had the product—but still no dice. I had the audacity to explain to the Aramark people that we were supplying restaurants within walking distance of UVa and that we were totally legal per government inspection requirements. “So what’s your problem?” I asked. “We must protect the safety of the students” was the woodenheaded refrain. (I realized I was talking to a fence-post fraternity.) “Can’t you send a quality assurance person out to the farm and check us out?” I asked, naively and ignorantly. I mean, after all, wouldn’t you think an outfit the size of Aramark would have someone, somewhere, who could take a look at things and determine whether the food was safe? “We have one man, and he’s in China at the Olympics protecting the safety of our athletes,” came the answer. Oh, thank

goodness for Aramark. We can all sleep better tonight knowing that the athletes eating mass-produced chicken and pork are safe. But watch out for that local small farmer! He’s out to hurt you. Several days passed, and then Sysco called. “Aramark says they want your pastured meats. They told us to get you as a Sysco vendor.” “Great, “ I replied. “What do I do?” “All you need is $3 million of product liability insurance. . . .” Here we go again. You see, dear folks, all these in-the-system institutional folks come from the same mold: same credentials, same schools, same paradigm. Eventually, I realized that the abattoir my wife and I had just purchased with co-owner Joe Cloud—T&E Meats in Harrisonburg—might have that kind of insurance. After all, it was a federally inspected establishment, which meant it was credentialed per the food system protocol. It did. Just. Apparently $3 million is a magic number: it’s the difference between safe and unsafe. Now you know. We immediately began the application process for T&E to be a Sysco vendor, and the application was approved a couple of weeks later. Now, Polyface—through T&E Meats, through Sysco, through Aramark—can provide beef and pork for students at UVa. The chef and his students still can’t get eggs, or turkey, or chicken—or produce, or honey, or cheese, or mushrooms—from us because those items don’t go through T&E. But students can walk a block off campus and get all those things in the local restaurants that buy from us. Or they can drive the short 30 miles west to our farm and not only see them growing but purchase them in a totally raw state. Legally. Safely. To require a small, local produce grower or egg operation to have $3 million of liability insurance is not just unreasonable; it is antagonistic to everything that is good, noble, and righteous about healing, local foods. Unfortunately, my story is not unique. It is normal and common. Clearly, food touches every facet of our culture, our policies, our perceptions. Who would have imagined that our litigious society indirectly denies its best and brightest students decent food? But that’s how everything is related. This is just a slice of life from where the verdant pastures of the Shenandoah Valley meet the iconic credentialed academic towers of UVa. Go Hoos. Internationally acclaimed conference speaker and author Joel Salatin and his family operate Polyface Farm in Augusta County near Staunton, Virginia, producing and direct marketing “salad bar” beef, “pigaerator” pork, and pastured poultry. He is now also co-owner, with Joe Cloud, of T&E Meats in Harrisonburg. Visit www.polyfacefarms.com for a list of restaurants and stores that feature Polyface products, a calendar of Joel’s speaking engagements, and information on his many books.

flavor magazine • winter 2009

seasonal table Roasted Quail with Dried Cherry Sauce on a Bed of Roasted Root Vegetables This recipe is completed in several steps, beginning with the stock, which can be made up to 3 days ahead and then cooled and refrigerated. (Chicken stock can be substituted.) Prepare the vegetables before the quail so they can cook together. The sauce can be made while the quail and vegetables are roasting. I get the quail from Green Fence Farm in Greenville, just south of Staunton. I suggest pairing this with Sharp Rock Malbec or one of Rappahannock Cellars’ medium-bodied red wines. —chef Mary Arthur, teacher, Rappahannock Country Public Schools Culinary Arts Program, and cooking instructor, Hopkins Ordinary

Total cooking time for stock: 3–4 hours • Total cooking time for vegetables, quail, and sauce: 90–105 minutes • Serves 4. For the stock Wings, backbones, and rib cages from 8 quail (see below) Grape seed or neutral oil, as needed 1 small onion, julienned 1 small carrot, sliced ½ rib celery, sliced 1 tablespoon tomato paste, or 2 sun-dried tomatoes 4 cups cold water Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add oil to an ovenproof 6-quart stock pot and heat in oven until

hot. Add reserved quail bones and wings, and roast, turning often, until bones are well browned but not burned, 30–45 minutes. Remove bones and set aside, reserving oil. Placing pot on stovetop, sauté onion, carrot, and celery over medium heat until caramelized. Add tomato paste and stir until beginning to caramelize. Deglaze with ½ cup cold water. Add roasted bones and remaining water, or enough water to cover the bones and caramelized vegetables. If using sun-dried tomatoes, add tomatoes with the water. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to simmer. Simmer for 2–3 hours over low heat. Strain stock into 3-quart sauce pan. Bring to a boil and reduce to 1 cup liquid.

For the vegetables 2 large Yukon gold or other yellow potatoes, finely diced 1 yam or sweet potato, peeled and finely diced 1 large parsnip, finely diced ½ bulb fennel, finely diced 2 medium beets, finely diced 1 shallot, minced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 sprig rosemary, finely minced

For the quail 8 quail (wings, backbone, and rib cage removed and reserved for stock) 2 tablespoons olive oil

browned. Turn quail to brown underside. Place quail skin-side up in baking dish large enough to accommodate all 8 quail in single layer. Brown remaining 4 quail as directed and place in baking dish, reserving cooking oil in sauté pan. Roast alongside the vegetables for 25–30 minutes or until cooked through but not dry.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Season quail with salt and pepper.

When quail is cooked through, remove from oven and let rest for 5–10 minutes before serving. Reserve any juices from the quail for the sauce.

Heat large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add olive oil and heat to shimmer. Add 4 quail, skin-side down, and cook until well

For the sauce Reserved oil (see above) 2 shallots, finely diced 1 sprig fresh thyme, leaves minced ¼ cup medium-bodied red wine ¼ cup dried cherries, roughly chopped 2 tablespoons local cherry preserves

3 sprigs thyme, finely minced 1 tablespoon kosher salt 1 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients in large bowl. Spread onto a sheet tray and bake in oven for 25–30 minutes or until cooked through and golden brown. Remove from oven and serve hot.

1 cup reduced roasted quail stock Cooking juices from quail (see above)

While quail is roasting, add shallots and thyme to oil until shallots are translucent. Deglaze with wine. Add cherries, preserves, and reduced stock. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. When quail is finished cooking, add pan drippings to the sauce. Thin with chicken stock or water, if needed.

Assembling and serving Serve 2 quail per person, resting atop the roasted root vegetables. Top with cherry sauce and more roasted root vegetables. Enjoy with a medium-bodied red wine—whichever was used in the sauce. www.flavormags.com

seasonal table

Celery Root Gratin

Make this warm, satisfying dish on a cold winter night to accompany Roasted Thyme Chicken or Rosemary Crusted Leg of Lamb. Serve with a Boston lettuce salad of toasted walnut, hearts of palm, crumbled blue cheese, and a roasted shallot vingaigrette. —owner Terri Lehman

Total cooking time: 45 minutes • Serves 4.

kristen taylor

Epicurious Cow, Amissville

1 medium celery root Juice of 1 lemon Vegetable stock or water, to cover Kosher or sea salt 1 or 2 bay leaves Fresh ground pepper 3 tablespoons melted butter, plus more for the gratin dish ¾–1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese ½ cup crème fraîche

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the celery root in half lengthwise. Lay each half cut-side down and cut into thin slices (¼-inch thick). Transfer slices to a bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice to prevent discoloration. Place celery root slices in a medium saucepan, and cover with stock. Season to taste with salt and bay leaves. Bring to a boil and cook until slightly tender but still fairly firm, 10–12 minutes. Drain and reserve ½ cup cooking liquid. Butter an 8½ x 1½ round gratin dish or braising pan. Layer a third of the cooked celery root in the dish. Season with pepper, dot with 1 tablespoon butter, and sprinkle on a third of the cheese. Repeat twice more, ending with cheese.

tammy harrison

Stir the crème fraîche into the reserved cooking liquid, and pour mixture over the celery root layers. Bake until bubbling and golden brown on top, 25–30 minutes. Serve from the gratin dish.

flavor magazine • winter 2009

seasonal table Veal Osso Bucco with Organic Garden Beet Risotto

Airlie Center, Warrenton This dish is a favorite because it brings warmth, comfort, and much needed nutrients in the cooler months. Find veal that has been naturally raised on a grass diet—we get ours from Croftburn Farm in Culpeper—for this imparts a much bolder, meatier taste that stands up to a nice Virginia Merlot. —executive chef Jeffrey Witte Serves 6.

For the veal

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Preparation time: 30 minutes • Cooking time: 1½–2 hours

Cut leek in half lengthwise and lay the flat sides on the table. Cut them on an angle so that you have strips 1½ inches long. Dice fennel, carrot, and parsnip to ¼-inch dice and onion to ½-inch dice.

1 small leek, greens and roots removed 1 small head fennel, greens and root end removed 1 small carrot, peeled, ends removed 1 medium parsnip, peeled, ends removed 1 medium onion, peeled, top and root end removed 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil Six 6-ounce portions of veal osso bucco Salt and fresh cracked black pepper 375 mL (about 12½ ounces) Virginia Merlot or other red wine 2 cups fresh veal or beef stock 1 fresh bay leaf 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped 1 tablespoon fresh marjoram, chopped Salt and fresh cracked pepper

Heat a medium-size, ovenproof sauce pot on medium-high heat. Add olive oil and season osso bucco pieces on each side with salt and pepper. When oil begins to smoke, gently lay each osso bucco flat-side down in the pan, and sear for 3–4 minutes, or until golden brown. Turn osso bucco pieces over and repeat for opposite side. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add cut vegetables to the hot pan and sauté for 1 minute. Add wine, keeping a distance so that it does not splatter on you. Reduce wine for 5 minutes and then add stock, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, and marjoram. Season lightly with salt and pepper. After it comes to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer. Return the osso bucco to the pan, laying them on top of the vegetables. Remove from heat. Cover with foil and place in oven for 100–120 minutes, or until the meat easily removes from the bone. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes. Remove the osso bucco and place on a large plate. Garnish the top of the osso bucco with the braised vegetables and the sauce from the bottom of the pan. You may also sprinkle some additional fresh thyme leaves on top for color. Serve immediately.

For the risotto

Bring stock to a simmer in a sauce pan.

Preparation time: 20 minutes • Cooking time: 20 minutes

Cut onion into a ¼-inch dice and mince garlic. Dice beets to ¼-inch dice and set aside with onion and garlic.

¼ cup olive oil 1 medium red onion, peeled, top and root end removed 2 cloves garlic, peeled 4 medium garden beets, peeled, top and root end removed 350 mL (about 12 ounces) Virginia Merlot or other red wine 3 cups arborio rice 7–8 cups fresh veal or beef stock 2 tablespoons (1 ounce) butter, unsalted ¾ cup (6 ounces) fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, shredded 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped Salt and pepper

Heat a heavy, medium-size sauce pan over medium-high heat and add olive oil. Add onion, garlic, and beets and sauté for 3 minutes. Add rice and sauté for 2 more minutes. Add red wine and let it reduce by half, stirring constantly and season lightly with salt and pepper. Add enough stock to cover rice and stir continuously until half the liquid is absorbed. Continue this process until the rice is tender but firm in the center and has a creamy consistency. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter, cheese, and fresh rosemary. Taste and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Place on a large plate and garnish with a few rosemary sprigs. Serve immediately and enjoy.

www.flavormags.com

seasonal table Honey and Thyme Roasted Pork with Sweet Potato Puree and Haricot Vert

The Wine Kitchen, Leesburg This dish is perfect for a lazy winter Sunday roast with family or friends. Open a bottle of wine and enjoy!

—executive chef Christopher Carey

Preparation time: 20 minutes • Cooking time: 2–2½ hours • Serves 6. For the pork 3 cloves garlic, sliced thickly 3 pound rack of pork 2 sprigs thyme 12 sage leaves, whole 2 tablespoons, olive oil 2 onions, chopped 1 large carrot, chopped 1 bouquet garni 3 tablespoons honey 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar One day ahead, insert slivers of garlic into cuts on the pork. Rub the pork with salt, thyme, and sage. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours.

For the potatoes & haricot vert 4 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped 2 tablespoons butter 4 tablespoons heavy cream 1 pound haricot vert, snipped Salt and pepper

The next day, bring pork up to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Heat oil in an ovenproof dish by placing it in the warming oven. Place pork into the pan, and brown until golden, turning frequently. Add onions, carrots, and bouquet garni. Cover and place into a 400-degree oven until internal temperature reaches 145 degrees, about 1½ hours. When the meat is cooked, transfer meat to a platter, discarding the vegetables. Deglaze the pan with 1¼ cups of water, boiling lightly until reduced by half. Add honey and vinegar and stir until dissolved. Pass the pan sauce through a fine strainer and keep warm until serving. Place the roast back into the oven at 475 degrees for 15 minutes, basting two or three times. Remove roast from the oven and let it rest for 15–20 minutes.

Place sweet potatoes into a pot of boiling salted water and cook until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain the potatoes and place back into the pot. Add the butter and heavy cream and mash gently until smooth. Season and keep warm until serving. Place the beans into a pot of boiling salted water. Cook until al dente. Drain the beans and season. Keep warm until serving.

flavor magazine • fall 2008

sherrie graham

spicy bear media

Assembling and serving Place sweet potato purée in the center of a serving platter, arrange haricot vert around potatoes, and place roast next to vegetables.

seasonal table Vegetable Stock and Hearty Minestrone Soup A stock rich in vitamins and minerals imparts the base note, depth, and fullness of flavor that not only ensure a delicious soup, but also provide immune-boosting properties for the cold season. This stock can also be used in gravies, sauces, and grain dishes. If you do not have a pot large enough for this 16-cup stock recipe, you can adapt it easily to yield 8 cups. The dried Astragalus root called for in the stock recipe can be found at Chinese herbal shops throughout the area and in Charlottesville at The Healing Herb Shoppe and Rebecca’s Natural Foods. —chef Sarah Lanzman, certified natural health professional (CNHP) and catering chef for the Jefferson Area Board of Aging

Vegetable Stock Preparation time: 45 minutes Cooking time: 4 hours Makes 16 cups.

20 cups water 12 large carrots, finely chopped or thinly sliced 1 cup parsnips, finely chopped or thinly sliced (about 3–4) 1 cup rutabaga, finely chopped or thinly sliced 2 cups celery, finely chopped or thinly sliced (about 10 stalks with leaves) 4 large onions, quartered with skins ¼ pound dried Astragalus root 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped 1 bunch chives, chopped 1 teaspoon thyme

Hearty Winter Minestrone Soup Preparation time: 1½ hours Cooking time: 1 hour Serves 6.

For the beans 2 cups dry beans—garbanzo, kidney, and white northern 6 cups water 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 bay leaf In a large pot, soak beans, water, and baking soda overnight. The next day, add the bay leaf and cook over medium-high heat for 45 minutes, until tender. Throw out cooking water and rinse beans. Set aside.

For the soup 1 large onion, chopped 1 cup carrots, sliced (about 3) 1 cup celery, sliced 3 garlic cloves, minced ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons marjoram 3–4 bay leaves 2 tablespoons mineralized sea salt Pinch of cayenne pepper Leftover mushroom stems, Swiss chard stems, etc. (optional)

Put all of the ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 3–4 hours. Let cool a little. Remove vegetables with slotted spoon and place in a colander over a large bowl, pressing and squeezing them to extract all of their liquid and flavor. Return these liquids to the pot. Strain remaining stock through a fine sieve or a cheesecloth-lined colander, again pressing to extract liquid. Discard the vegetables. Store in the refrigerator up to 5 days or freeze.

1 teaspoon dried thyme 1 teaspoon dried rosemary 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 cup green beans, tipped and cut into 1½-inch pieces 1 cup kale, stems removed, washed and sliced 4 cups tomatoes, peeled and chopped or 32 ounces canned organic diced tomatoes 8 cups vegetable stock (or four 16-ounce boxes of organic low-sodium chicken broth) 1½ cup whole-wheat small noodles (or cooked barley) Parmesan cheese, grated, for garnish In a large pot, heat oil over medium-low heat. Add onions, carrots, celery, and garlic and sweat them for 10–15 minutes, stirring occasionally to bring out the natural vegetable juices. Stir in herbs, salt, green beans, and kale. Pour in vegetable stock and cook for 10–15 minutes, until the green beans are tender. Add cooked beans and tomatoes and cook for 10 more minutes. In a separate pot, cook pasta in boiling water for 8–10 minutes. Drain and rinse. Add noodles to the soup right before serving. Serve with Parmesan cheese on the side.

www.flavormags.com

E MEAD L L

Braised Red Cabbage

Fleurie, Charlottesville I learned this recipe from a well-known Alsatian chef and modified it a bit based on how my German grandparents made it. The arborio rice thickens the wine mixture so that it better coats the cabbage. It’s great this time of year and pairs nicely with game like venison or squab. Once cooked, it can be stored in a refrigerator for two weeks. —chef Brian Helleberg

Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus overnight marinating Cooking time: 3 hours, 10 minutes Serves 8–10.

BELLE MEADE FARM practicing sustainable agriculture eggs, produce beef, pork, chicken, turkey BELLE MEADE BED & BREAKFAST beautiful views farm-fresh food BELLE MEADE DAY CAMP active, outdoor fun for boys and girls, ages 6-13 camp open house Sunday, April 26 and Sunday, May 17, 1-3

bellemeade.net • 540-987-9748 • 353 F.T. Valley Road, Sperryville, VA 22740 38

flavor magazine • winter 2009

Peel from half an orange, pith removed 1 cinnamon stick 1 tablespoon black peppercorn 2 star anise 8 juniper berries 2 cloves 2 cups full-bodied red wine 2 tablespoons salt ½ cup sugar ½ cup sherry vinegar 1 onion, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 2 heads red cabbage, finely shredded Small handful arborio rice 1 cup chestnuts, peeled 2 green apples, shredded with mandolin or cheese grater

Wrap orange peel and spices in cheesecloth. In large bowl, combine wine, salt, sugar, and vinegar, and add wrapped spices. Marinate shredded cabbage in this mixture overnight. The next day, heat oil over medium heat in a large, heavy bottomed pot. Sauté onion until tender but not colored. Add the cabbage and marinade to the pot and cover. Let simmer for 2 hours, stirring often. Add arborio rice, chestnuts, and shredded apples. Cover loosely (parchment paper works well) and continue to simmer and stir for another hour. When the rice has dissolved and all ingredients are tender, remove wrapped spices, season to taste and serve.

jette hammer orskov

BELLE MEADE SCHOOL grades 6-9 academic excellence through experiential learning school open house Sunday, March 8, 1-3 bellemeadeschool.org 540-987-8970

directory Most of this information has been provided by the Piedmont Environmental Council’s Buy Fresh, Buy Local campaign. Learn more at www.pecva.org.

Farmers Markets These are winter markets. culpeper Culpeper Winter Market East Davis Street Thursdays, 4–7 p.m. (540) 825-4416 LOUDOUN Leesburg Farmers Market Virginia Village Shopping Center Saturdays, 9 a.m.–12 p.m. (703) 777-0426 Smart Markets Purcellville Town Hall parking lot Saturdays, 10 a.m.–1 p.m. (703) 591-2988 ORANGE

clark

NELSON

Holly Brook Farm Berryville • (540) 664-7524

Appalachia Star Farm Roseland • (434) 277-9304 www.appalachiastar.com

FAUQUIER Bull Run Mountain Farm The Plains www.bullrunfarm.com Rock Run Creek Farm Goldvein • (540) 286-2959 Virginia Green Grocer CSA Warrenton • (540) 347-4740 www.virginiagreengrocer.com FREDERICK Echo Ridge Farm Middletown • (540) 327-6824 www.echoridgefarm.org LOUDOUN

Orange Farmers Market Orange County Train Station Saturdays, 9 a.m.–12 p.m. (540) 672-2540

Great Country Farms Bluemont • (540) 554-2073 www.greatcountryfarms.com

CSAs & Buyers Clubs

Mountain View Farm at Blue Ridge Center Purcellville • (540) 668-7640 www.blueridgecenter.org

albemarle & CHARLOTTESVILLE Best of What’s Around Scottsville • (434) 286-7255 www.bestofwhatsaround.org © Horse & Buggy Produce Charlottesville • (434) 284-1084 www.horseandbuggyproduce .com see ad on page 13

Innisfree Community Gardens Crozet • (434) 823-5646

Potomac Vegetable Farms Purcellville • (703) 759-3844 www.potomacvegetablefarms .com Stoneybrook Farm Hillsboro • (703) 999-6234 www.stoneybrookfarm.org Tree & Leaf Waterford • (540) 882-9656 www.treeandleafcsa.com LOUISA

Majesty Farm North Garden • (434) 760-5514 www.majestyfarm.com

Ploughshare Community Farm Louisa • (540) 967-9511 www.ploughsharecsa.com

Roundabout Farm Keswick • (434) 296-7414 www.roundaboutfarm.net

Quail Spring Farm Louisa • (540) 967-5196

PRINCE WILLIAM Stoney Lonesome Farm Gainesville • (703) 754-9145 www.slfarm.us RAPPAHANNOCK © The Local Flavor Farm Buyers Club Amissville • (540) 937-7977 www.farmbuyersclub.com see ad on page 21

Rucker Farm Flint Hill • (540) 675-9996 Waterpenny Farm Sperryville • (540) 987-8567 www.waterpennyfarm.com

Meat & Poultry albemarle & CHARLOTTESVILLE Bessette Family Farm Esmont • (434) 831-2084 Currituck Farm Earlysville • (434) 978-1150 Gryffon’s Aerie Crozet • (434) 531-0994 www.gryffonsaerie.com Iona Farm Scottsville • (434) 286-4761

Sweet Seasons Farm Batesville • (540) 456-7145 Tall Cotton Farm Afton • (540) 456-8489 Whistlin’ Hollow Farm Afton • (540) 456-8212 CULPEPER Cibola Farms Culpeper • (540) 727-8590 www.cibolafarms.com Croftburn Farm Meats Culpeper • (540) 825-9044 www.croftburnfarm.com Muddy Run Farm Culpeper • (540) 937-3504 Mulford Farm Stevensburg • (540) 423-9607 Old Gjerpen Farm Culpeper • (540) 829-5683 www.oldgjerpenfarm.com Pannill’s Gate Farm Culpeper • (540) 423-1168 www.pannillsgate.com Rohan Farm Rixeyville • (540) 937-4999 www.rohanborzoi.com Simply Sage Culpeper • (540) 829-0905 Summer Creek Farm Culpeper • (540) 727-8207 FAUQUIER

Majesty Farm North Garden • (434) 760-5514 www.majestyfarm.com

Ayrshire Farm Upperville • (540) 592-9504 www.ayrshirefarm.com

Quarter’s Farm Charlottesville • (434) 293-6982

Blue Ridge Beef Upperville • (540) 592-3469

Reynolds Grassland Natural Schuyler • (434) 831-2688

Crestone Farms Warrenton • (540) 347-4237

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directory Meat & Poultry continued Flatrock Farm Marshall • (540) 364-6491 Heron’s Court Farm Middleburg • (540) 687-5424 Hollin Farms Delaplane • (540) 592-3701 www.hollinfarms.com Midtrees Farm Warrenton • (540) 439-4812 Mount Airy Farm Marshall • (540) 349-4496 Over the Grass Farm The Plains • (540) 253-5228 Piney Meadow Farm Midland • (540) 788-1476 Sumerduck Emu Ranch Sumerduck • (540) 439-0682 Vanderwoude Hill Farm Catlett • (540) 788-9672 Virginia Green Grocer CSA Warrenton • (540) 347-4740 www.virginiagreengrocer.com Western View Farm Catlett • (540) 788-9663 LOUDOUN Black Sheep Farm Leesburg • (703) 777-7640 Catoctin Heritage Farm Lovettsville • (540) 882-4437 Chicama Run Purcellville • (540) 668-9828 Creek Crossing Farm Lincoln • (540) 338-7550 www.creekcrossingfarm.com Fields of Athenry Farm Purcellville • (540) 687-3936 www.fieldsofathenryfarm.com Gum Springs Farm Middleburg • (540) 592-9561

flavor magazine • winter 2009

Milcreek Farm Lovettsville • (540) 822-4181 www.milcrk.com Mill Road Farm Leesburg • (703) 777-1356 Mountain View Farm at Blue Ridge Center Purcellville • (540) 668-7640 www.blueridgecenter.org New Ashbury Farm Leesburg • (703) 542-6226 Oakland Green Lincoln • (540) 338-7628 www.oaklandgreen.com Onyx Hill Farm Purcellville • (540) 338-1729 www.onyxhillfarm.com Sheepy Hollow Farm Waterford • (540) 882-3860 Silcott Springs Farm Purcellville • (540) 338-1881 Willow Hawk Farm Lovettsville • (540) 882-9143 www.willowhawkfarm.com Woodtrail Graziers Round Hill • (540) 554-8665 MADISON Backfield Farm Beef Etlan • (540) 923-4036 Excalibur Farms Madison • (540) 948-4223 www.excaliburfarms.biz

ORANGE Higginbotham Beef & Bottle Shop Orange • (540) 672-9395 www.higginbothambeef.com Papa Weaver’s Pork Orange • (540) 672-1552 www.papaweaver.com Retreat Farm & Store Rapidan • (540) 672-5871 Skyline Premium Meats Unionville • (540) 854-6155 www.skylinepremiummeats.com Valentine’s Country Meats Orange • (540) 672-1296 RAPPAHANNOCK © Belle Meade Sperryville • (540) 987-9748 www.bellemeade.net see ad on page 38

Harmany Highlands Flint Hill • (703) 395-7613 Meadowgreen Farm Sperryville • (540) 987-8445 © Mount Vernon Farm Sperryville • (540) 987-9559 www.mountvernonfarm.net see ad on page 13

Muskrat Haven Farm Amissville • (540) 937-5892 New Hope Natural Beef Castleton • (540) 987-9507

Grocers ALBEMARLE & CHARLOTTESVILLE All Good Grocery Earlysville • (434) 973-5570 www.allgoodgrocery.com C’ville Market Charlottesville • (434) 984-0545 www.cvillemarket.com Fabulous Foods Crozet • (434) 823-1100 www.fabfoodsmarket.com © Feast Charlottesville • (434) 244-7800 www.feastvirginia.com see ad on page 63

Foods of All Nations Charlottesville • (434) 296-6131 www.foodsofallnations.com From Scratch Bakery Charlottesville • (434) 970-2253 www.fromscratchbakeryco.com Greenwood Gourmet Crozet • (540) 456-6431 www.greenwoodgourmet.com © Integral Yoga Natural Foods Charlottesville • (434) 293-4111 www.iyfoods.com see ad on page 26

The Organic Butcher Charlottesville • (434) 244-7400 www.theorganicbutcher.com

Kite’s Country Ham Wolftown • (540) 948-4742 www.kitesham.com

Touchstone Farm Amissville • (540) 937-6124 www.touchstonefarm.org

Springhaven Farm Madison • (540) 948-6698 www.springhavenfarm.net

W. R. Welch & Sons Flint Hill • (540) 636-9965

CULPEPER

Williams Orchard Flint Hill • (540) 675-3765

Food For Thought Griffinsburg • (540) 547-4433 www.foodforthoughtva.com

Wolf Creek Farm Madison • (540) 948-5574 www.wolfcreek-farm.com

Retreat Farm & Store Rapidan • (540) 672-5871

directory FAUQUIER Farmer’s Wife Market Remington • (540) 439-4700 www.thefarmerswifemarket.com Fauquier’s Finest Country Butcher Shop Bealeton • (540) 439-7227 www.fauquiersfinest.com Marshall IGA Marshall • (540) 364-9588 The Natural Marketplace Warrenton • (540) 349-4111 www.thenaturalmarketplace.com

Mom’s Apple Pie Leesburg • (703) 771-8590 www.momsapplepieco.com

Beech Spring Gift Shop Sperryville • (540) 987-8704

Hamilton’s at First & Main Charlottesville • (434) 295-6649 www.hamiltonsrestaurant.com

Natural Mercantile of Hamilton Hamilton • (540) 338-7080 www.naturalmercantile.com

Epicurious Cow Amissville • (540) 675-2269 www.epicuriouscow.com

Ivy Inn Restaurant Charlottesville • (434) 977-1222 www.ivyinnrestaurant.com

Paeonian Grocery & Gourmet Paeonian Springs • (703) 777-6406 www.mightymidgetkitchen.com

Rainbow Market Sperryville • (540) 987-3341

L’Étoile Charlottesville • (434) 979-7957 www.letoilerestaurant.com

Wegman’s Sterling • (703) 421-2400 www.wegmans.com MADISON

Northern Lights Seafood Marshall • (540) 364-7444 www.nlseafood.com

Yoder’s Country Market Pratts • (540) 948-3000 www.yoderscountrymarket.net

LOUDOUN

NELSON

For Goodness Sake Market Station Leesburg • (703) 771-7146

Basic Necessities Nellysford • (434) 361-1766 www.basicnecessities.us

Healthy by Nature Leesburg • (703) 443-6632

ORANGE

Heritage Farm Museum Sterling • (571) 258-3800 www.heritagefarmmuseum.org Hill High Country Store Round Hill • (540) 338-7173 Home Farm Store Middleburg • (540) 687-8882 Market Salamander Middleburg • (540) 687-8011 www.market-salamander.com

Beggars Banquet Orange • (540) 661-0121 www.beggarsbanquet.net Higginbotham Beef & Bottle Shop Orange • (540) 672-9395 www.higginbothambeef.com Marshall Farms Corner Unionville • (540) 854-6800 www.marshallscheese.com Miller Farms Market Locust Grove • (540) 972-2680 www.millerfarmsmarket.com

RAPPAHANNOCK

The Sperryville Corner Store Sperryville • (540) 987-8185

Restaurants ALBEMARLE & CHARLOTTESVILLE Al Dente Charlottesville • (434) 295-9922 Bluelight Grill & Raw Bar Charlottesville • (434) 295-1223 www.bluelightgrill.com Clifton Inn Charlottesville • (434) 220-2120 www.cliftoninn.net © Feast Charlottesville • (434) 244-7800 www.feastvirginia.com see ad on page 63

Fleurie Charlottesville • (434) 981-2050 www.fleurierestaurant.com Greenwood Gourmet Grocery Crozet • (540) 456-6431 www.greenwoodgourmet.com

Mas Tapas Bar Charlottesville • (434) 979-0990 www.mastapas.com Palladio Restaurant at Barboursville Vineyards Barboursville • (540) 832-3824 www.barboursvillewine.com Petit Pois Charlottesville • (434) 979-7647 © Revolutionary Soup Charlottesville • (434) 296-7687 www.revolutionarysoup.com see ad on page 32 © Tastings of Charlottesville Charlottesville • (434) 293-3663 www.tastingsofcville.com see ad on page 62

CULPEPER Foti’s Restaurant Culpeper • (540) 829-8400 www.fotisrestaurant.com

www.flavormags.com

directory Restaurants continued Raven’s Nest Coffee House Culpeper • (540) 827-4185 FAUQUIER Claire’s at the Depot Warrenton • (540) 351-1616 www.clairesrestaurant.com Girasole The Plains • (540) 253-5301 www.girasole-theplains.com Hunter’s Head Tavern Upperville • (540) 592-9020 www.huntersheadtavern.com © The Iron Bridge Wine Company Warrenton • (540) 349-9339 ironbridgewines.com see ad on page 63

Poplar Springs: The Inn Casanova • (540) 788-4600 www.poplarspringsinn.com LOUDOUN American Flatbread Broadlands • (703) 723-7003 www.americanflatbread.com /ashburn

Magnolias at the Mill Purcellville • (540) 338-9800 www.magnoliasmill.com The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm Lovettsville • (540) 822-9017 www.patowmackfarm.com South Street Under Leesburg • (703) 771-9610 www.southstreetunder.com Tuscarora Mill Leesburg • (703) 771-9300 www.tuskies.com Vintage 50 Leesburg • (703) 777-2169 www.vintage50.com © The Wine Kitchen Leesburg • (703) 777-9463 thewinekitchen.com see ad on page 52

MADISON Inn at Meander Plantation Locust Dale • (540) 672-4912 www.meander.net

Madison Inn Madison • (540) 948-5095 www.madisoninnva.com

Clyde’s at Willow Creek Farm Broadlands • (571) 209-1200 www.clydes.com

Basic Necessities Nellysford • (434) 361-1766 www.basicnecessities.us

Dominion Brewing Company Ashburn • (703) 724-9100 www.olddominion.com

D’Ambola’s Restaurant Afton • (540) 456-4556 www.dambolas.com

Fireworks Pizza Leesburg • (703) 779-8400 fireworkspizza.com

ORANGE

Grandale Farm Restaurant Purcellville • (540) 668-6000 www.grandalefarm.com Hunter’s Head Tavern Upperville • (540) 592-9020 www.huntersheadtavern.com

Lightfoot Restaurant Leesburg • (703) 771-2233 www.lightfootrestaurant.com

flavor magazine • winter 2009

NELSON

Elmwood at Sparks Orange • (540) 672-0060 Toliver House Gordonsville • (540) 832-0000 RAPPAHANNOCK Epicurious Cow Amissville • (540) 675-2269 www.epicuriouscow.com

Inn at Little Washington Washington • (540) 675-3800 www.theinnatlittlewashington .com Rae’s Sperryville • (540) 987-3335 www.eatatraes.com

Seasoned to Taste Leesburg • (703) 669-9400 J.R.’s Stockyards Inn Leesburg • (703) 821-0545 www.jrsbeef.com ORANGE

Rudy’s Pizza Sperryville • (540) 987-9494

Beggars Banquet Orange • (540) 661-0121 www.beggarsbanquet.net

Honey Makers & Bee Services

Caterers ALBEMARLE & CHARLOTTESVILLE A Pimento Catering Charlottesville • (434) 971-7720 www.apimentocatering.com Dinner at Home Charlottesville • (434) 296-4514 www.ashleysdinnerathome.com Harvest Moon Catering Charlottesville • (434) 296-9091 www.hmcatering.com WahooRidge Catering Charlottesville • (434) 977-3663 www.wahooridge.com CULPEPER Food for Thought Griffinsburg • (540) 547-4433 www.foodforthoughtva.com La Bella Terra Farmhouse Dining Reva • (540) 547-2317 FAUQUIER Claire’s Catering Warrenton • (540) 351-1616 www.clairesrestaurant.com Farmer’s Wife Market Remington • (540) 439-4700 www.thefarmerswifemarket.com LOUDOUN The Kitchen Caterers Leesburg • (703) 771-0150

Charlottesville Howard’s Blue Ribbon Honey (434) 971-6812 CULPEPER Oak Shade Farm Rixeyville • (540) 937-5062 Retreat Farm Village Depot Rapidan • (540) 672-5871 Simply Sage Culpeper • (540) 829-0905 FAUQUIER Fern Hill Apiary Marshall • (540) 364-1680 Mike Wilson Marshall • (540) 341-0217 Over the Grass Farm The Plains • (540) 253-5228 www.overthegrassfarm.com Stoneleigh Farms Warrenton • (540) 341-7790 www.stoneleighfarms.com Vanderwoude Hill Farm Catlett • (540) 788-9672 LOUDOUN Blackwood Honey Purcellville • (540) 338-2486 www.poorhousefarm.com MADISON Haywood Honey Madison • (540) 923-5075

directory RAPPAHANNOCK © Windsong Apiaries Castleton • (540) 937-2175 see ad on page 21

Cheese & Dairy albemarle Caromont Farm Esmont • (434) 831-1393 www.caromontfarm.com Iron Rod Chèvre Earlysville • (434) 973-8407 www.ironrodalpines.com Majesty Farm North Garden • (434) 760-5514 www.majestyfarm.com

Central Virginia Development Solutions Charlottesville • (434) 817-2436

South Street Building & Restoration Charlottesville • (434) 989-3863

Trigon Development Culpeper • (540) 727-0100 www.trigonhomes.com

Church Hill Homes Charlottesville • (434) 975-0085 www.churchhillhomes.net

Southern Classic Crozet • (434) 823-7812 www.southern-classic.com

Fauquier

Custom Home Builders of Virginia Charlottesville • (434) 975-1177 www.vabuilt.com

Southland Homes Charlottesville • (434) 973-8088 www.southlandhomesinc.com

Dominion Development Company Keswick • (434) 975-1166 www.dominion-development. com

FAUQUIER

Dwell General Contracting Charlottesville • (434) 220-1467 www.dwellgeneralcontracting .com

Cows-N-Corn Midland • (540) 439-4806 www.cows-n-corn.com

Greer & Associates Charlottesville • (434) 296-8722 www.greerandassociates.net

Oak Spring Farm Upperville • (540) 592-3559 www.oakspringdairy.com

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville Charlottesville • (434) 293-9066 www.cvillehabitat.org

Piney Meadow Farm Midland • (540) 788-1476 Vanderwoude Hill Farm Catlett • (540) 788-9672 ORANGE Everona Dairy Cheeses Rapidan • (540) 854-4159 www.everonadairy.com Marshall Farms Natural Cheese Unionville • (540) 854-6800 www.marshallscheese.com

EarthCraft Builders Albemarle & Charlottesville Abrahamse & Company Builders Charlottesville • (434) 295-9379 www.abrahamse.com

Strata Projects Charlottesville • (434) 466-9435 www.strataprojects.com Wendell W. Gibson Charlottesville • (434) 293-4542 Weston Construction Charlottesville • (434) 296-3469 Culpeper Graystone Homes Culpeper • (540) 825-1600 www.graystonehomesinc.net

Nash Construction Marshall • (540) 364-2515 www.nashconstruction.com Greene Mountain Lumber Ruckersville • (434) 985-3646 www.mountainlumber.com Madison Wall Construction Madison • (434) 238-4332 www.wallconstruction.biz Rappahannock Joseph Keyser Construction Washington • (540) 675-2395 McKinney Services Sperryville • (540) 987-9668

Hauser Homes Charlottesville • (434) 979-7334 www.hauserhomes.com Kingma Developers Charlottesville • (434) 981-4137 www.kingmadevelopers.com Maple Ridge Group Charlottesville • (434) 244-3300 Redlands Design & Contruction Keswick • (434) 295-0197 www.redlandsllc.com Rinehart Custom Homes Charlottesville • (434) 531-0590 www.rinehartcustomhomes.com Selinger Homes Keswick • (434) 977-2647

Alexander Nicholson Charlottesville • (434) 296-7526

Skyline Home Builders Charlottesville • (434) 984-1500 www.skylinehomebuilders.net

Barry Meade Homes Charlottesville • (434) 977-8882 www.barrymeade.com

Smith & Robertson Charlottesville • (434) 971-7026 www.smithandrobertson.com www.flavormags.com

events Jan. 31

Feb. 6, Mar. 6

Simply Soups Cooking Class Laughing Duck Gardens & Cookery www.laughingduckgardens.com

First Friday Night Music Old House Vineyards, Culpeper

Jan. 3–Mar. 15

Jan. 31 & Feb. 1

Lasagna Lunches Naked Mountain Vineyard, Markham

The Ravishing Red Days of Winter: Vertical Tastings of the 2007 Cabernet Franc Fox Meadow Winery, Linden

Sips & Chips: Wine & Junk Food Veramar Vineyard, Berryville

Contact information for vineyards can be found on pages 62–63.

Jan. 22, Feb. 12, Mar. 19 Gourmet Wine Dinners Keswick Hall (434) 979-3440 www.keswick.com

Jan. 23–24, Feb. 6–7 & 20–21, Mar. 6–7 & 20–21 Weekend Cooking Classes Themes vary Hopkins Ordinary, Sperryville (540) 987-3383 www.hopkinsordinary.com see ad on page 18

Jan. 24 Mystery Dinner: A Murder in Wine Country Barrel Oak Winery, Delaplane

Jan. 24 Annual Chili Cook-Off First Colony Winery, Charlottesville

Jan. 26 Burns Night Dinner Keswick Hall (434) 979-3440 www.keswick.com

Jan. 28 Wine & Seafood Tuscorora Mill, Leesburg tuskies.com (703) 771-9300

Jan. 31 Winter Barrel Tasting Reservations required Rappahannock Cellars, Huntly see ad on page 45

Jan. 31 Solar Energy Basics for Homeowners George Washington University, Loudoun County Campus (540) 822-5144 www.pecva.org

Jan. 31 7th Annual Landowners’ Woods & Wildlife Conference George Washington University, Prince William Campus (540) 948-6881 www.pecva.org

Feb. 7

Feb. 13–15, Feb. 28–Mar. 1, Mar. 14–15, Mar. 27–29, Apr. 4–5

A Night of Bubbles and Romance Tuscorora Mill, Leesburg tuskies.com (703) 771-9300

Spring Permaculture Design Course: Sustainability Strategies for the Blue Ridge 72-hour certificate course with Ted Butchart, Christine Gyovai, Dave Jacke, Dave O’Neill, and Joel Salatin Blue Ridge Permaculture Network Montessori School on Pantops Mountain, Charlottesville www.blueridgepermaculture.net

Feb. 7, Mar. 14

Feb. 14

Cooking School Series Themes vary Keswick Hall (434) 979-3440 www.keswick.com

Virginia Wine Is for Lovers Dinner Pearmund Cellars, Broad Run

Feb. 7

Feb. 7, 8, 21, 22, 28 Cheese Fondue Old House Vineyards, Culpeper

Feb. 14 Chocolate & Cabernet Pairing Sugarleaf Vineyards, North Garden see ad on page 49

Feb. 14–15

Comfort Food Chefography Barrel Oak Winery, Delaplane

Chocolate Lovers Festival Old Town Fairfax www.chocolatefestival.net

Washington DC International Wine & Food Festival Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center www.wine-expos.com/dc

Feb. 2

Feb. 7–8, Apr. 18–19

Feb. 14–15

Sustainable Loudoun Film Fest (703) 777-1168 www.lccss.org

Winemaker’s Barrel Tasting Philip Carter Winery, Hume

Chocolate Days Fox Meadow Winery, Linden

Jan. 31–Feb.2

Feb. 4, 11, 25 Makin’ Tracks Nature Connection Ivy Creek Natural Area, Charlottesville ivycreekfoundation.org

Feb. 4

Feb. 7–8

Feb. 13–15

Feb. 14–16

Special Valentine’s Weekend at the Bridge Iron Bridge Wine Company, Warrenton (540) 349-9339 www.ironbridgewines.com see ad on page 63

Cabernet, Chili & Cheese Sugarleaf Vineyards, North Garden see ad on page 49

Wine Dinner: Cava from Spain L’Étoile, Charlottesville (434) 979-7957

Feb. 20–22 Mardi Gras Weekend: Gumbo & Wine Fabbioli Cellars, Leesburg

Feb. 4 Victory Brewery with Bill Coveleski Tuscorora Mill, Leesburg tuskies.com (703) 771-9300

To have an event included here, send a message to GH editor@flavormags.com

flavor magazine • winter 2009

events Feb. 21

Mar. 12–13

Mar. 27–29

Mar. 29–30

Mardi Gras & Gumbo Celebration Horton Vineyards, Gordonsville

Ecosystem Services: Marketing Environmental Solutions Virginia Tech Extension Omni Hotel, Charlottesville (757) 657-6450 ext. 406 www.cpe.vt.edu/esmes

Vintner’s Weekend Boar’s Head Inn, Charlottesville www.jeffersonvineyards.com

Whitetop Mountain Maple Festival Mt. Rogers School, Whitetop (276) 388-3422

Feb. 21 Venetian Carnival Ball Barrel Oak Winery, Delaplane

Feb. 21

Mar. 14

Planning & Planting the Home Orchard Speakers include Rich Marini and Tom Burford Vintage Virginia Apples, North Garden www.vintagevirginiaapples.com

Afternoon of Dancing, Wine & Irish Cheer Philip Carter Winery, Hume

Feb. 25 Wine from Down Under Tuscorora Mill, Leesburg tuskies.com (703) 771-9300

Feb. 27–Mar. 1 Virginia Wine Expo Greater Richmond Convention Center (804) 349-6909

Feb. 28 Mardi Gras Celebration Sweeley Estate Winery, Madison

Mar. (date TBD) Virginia Agriculture & Food Entrepreneurship Program (434) 977-2033 www.vafep.org

MAR. 14, Mar. 28 Winemaker Cellar Tour & Barrel Tasting Sweeley Estate Winery, Madison

Mar. 15 Irish Fare Old House Vineyards, Culpeper

Mar. 17 Traditional Irish Dinner & Live Music All Day Blackthorne Inn, Upperville (540) 592-3848 www.blackthorne-inn.com see ad on page 9

Mar. 5

Spring Primavera Dinner Barrel Oak Winery, Delaplane

Wine Dinner: France’s Loire Valley L’Étoile, Charlottesville (434) 979-7957

Opening Weekend Cows-n-Corn, Midland (540) 439-4806 www.cows-n-corn.com

Highland Maple Festival Highland County (540) 468-2550

Mar. 21

MAr. 10

Tap A Tank Days: 2008 White Wines Fox Meadow Winery, Linden

Apr. 17–19

Mar. 14–15, 21–22

Seek Alice’s Wonder March Madness Wine Dinner Pearmund Cellars, Broad Run

Past Vintage & Vertical Tasting Horton Vineyards, Gordonsville

Mar. 29

Apr. 4–5 Spring Barrel Tasting Horton Vineyards, Gordonsville

Mar. 14–15

A Celebration of Hops Tuscorora Mill, Leesburg tuskies.com (703) 771-9300

Mar. 7–8

Annual Easter Egg Hunt & Marshmallow Harvest Great Country Farms, Bluemont (540) 554-2073 www.greatcountryfarms.com

Baked Potato Festival First Colony Winery, Charlottesville

Mar. 4

Central Virginia Beekeepers’ Meeting Ivy Creek Natural Area, Charlottesville ivycreekfoundation.org

Mar. 29

Mar. 21

Mar. 21 Barrel Tasting Dinner Jefferson Vineyards, Charlottesville see ad on page 57

MAR. 21 St. Patrick’s Dinner & Dance Celebration Sweeley Estate Winery, Madison

www.flavormags.com

invites you to

Winter Wine Tastings The Wine Kitchen the second Wednesday of each month 5:30–7:30 January 14 $ Fabbioli Cellars February 11 $ Tarara Winery March 11 $ Sunset Hills Vineyard Iron Bridge Wine Company the third Thursday of each month 5:30–7:30 January 22 $ Pearmund Cellars February 19 $ Barboursville Vineyards March 19 $ DelFosse Vineyards Tastings of Charlottesville Wine Bar the fourth Tuesday of each month 5:30–7:30 January 27 $ Gabrielle Rausse February 24 $ Chester Gap Cellars March 24 $ Jefferson Vineyards

For more details, visit flavormags.com 46

flavor magazine • winter 2009

virginia Features

Winter 2009 50 Tarara’s Twenty Years of Success Building on a foundation proven over two decades, Tarara’s future couldn’t be brighter.

Departments Alexander Stowell

56 imbibe Blue Mountain Brewery

Craft beer comes to Virginia’s wine country. Evan Williams

64 pairings Local Chocolates & Local Wines Wine and chocolate pair well anytime, not just on Valentine’s day.

Columns

Jeffery Mitchell

58 in the cellar Sulfites

Setting the record straight on the role of sulfites in winemaking. Jason Burrus

60 blind tasting Petit Verdot

This overlooked varietal is proving its mettle in Virginia soil. Evan Williams

61 cheeseboard Where to Start

Take the guesswork out of pairing local wine and cheese. Kate Collier

48 62

flights vineyard directory

sarah cramer S charlottesville’s enoteca

Flights

Autumn Reynolds

Copper Fox Distillery The holidays have come and gone, but one festive spirit lingers in Sperryville— Wasmund’s Single Malt Spirit. For a limited time, Copper Fox Distillery is offering a special 5-liter charred white-oak barrel, which can be used to age Wasmund’s spirits. Each barrel holds 6 bottles of Single Malt Spirit, which is 124 proof and made for aging. This size barrel is expected to age very nicely in 4 to 6 months. Pick up a barrel and a tour at the distillery, where master distiller Rick Wasmund toasts malted Virginia barley over fires stocked with wood from area orchards as he makes his small batches of Wasmund’s Single Malt Whisky. Barrel filling is available by special order though Virginia ABC. Call (540) 987-8554 or visit www.copperfox.biz for information on visiting the distillery and a list of retailers carrying these handcrafted liquors, which will keep you warm all winter long.

Piedmont Wine Experience Over 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson recognized the viticultural potential of the rocky foothills that we know as Virginia’s Piedmont. Today, the region boasts hundreds of vintners transforming dozens of different grapes into excellent wines. The Piedmont Wine Experience is a new tour company dedicated to making the region’s vineyards, restaurants, historical sites, and bed and breakfasts much easier for visitors to navigate. PWE will offer romantic weekend getaways, all-inclusive tour packages, and horse country wine tours, along with services for wedding parties, corporate events, and more. For more info visit www.piedmontwineexperience.com or drop a note to info@ piedmontwineexperience.com.

Wine Guild of Charlottesville People from different backgrounds and tastes are joining together in Charlottesville to achieve one noble goal: buying the world’s best wines. The principle behind this collective is power in numbers. The Wine Guild of Charlottesville leverages members’ combined purchasing power to deliver fine wines at well below market value. Members enjoy discounts of up to 27 percent off retail by buying directly from distributors.

• Winter 2009

Other membership privileges include direct access to distributor catalogs listing over 36,000 wines, private tastings, and weekly wine selections handpicked by Guild experts for value and taste. They also plan to launch a “Guild Cellar” to house collective favorites for sale to members. Curious? Check out www.wineguildcville.com or call (434) 923-3700.

The Wine Kitchen Leesburg residents have welcomed the Wine Kitchen eagerly. This impressive restaurant and wine bar contains many menu options that you won’t find anywhere else in the area. The Wine Kitchen specializes in “seasonal American bistro” cuisine, so there’s something for everyone, whether you are in the mood for a delicious panini or a more intimate dinner with perfectly paired wine. With over 30 wines to choose from, the tasting bar offers samples in groups of three with categories like “Local Flavor,” a trio of local wines, and “It’s Delicious Being Green,” featuring organic wines. Whatever your tastes, whatever your budget, the Wine Kitchen—open Tuesday through Sunday, with lunch and dinner as well as bar service—is sure to have something that will strike your fancy. At thewinekitchen.com, you’ll find a wine list, a menu, and directions.

Gadino Cellars Family is very important to Bill and Aleta Gadino. It is also the key to the success of Gadino Cellars, their winery in Little Washington. Introduced to wine by their families, both of which carried their winemaking tradition to America from Italy, the Gadinos own and operate this winery in the fertile foothills of Rappahannock County with a passion only possible in a family-run business. The entire operation is overseen by the Gadinos, their daughter, Stephanie, and her husband, Derek. Focusing on small lots with exceptional quality control—yielding fewer than 1,500 cases annually—Gadino Cellars has already received awards for their dessert wine, Dolce Sofia, named after their granddaughter. Their latest release, Imagine—dedicated to grandson Dominik—is a red based on the aromatic Chambourcin. Visit www.gadinocellars.com or call (540) 987-9292 for more information.

Sunset Hills Vineyard & Winery The buzz around Loudon County’s flourishing wine scene just got considerably louder. In November 2008, the owners of Sunset Hills Vineyards unveiled their new winery and tasting room—housed a 130-year-old barn beautifully restored with Amish craftmanship. Named for its stunning twilight views of the mountains, Sunset Hills has tasted early success, with award-winning wines from 2006 and 2007. The vineyard is open for tastings from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m., Friday through Sunday. For reservations, call (703) 725-3546. For upcoming events and more information on Sunset Hills wines, visit www.sunsethillsvineyard.com.

Monticello’s newest and premier boutique vineyard

Sweeley Estate Winery A recent name change hasn’t curbed the excitement surrounding this Madison County vineyard’s latest wines. Sweeley Estate Winery, formerly Acorn Hill Winery, has received widespread praise for its 2006 Cabernet Franc. This is only one of 6 delectable wines available from Sweeley’s banner 2006 season. Due to the limited production of the 2006 wines, local aficionados are scrambling to add these bottles, bearing the original Acorn Hill label, to their collections. Bringing together Virginia’s wine and horse traditions, Sweeley Estate’s 300 acres of rolling countryside are home to equestrian facilities as well as expert wine cultivation and production. Tastings are currently being held in the production facility on weekends from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and during the week by appointment. In January, the winery plans to open a new hospitality center, which will include a tasting room, an art gallery, a culinary center, and much more. See pictures of the grounds and read about winemaker Frantz Ventre at www .sweelyestatewinery.com.

GoLD meDAL

GoLD meDAL Town PoinT wine ComPeTiTion

VirGiniA STATe fAir wine ComPeTiTion

Tastings and Tours March - DeceMber Wednesday - Sunday and all Monday holidays 11am-6pm January - February Saturdays, Sundays and Monday holidays 11am-6pm and Weekdays by appoinment Minutes from UVA, Monticello, Walnut Creek Park and Michie Tavern

Autumn Reynolds also wrote Local Grazings on pages 6–7.

3613 Walnut branch Lane north Garden, Va 22959 Telephone (434) 984-4272

www.sugarleafvineyards.com www.flavormags.com

Tarara’s

Twenty Years of Success

Alexander Lowell

Founder “Whitie” Hubert’s optimism and faith in teamwork carries the Loudoun County winery to its 20-year anniversary.

flavor magazine • winter 2009

t would seem an enormous leap to go from growing fruit for Welch’s in Ohio to creating one of the premier vineyards in Virginia—one that consistently produces world-class wines—but Ralph J. “Whitie” Hubert, the much-beloved patriarch of Tarara Winery, did it, and he did it with style. Following the European model, he decided a cave was the best environment in which to ferment and develop his wines before sending them out into the world, so with a few sticks of dynamite and the American can-do spirit, he blasted a cave from bedrock below his chosen Loudoun County house site. Then he built a swimming pool over it, along with an extraordinary house of timber and stone that consumed four years of meticulous design and labor. Strike up a conversation with anyone at Tarara, and within the first few seconds, he or she will mention Hubert’s name in any number of contexts. The great man who founded the winery 20 years ago passed away in the spring of 2008, but his spirit continues to inform and inspire everyone along the Tarara hierarchy—from tasting room servers to the director of sales. Hubert’s sculpting hand built, developed, and sustained this happy institution for two decades, so it’s with his story, back in the level plains of the Midwest, that we must begin.

Verdot. In addition, there’s a complex Pinot Gris, a dry Rosé, and three blends unique to Tarara: Charval, a merging of Vidal Blanc, Seyval Blanc, Viognier, and Pinot Gris; and Wild River, an off-dry red that mixes in homegrown blackberries for those who like their wines extra fruity. Winemaker Jordan Harris has also produced a Pinot Noir, a grape almost impossible to grow properly in Virginia’s particular microclimate. Tarara is proud of its effort with this California favorite but has recently decided, nevertheless, to discontinue it and concentrate its efforts in a different direction. As part of that novel plan, Tarara will be presenting a newly created port-style wine. Tarara’s newest innovation—named, not surprisingly, Long Bomb—is created in honor of its founder and the winery’s 20th anniversary. This wine is bold but approachable—like Whitie Hubert. Long Bomb, with its football-themed label (most of the other labels boast original paintings by Hubert’s daughter,

STARTS WITH A FARM Hubert was born in Avon Lake, Ohio, in 1924 on his family’s fruit farm. From an early age he excelled in sports. With his cheerful, honest character, he made a favorable impression on everyone he met. At Catholic University he studied architectural engineering and won medals as a wrestler, but he also shone at his real love: football. Hubert was varsity quarterback and though his team didn’t win many games, Hubert loved the camaraderie of group effort. And he loved to throw that long bomb—a thing of beauty that, when successful, was the culmination of the team’s cooperation. Following college, he went into the contracting business and constructed, over a period of 40 years, millions of square feet of commercial buildings. But since his idyllic days growing up on the farm, he had hoped to one day own and operate a vineyard. In 1985 he and his wife, Margaret, purchased a 475-acre farm, which had produced soybeans and corn, just north of historic Leesburg, and began cultivating grapes. The couple lived in the farmhouse while they built the aforementioned cave and great house, whose bottom half now houses the spacious tasting room complex. THE LONG BOMB Of the approximately 135 winery tasting rooms in Virginia, Tarara’s is one of the classiest and—perhaps because you enter it through a tunnel of the cave structure—one of the most enchanting. Inside are 15 different wines for tasting. The usual suspects are all in attendance: the ubiquitous Viognier, pride of most Virginia wineries; hearty Cabernet Franc, another regional favorite; a New World–fashioned Chardonnay; a medium-bodied Merlot, barrel-aged for 18 months; and a Meritage, Tarara’s flagship blend of Cab Sauvignon, Merlot, Cab Franc, and Petit

photos by black door photography

www.flavormags.com

Martha, who paints in San Francisco but forays to Tarara seasonally to create new vineyard-inspired designs), is truly the product of team effort and is the largest production wine of the company. A well-rounded blend of Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, and Merlot, Long Bomb has an intensity that will hold its own with the gamiest of wild meats, the most peppery sauces, and pungent cheeses. But next year’s Long Bomb may be an entirely different blend. The idea isn’t to duplicate the product year after year. Again, reflecting the founder’s courageous character and playful personality, it will depend on whatever comes to hand, whatever special qualities and quantities the vines produce. Long Bomb is also the first of Tarara’s wines to be sealed in screw tops. Harris, who believes screw tops are the wave of the future for all wines, explains that changing from cork closures usually requires only a small adjustment in the way the wine is created. Others, loyal to the use of cork as an essential part of the tactile enjoyment and general romance encompassing the ceremony of wine service, vehemently disagree. Ask, for example, respected winemaker Bill Gadino of Rappahannock’s Gadino Cellars, and you’ll hear a convincing and highly rational argument for the continued use of the noble cork. But Tarara, which from its inception has never been shy about taking risks—and was sufficiently capitalized to see them through—has plans to be completely cork-free in the very near future.

TENDING THE VINES & THE LEGACY Harris is passionate about all aspects of his role as Tarara’s winemaker—having left a white-collar, corporate winemaker position because he wanted to get his hands dirty in the vineyard—and is unabashedly ambitious about making the best wines on the East Coast. Once that is accomplished, he posits, he’ll take on the Pacific Northwest, California, and, well, could France and Italy be next? “I truly believe, even given that the Virginia microclimate is a bit limiting, that we will eventually produce well-structured, extraordinary wine that can win any competition anywhere in the world,” Harris said. At nearly 500 acres, with 60 cultivated in grape vines, Tarara is one of the largest wine properties in Virginia. It will produce approximately 10,000 cases of wine this year, but it doesn’t want to be known or thought of as a commercial winery. “We’re really still a neighborhood winery,” enthuses Heather Akers, Tarara’s director of sales. “Call it a quality boutique winery, if you like, but we are still very much a family operation, even though Whitie is no longer with us. All of us at Tarara—I’ve been here for nine years now—have been made to feel a genuine part of the family, and that’s really our mindset, the way we think and operate. And we intend to keep it that way. Always.” Tarara’s tasting room sees more than 40,000 visitors a year. The grounds host countless weddings and corporate events as well, and crowds flock to the summer concert series and other

7 South King St. Leesburg, VA 20175 703 777 WINE www.thewinekitchen.com

Come enjoy the simple life at Downtown Leesburg’s wine bar.

• Winter 2009

music events. The winery is situated in one of the most picturesque spots in Loudoun County, although when Hubert and his family first stood on the verandah and gazed out across the fields toward the pyramid-like Sugarloaf Mountain, they weren’t completely confident in their choice of property. There was a major flood that year from the Potomac, and the water rose nearly to the level of the house. One of the children, who had just been reading about Noah and his ark, called it “Noah’s flood” and renamed the distant looming peak Ararat. Amused, Hubert turned the word Ararat backwards—just as he knew he would turn this negative omen into a positive one—and he named the estate Tarara. The long bomb had been launched. Alexander Lowell is a freelance journalist specializing in food, wine, and the arts. Under various pseudonyms he has also published poetry, short fiction, and criticism, and his first novel, Roll Away the Stone, has just come out in Cyprus—his adopted second country.

Pairings Viognier 2007 Tarara’s Viognier is a perfect accompaniment to spicy Asianinspired cuisine or plump whitefish fillets dressed in vibrant herbs.

Reserve Merlot 2005 Try this Merlot with juicy red meat and roasted vegetables, pasta primavera, roasted red pepper bruschetta, or any smooth, sharp cheese.

Tarara Vineyards www.tarara.com (703) 771-7100 Tarara hosts three annual festivals. The Fine Vine Festival, a tribute to Viognier, is held in late May. U-pick blackberries are available at the Big Chill Wine Fest in early August. And at September’s Victory Wine Celebration, which honors the Long Bomb, attendees can pick apples from Tarara’s orchards. You may also wish to visit in early May for the Asparagus “Feastival.” Visit the website for more information. www.flavormags.com

â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2009

www.flavormags.com

imbibe

A Beer Renaissance in Wine Country

Evan Williams

Growing Hops, Brewing Beer, and Cultivating a Craft

hen brewmaster Taylor Smack and his wife, Mandi, first started planning a new brewpub several years ago, they couldn’t have imagined how much thirst there was for locally made craft beer in the Piedmont. Now, celebrating its one-year anniversary, Afton’s Blue Mountain Brewery and Hop Farm can barely keep up with Virginia’s insatiable demand.

A New Vision Smack, originally from Lynchburg, had his first experience with homebrewing in the late 1990s, and was soon volunteering at Charlottesville’s South Street Brewery. After attending the world-renowned Seibel Institute and working as a brewmaster for Goose Island Beer’s Chicago brewpubs, he returned to the Piedmont with his wife. When his friend at South Street needed help at the brewery, Smack was happy to step in and quickly became the full-time brewer. During his years there, he produced a bevy of awardwinning brews and eventually gained a reputation as one of the areas foremost craft brewers. But, says Smack, “while they were great bosses, I really just hit the glass ceiling, and . . . I wanted to do something different.” What that meant was a new brewpub business model. In a region known for its sprawling vineyards, Blue Mountain carved a niche using the “destination” model of Virginia’s wineries. The Smacks moved out of the urban environment to the scenic Afton “wine trail,” built a 3,000-barrel-capacity brewery with a welcoming brewpub atmosphere, and even planted their own hop vines. Now at home in the Virginia countryside, the Smacks and longtime friend (and now business partner) Matt Nucci are taking the traditional idea of the city brewpub and turning it on its head. Not only is the site now a social watering post for locals, but it has also become what it had set out to be: a destination brewery, like the neighboring wineries. “Sure, we get our locals every day, but we’re just inundated with tourists,” Smack says.

A Quick Note on the Brewing Process At its core, beer is made up of four main ingredients: water, barley, hops, and yeast. Specialty “malted” barley is steeped in warm water at specific temperatures, which extracts 56

• Winter 2009

mainly sugar and flavors from the grain. This sweet liquid, wort (pronounced “wert”), is boiled for an hour. Hops are added at specific times during this boil. (The earlier they’re added, the more bitterness and preservative qualities they impart; the later in the boil they are added, the more flavor and aroma is extracted.) Lastly, the wort is cooled and yeast is added. Over the course of 1 to 2 weeks, these single-celled organisms turn the sugar into alcohol—and beer is born!

The Connection with the Place When it comes to this brewing process, Blue Mountain’s connection with the land is obvious. “We all think of cool brewpubs downtown, and [with] most of them, you just pull city water,” Smack says. But in Afton, Blue Mountain has what Smack calls an “unbelievable, untapped, protected watershed” as the brewing water source. This pristine water gives him the opportunity to make better beer than he ever could in the city. In fact, 95 percent of beer is water, so the quality of brewing water is extremely important. While wine often gets credit for its expression of terroir, Blue Mountain’s water is their terroir. Close attention is also paid to the water they return. “We put in an aerobic treatment system for our wastewater, which we didn’t have to do,” he says. The Smacks’ connection to their soil can also be seen (or rather, tasted) with their use of home-grown hops. Beer has long been a product of many hands: a brewer buys his grain and hops from others and uses them as a baker or a chef would. And while the Smacks still purchase their grain and most of their hops from others, Blue Mountain’s hop farm allows them to serve their flagship Full Nelson Pale Ale on the same property where its hops were grown—a feat few brewers can claim. photos by brad day

A Beer Renaissance As a nation of immigrants, the United States should, by all accounts, be the “beer melting pot” of the world. Few realize, however, just how much damage prohibition caused in the beer market. After the 18th Amendment was repealed, the only acts left standing were the huge industrial brewers. Over the next half century, Americans came to almost exclusively associate “beer” with their bland lagers. Then, in the 1970s, Americans finally began to seek out artisanal beer again, and a renaissance was started. Since then, the number of small craft brewers in the U.S. has exploded. As a packaging brewery, Blue Mountain also sends its kegs and bottles across central Virginia, but Smack laments not being able to keep up with demand. While the brewery could produce 3,000 barrels per year, Blue Mountain has only been able to operate at half that capacity. “We’re increasing our output by 50 percent in 2009, though,” he says, signaling a seemingly endless thirst for local, artisanal beer in the Piedmont. The beer culture in America is rapidly shifting toward diverse, hand-crafted beer, and the region finds itself with an opportunity for growth in craft beer. It’s a scenario that was implausible just a few decades ago, but craft brewing has a bright future ahead. “This is the golden age,” says Taylor. As you wade through the weekend crowds at Blue Mountain Brewery, those words ring especially true. Evan Williams also conducts our blind tastings (page 60).

Master Class in red Wine Blending May 2 & May 9

Join us for the ultimate winery experience. seminar session with winemaker andy reagan gives insight into the art and science of blending red Bordeaux varietals into your own Meritage. Graduated cylinders, calculators, pens and paper provided – your palate and imagination complete the toolkit. all wines drawn from barrel. reservations are required and space is limited. $50 per person includes gourmet buffet.

to reserve, call (800 ) 272-3042

Pairings

Blue Mountain Brewery and Hop Farm (540) 456-8020 www.bluemountainbrewery.com Blue Mountain Brewery’s offerings are on tap at over two dozen locations in the Piedmont, including Capital Ale House, Mellow Mushroom, Beer Run, Blue Moon Diner, and Farmington and Keswick clubs. Bottled beer can be found at over 30 retailers, including Market Street Wine Shop, Wine Warehouse, Whole Foods, and Beer Run.

located between Monticello and ash lawn on thomas Jefferson’s original 1774 vineyard sites. Open 9am to 5pm daily for tours and tastings. WWW.JeffersOnvineyards.COM www.flavormags.com

in the cellar

Sulfites Though little understood, sulfites preserve what is most important to the connoisseur.

ine has remained remarkably similar throughout history. Chemically, it’s little more than water, alcohol, and acid. Of course, though, it’s more complicated than that. While fresh wine has remained similar, the path a wine takes beyond its first few weeks of life can vary greatly. It is this detail in which the devil lies. How wine is processed in its formative days in the cellar impacts its character once in the bottle. Traditionally, the steps taken to preserve a wine had a greater influence on how the resulting wine would taste than any other factor, including the fruit. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. But there was a time when, for example, the ancient Greeks sealed wine jars with pine resin. We now know that pine resin is also a powerful antimicrobial agent. Once the wine spoiled, the ancient Greeks added herbs and spices to make the flavor. The Romans topped wine bottles with olive oil to retard spoilage. Today, we know this method was specific for preventing oxidation. Modern winemaking practices understand the causes of spoilage, and preventative steps can be taken to preclude the use of these ancient techniques. One modern technique—the addition of sulfur dioxide to wine—has its roots in antiquity. And today, it remains unmatched in its ability to preserve wine. Modern wines are expected to be a true expression of the grape. This expectation has steered modern winemaking practices to produce something that is more similar to fresh produce than to a preserved food creation. And like fresh produce, wine can spoil rather quickly without additional preservation. By itself, wine is remarkably resistant to the most serious kinds of spoilage. Its alcohol content and acidity render wine impervious to about 99 percent of microorganisms—including all diseasecausing microorganisms—that often spoil other fresh foods. This is the reason wine has traditionally been considered a very hygienic beverage. But as a true expression of the grape, wine must also be free of oxidation and vinegar-producing bacteria. To accomplish this, wine must be drunk within weeks of fermentation, or it must be preserved with minute quantities of sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide is naturally found in nature. Though caustic in high concentrations, it is used in the parts-per-million levels in many foods that would otherwise spoil very quickly. In winemaking, sulfur dioxide is remarkable. It is an antimicrobial

flavor magazine • winter 2009

natalia burrus

Jason Burrus

agent; it kills vinegar-producing bacteria. It is an antioxidant; it inactivates the enzyme that causes a wine to turn brown. (This is the same enzyme in fresh fruit that causes it to turn brown upon exposure to oxygen.) Sulfur dioxide also reverses some oxidation reactions in wine that may have already occurred. These effects are significant at concentrations below the sensory threshold. At levels used in winemaking, less than 1 percent of the population will have a negative reaction to the chemical. As such, the use of sulfur dioxide in winemaking is universal. The use of sulfur dioxide is not without its critics. The early 1980s saw the watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest lobby the government to ban the use of sulfites (a catchall term for any sulfur-containing preservative) on most foods, but especially on fresh produce. This was in response to 12 cases between 1982 and 1985 in which people died from consumption of fresh foods that were preserved with sulfites. In every case, the victim was an asthmatic who consumed abnormally high amounts of sulfites. None of the cases involved wine consumption. The result of the lobbying effort was the ban in 1985 of the use of sulfites on all fresh produce and, in 1987, a regulation requiring that all domestic and imported wine bear the phrase “Contains sulfites” on every bottle of wine with more than 10 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of sulfites. It is this tiny detail, however, that begs further scrutiny.

Modern wines are expected to be a true expression of the grape. All wines contain sulfites. Sulfur dioxide is a natural byproduct of yeast fermentation. It is produced in quantities up to 40 mg/L. Relatively, this is a lot considering that normal table wines usually do not contain more than 120 mg/L total when sulfites are added at the winery. To put this in perspective, the human body produces about 1,000 mg of sulfur dioxide per day, according to Dr. Andrew Waterhouse of the University of California at Davis. Furthermore, the government ban on sulfites does not apply to dried fruits, where levels up to 20 times what is routinely used in wine can be found.

Sulfites are also found in fruit juices, lunch meats, sugar, jams, syrups, and many baking staples, according to the FDA. All organic wines contain naturally produced sulfites, and wines made from organic grapes are allowed by law to contain added sulfites up to 100 mg/L total. So, just who might be susceptible to sulfur dioxide? According to the FDA, about 5 percent of the population are asthmatics, and about 5 percent of asthmatics are allergic to the level of sulfites found in wine. There are also a small number of individuals that lack the enzyme, sulfite oxidase, to break down the chemical. Overall, the FDA claims that about 99.6 percent of the population will suffer no ill effects from consuming normal amounts of sulfites found in wine.

OctagOn Is there another?

All wines contain sulfites. Sulfur dioxide is a natural byproduct of yeast fermentation. In the cellar, sulfur dioxide is being used in ever-decreasing quantities, due mostly to increasingly hygienic winemaking practices in modern wineries. Much more sulfur dioxide is required to prevent microbial instability in wine than is needed to prevent oxidation. This trend is popular with winemakers because sulfur dioxide binds with the color molecule in red wine, in effect bleaching it. Therefore, in fine red wine production where red color intensity is highly valued, there is a push to use as little sulfur dioxide as possible. Furthermore, sulfur dioxide is volatile and easily discernible at quantities much lower than that required to stabilize a wine against microbial infection. This has also driven winemakers to process wine as hygienically as possible, eliminating the need to add it in greater, possibly noticeable, amounts. The culture of wine consumption has come a long way in this country since the 1980s. Wine is much more common and Americans have established a popular style—a “New World” style that is more fruit-forward than its European counterparts. What was once widely held as a scare tactic by a watchdog lobby has since become a non-issue. Modern winemaking that makes use of sound scientific principles can continue to make wines increasingly better, more vibrant, a true reflection of the grape. Jason Burrus is the winemaker for Rappahannock Cellars in Huntly. His Cabernet Franc won the Best of Category award and a double-gold medal at the 2008 San Francisco International Wine Competition.

20 Gold Medals Winner of the Monticello Cup

www.barboursvillewine.com

VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE & FOOD ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM Presents workshops for FOOD-BASED BUSINESSES Workshop Dates: March 30 & April 6 Albemarle County Office Building, Charlottesville, VA Topics will include: •Compliance with value-added food processing and food production safety, regulations, inspections & testing •Opportunities for marketing & selling •Business plan development and financials •Panel discussions featuring local ‘experts’ For more information, go to www.vafep.org Event sponsors include: Virginia Cooperative Extension, Planet Earth Diversified, Gryfnsroost, Scottsville Chamber of Commerce, VDACS, Central Virginia Small Business Development Center, Charlottesville CIty Market, Flavor Magazine, Growing Food & Community www.flavormags.com

blind tasting

Petit Verdot Evan Williams

Petit Verdot, a bit player in Europe, may turn out to be a star in Virginia.

e all know the story: a nerdy, unpopular kid moves to a new town, finds new friends and a new life, hilarity ensues, and it all ends well in that 1980s-teenage-movie sort of way. Trite? Perhaps, but it’s endearing nonetheless. In the world of wine, this familiar story can be found throughout history (particularly recent history) as old, rather unpopular grapes find a new terroir, and magic results. In most of winegrowing Europe, and particularly in France, the terroir has informed winegrowers and helped determine the best grape varietals for the myriad growing areas. These discoveries have often been set in stone, both by tradition and by law. Want to plant Cabernet Sauvignon in Burgundy? OK, but you can’t label it Burgundy. Other areas, such as the Bordeaux region, have a few star grape varietals, beset by a handful of “blending” varietals. These blending grapes are typically used, in very small quantities, to improve or adjust the famed Clarets. In this supporting role, they are integral to the success of these wines, but rarely if ever are they showcased on their own. So, with much of the European wine world tangled up in that tradition, it’s up to the fledgling, experimental regions of the globe to bring these forgotten grapes to the world’s attention.

Enter: Virginia Where Petit Verdot has fallen somewhat out of favor in its Bordeaux home (due to its late ripening), it is beginning to make a place for itself in New World terroirs such as ours. Little of the under-ripeness that plagues it in the Gironde is evident here. In Virginia, it often produces wines that are full of ripe, succulent red fruit and soft, silky tannins. Petit Verdot is relatively unknown in the States, even though, at its best, it can rival southern French and Spanish Grenache. All it needs is a good home with the right climate. All told, we tasted a dozen Virginia Petit Verdots, and what was most striking was the potential for classical greatness that many exhibited. While there’s always something to be said for crafting a vineyard lineup with the “typical” varietals, many Virginia wineries have been quick to realize the potential of underrated blending varietals like Petit Verdot in the Piedmont. Another compelling quality was the parity among most of these examples. Previous blind tastings have revealed not only some great wines, but also some frustratingly lacking ones. Although a few fell short of the others, there was an impressively equal level of achievement here. The bright and lively cherry fruit,

• Winter 2009

Tasting Panel and Procedure For this tasting, Evan Williams and 7 other tasters— each one of them a wine-industry veteran and wine collector—tasted 12 bottles of Petit Verdot submitted by vineyards in the Piedmont region. All bottles were blind, to avoid label prejudice.

the balanced acidity, the softness of the mouthfeel—these characteristics were almost universally present in these wines. Considering that the market so stingily demands the classical grapes, making forays into “new” varietals is a brave venture in a fledgling winegrowing community. Virginia wine drinkers, for their own part, have helped make this possible with their generous willingness to try almost anything the wineries throw at them—allowing many an adventurous winemaker great freedom of expression. This adventurous spirit, so essential to the Piedmont region, is what will, in time, solidify Virginia as a world-renowned winegrowing region. In my estimation, Petit Verdot will be one the grapes to help make that happen.

Our Favorites The 2005 Linden Vineyards Petit Verdot was the most classic, Bordeaux-esque wine of the bunch, full of rustic earthiness, brambly berry fruit, a bit of cinnamon spice, and substantial structure. It was also probably the most ageable of the wines, with significant acidity and tannins. It’s apparent that a tremendous amount of care went into the growing and production, as it exhibits all the qualities of a well-made wine. Where the Linden was classical, the 2006 First Colony Petit Verdot was filled with character and quirkiness. The requisite ripe fruit was evident but overshadowed by a spicy, Grenache-y note. Above all there was a rustic, quirky barnyard character that really helped this wine stand out. This was certainly not typical Virginia Petit Verdot, but that didn’t stop it from being a successful wine. The full, silky mouthfeel and lack of tannic structure also suggests that this is drinking well right now. The most balanced and “correct” wine we tried was the 2007 Whitehall Vineyards Petit Verdot. This had a bit more acidity than the First Colony, a bit less earthiness than the Linden, a silky texture, and brilliant red fruit that packed quite a pleasant punch. A very familiar, comfortable wine, it was typical Petit Verdot: balanced yet forceful and enjoyable on almost every level. Again, not a wine to keep, but certainly one to enjoy en masse this spring. Evan Williams, a Virginia native who has worked in various facets of the wine industry, is part-owner of the Wine Guild of Charlottesville.

Cheeseboard Where to Start Kate Collier

ur mission at Feast is to support the fine food and drink makers of Virginia. We are constantly searching for the most delicious and unique foods made in our community, and our food-loving staff tastes and selects each product that we carry in our store. Food and drink pairing is an art that takes lots of focused tasting. We’ve found that these specific combinations enhance all the flavors present. Raw-milk, washed-wind Grayson from Meadowcreek Dairy in Galax with Barboursville Vineyards Cabernet Franc Reserve This full-flavored, creamy cow’s milk cheese is beautifully complemented by the robust, ripe, and earthy taste of one of our state’s best wines.

• Fresh goat cheeses made by hand at Caromont Farm in Albemarle County and Goats R Us in Nottoway County with Veritas Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc

The pairing of herbacious and tangy chèvre with this crisp Sauvignon Blanc is a natural fit.

• Sheep’s milk Piedmont cheese from Orange County’s Everona Dairy with Pollak Merlot

The rustic, nuttiness of this hard sheep’s milk cheese is a nice complement to the deep, dark cherry flavors in the Pollak Merlot.

• Raw-milk McClure Swiss from Mountain View Dairy in Augusta County with Blue Mountain Brewery Full Nelson Ale

spicy bear media

The zing and pungency of this baby Swiss and the floral, citrus froth of the Full Nelson Ale make a delightful match. Kate Collier is the proprietor of Feast in Charlottesville.

www.flavormags.com

Vineyard Directory PIEDMONT AREA VINEYARDS ALBEMARLE

Blenheim Vineyards Charlottesville • (434) 293-5366 www.blenheimvineyards.com

Oakencroft Vineyard & Winery

Unicorn Winery

Three Fox Vineyards

Pollak Vineyards

GREENE

LOUDOUN

Autumn Hill Vineyards & Blue Ridge Winery

Bluemont Vineyard

Charlottesville • (434) 296-4188 www.oakencroft.com Greenwood • (540) 456-8844 www.pollakvineyards.com

Charlottesville • (434) 979-7105 www.firstcolonywinery.com

s Sugarleaf Vineyards North Garden • (434) 984-4272 www.sugarleafvineyards.com see ad on page 49

Gabriele Rausse Winery

Virginia Wineworks

First Colony Winery

Not open to the public Charlottesville • (434) 296-5328 s Jefferson Vineyards Charlottesville • (434) 977-3042 www.jeffersonvineyards.com see ad on page 57

Keswick Vineyards Keswick • (434) 244-3341 www.keswickvineyards.com

King Family Vineyards

Crozet • (434) 823-7800 www.kingfamilyvineyards.com

Kluge Estate Winery & Vineyard Charlottesville • (434) 984-3895 www.klugeestateonline.com

Charlottesville • (434) 296-3438 www.virginiawineworks.com

White Hall Vineyards

White Hall • (434) 823-8615 www.whitehallvineyards.com CLARKE

Veramar Vineyard

Berryville • (540) 955-5510 www.veramar.com

Amissville • (540) 349-5885 www.unicornwinery.com

Stanardsville • (434) 985-6100 www.autumnhillwine.com

Stone Mountain Vineyards

Dyke • (434) 990-9463 www.stonemountainvineyards.com FAUQUIER

Barrel Oak Winery

Hume • (540) 364-1203 www.barreloakwinery.com

Boxwood Winery

Middleburg • (540) 687-9770 www.boxwoodwinery.com

Chateau O’Brien at Northpoint

CULPEPER

Markham • (540) 364-6441 www.chateauobrien.com

Old House Vineyards

Fox Meadow Winery

Culpeper • (540) 423-1032 www.oldhousevineyards.com

Linden • (540) 636-6777 www.foxmeadowwinery.com

Linden Vineyards

Linden • (540) 364-1997 www.lindenvineyards.com

Marterella Winery

Warrenton • (540) 347-1119 www.marterellawines.com

Mediterranean Cellars

Warrenton • (540) 428-1984 www.mediterraneancellars.com

Miracle Valley Vineyard

Delaplane • (540) 364-0228 www.miraclevalleyvineyard.com

Naked Mountain Vineyard Markham • (540) 364-1609 www.nakedmtnwinery.com

Oasis Winery

Hume • (540) 635-7627 www.oasiswine.com

Pearmund Cellars

Broad Run • (540) 347-3475 www.pearmundcellars.com

Philip Carter Winery of Virginia Hume • (540) 364-1203 www.pcwinery.com

Piedmont Vineyards & Winery The Plains • (540) 687-5528 www.piedmontwines.com

Rogers Ford Farm Winery Sumerduck • (540) 439-3707 www.rogersfordwine.com

• Winter 2009

Delaplane • (540) 364-6073 www.threefoxvineyards.com

Bluemont • (540) 554-8439 www.bluemontvineyard.com

Breaux Vineyards

Purcellville • (540) 668-6299 www.breauxvineyards.com

Chrysalis Vineyards

Middleburg • (540) 687-8222 www.chrysaliswine.com

Corcoran Vineyard

Formerly Waterford Vineyards Waterford • (540) 882-9073 www.corcoranvineyards.com

Doukenie Winery

Formerly Windham Winery Hillsboro • (540) 668-6464 www.doukeniewinery.com

Fabbioli Cellars

Leesburg • (703) 771-1197 www.fabbioliwines.com

Hidden Brook Winery

Leesburg • (703) 737-3935 www.hiddenbrookwinery.com

Hiddencroft Vineyards

Lovettsville • (540) 535-5367 www.hiddencroftvineyards.com

Hillsborough Vineyards

Purcellville • (540) 668-6216 www.hillsboroughwine.com

Lost Creek Winery

Leesburg • (703) 443-9836 www.lostcreekwinery.com

Loudoun Valley Vineyards

Waterford • (540) 882-3375 www.loudounvalleyvineyards.com

North Gate Vineyard

Purcellville • (540) 668-6248 www.northgatevineyard.com

Notaviva Vineyards

Purcellville • (540) 668-6756 www.notavivavineyards.com

Quattro Goomba’s Winery Aldie • (703) 327-6052 www.goombawine.com

Sunset Hills Vineyard & Winery Purcellville • (703) 725-3546 www.sunsethillsvineyard.com

Swedenburg Estate Vineyard Middleburg • (540) 687-5219 www.swedenburgwines.com

Vineyard Directory Tarara Vineyard & Winery

Gray Ghost Vineyards

Village Winery

s Rappahannock Cellars Huntly • (540) 635-9398 www.rappahannockcellars.com see ad on page 45

Leesburg • (703) 771-7100 www.tarara.com

Waterford • (540) 882-3780 www.villagewineryandvineyards.com

Willowcroft Farm Vineyards Leesburg • (703) 777-8161 www.willowcroftwine.com

Zephaniah Farm Vineyard

Amissville • (540) 937-4869 grayghostvineyards.com

Smokehouse Winery Sperryville • (540) 987-3194 www.smokehousewinery.com

Leesburg • (804) 739-2774 MADISON

NEARBY VINEYARDS

Acorn Hill Winery

LOUISA

Madison• (540) 948-3321 www.acornhillwinery.com

Cooper Vineyards

Christensen Ridge

Louisa • (540) 894-5253 www.coopervineyards.com

Madison • (540) 923-4800 www.christensenridge.com

NELSON

Prince Michel & Rapidan River Vineyards

Afton • (540) 456-8667 www.aftonmountainvineyards.com

Leon • (540) 547-3707 www.princemichel.com

Rose River Vineyards & Trout Farm

Syria • (540) 923-4050 www.roseriverfarm.com

Sharp Rock Vineyards

Sperryville • (540) 987-9700 www.sharprockvineyards.com

Sweely Estate Winery

Madison • (540) 948-9005 www.sweelyestatewinery.com ORANGE s Barboursville Vineyards Barboursville • (540) 832-3824 www.barboursvillewine.com see ad on page 59

Burnley Vineyards & Daniel Cellars

Afton Mountain Vineyards

Cardinal Point Vineyard & Winery Afton • (540) 456-8400 www.cardinalpointwinery.com

DelFosse Vineyards & Winery Faber • (434) 263-6100 www.delfossewine.com

Flying Fox Vineyard

Afton • (434) 361-1692 www.flyingfoxvineyard.com

Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery Nellysford • (434) 361-1266 www.hilltopberrywine.com

Veritas Winery

Afton • (540) 456-8000 www.veritaswines.com

Wintergreen Winery

Nellysford • (434) 361-2519 www.wintergreenwinery.com

Barboursville • (540) 832-2828 www.burnleywines.com

PRINCE WILLIAM

Horton Vineyards

Haymarket • (703) 753-9360 www.wineryatlagrange.com

Gordonsville • (540) 832-7440 www.hvwine.com RAPPAHANNOCK

Chester Gap Cellars

Chester Gap • (540) 636-0886 www.chestergapcellars.com

Gadino Cellars

Washington • (540) 987-9292 www.gadinocellars.com

Winery at La Grange

WARREN

Glen Manor Vineyards Front Royal • (540) 635-6324 www.glenmanorvineyards.com

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29 MAIN ST., WARRENTON, VA

540.349. 9339 | ironbridgewines.com

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pairings

Local Chocolates & Local Wines Jeffery Mitchell

Virginia-made wines and beers can bring out the best in local chocolates.

asbjørn floden

lvis Presley touched people with more just his music. He also made an impression by promoting fried peanut-butterand-banana sandwiches. Perhaps shocking for its time, this combination of ingredients yielded new taste sensations. Recent unexpected but innovative taste combinations often include chocolate. It has been used in cheese (Carr Valley’s Cocoa Cardona, made in La Valle, Wisconsin), mixed with bacon (Vosges Mo’s Bacon Bar, made in Chicago), and brewed in beer (Dogfish Head’s Theobroma, made in Milton, Delaware).

If you sample chocolates properly, you can actually heighten the experience by pairing them with wine or beer. Locally adventurous chocolate combinations are found in the offerings from Spice Rack Chocolates in Fredericksburg, where chocolatier Mary Schellhammer creates exotic, sweet, and spicy combinations. Some refreshing choices in her “Spice Rack” collection are the fresh lemon with sweet basil and the rosemary with mint leaves. If you favor fruit, try the tangy grapefruit and lavender or the tropical pineapple and ground ginger from the “Spiced Fruit” collection. If you can brave the heat of Schellhammer’s “En Fuego” (“On Fire”) collection, try the intense Indian curry or the Japanese wasabi. Each of her chocolate creations are far beyond everyday flavors and worthy of exploration. If you sample chocolates properly, you can actually heighten the experience by pairing them with wine or beer. However, don’t repeat the mistake made by many people who quickly chew their chocolates and gulp their wine and beer. As Schellhammer suggests, start with the chocolate and allow the taste to coat your tongue fully. Then sip the beverage of your choice to have the full taste experience. With these unique chocolates the cocoa—not the sweeteners—leads the taste, so look for wines and beers that match the cocoa levels and ingredients. For chocolates like those found in the “Spice Rack” collection, try a Cabernet Franc for its lighter and aromatic attributes. I also recommend the Sweely Estates (Acorn Hill) Cabernet Franc, which is a deeply colored and flavored robust version with flavors

• Winter 2009

of ripe raspberry and blueberry with tobacco. Gadino Cellars Cabernet Franc is another favorite, with a seductive aroma of

coffee, spice, mixed berries, and a touch of vanilla and cedar. For the chocolates with fruit infusions, try a stainless-steel fermented Chardonnay, which will echo the fruit flavors without interruption. I am partial to the Rogers Ford Jacob Christopher Chardonnay: peach, cinnamon, and a touch of sweet with a buttery finish. Lastly, for spicy chocolates, such as those found in Schellhammer’s “En Fuego” collection, try a Bordeaux Blend with peppery notes or maybe a beer. Autumn Hill Cabernet Sauvignon is a Bordeaux blend of ruby-colored Cabernet Franc and Merlot with peppery notes and hints of cassis. An Irish-style stout, Starr Hill Dark Star Stout is bursting with aromas of roasted barley, coffee, and—yes—dark chocolate. Lighter than it sounds, this velvety smooth brew helps mellow out the heat. Have fun exploring great tastes! Jeffery Mitchell is the owner of Frenchman’s Cellar, the wine, beer, and cheese portion of Frenchman’s Corner in downtown Culpeper.

Spice Rack Chocolates www.spicerackchocolates.com (540) 847-2063

Every growing season, Whole Foods Market works closely with local and regional family farmers to support sustainable agriculture methods that protect our environment and preserve resources for the future. In an effort to expand the availability of quality local products for our customers, Whole Foods Market offers a Local Producer Loan Program which provides many low interest loans to small producers that together total up to $10 million annually. For more information, please visit www.wholefoodsmarket.com.