Month: March 2009

Kirsty Harmon is pouring her new wines; “new,” as in recently finished and bottled, but also new in that they represent the rebirth of Blenheim Vineyards. The winery, owned by Dave Matthews and family, has been shaken up since parting ways with original winemaker Brad McCarthy. Since its inception the winery’s reputation has been based as much on its rock star owner (and its rock star-ish winemaker), as on the wine. Now, nine years after its inception, Blenheim has a new winemaker. That would be Harmon. This being her first time in the spotlight, and with the stage being so big, does she feel any jitters?

“Of course I’m nervous,” she says with a laugh.

Born in Holland, Harmon moved to Charlottesville in 1989, attending Albemarle High School and then UVA, from where she graduated with a biology degree. Looking for a change from science, she took a job at the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard, where she met winemaker Gabriele Rausse. “My whole world changed,” she says, “my whole view of wine.” And voila! she had discovered a new passion and a new career. After several years working with Rausse, she went to the University of California at Davis, the country’s top wine program, to get her masters in viticulture and enology.

“My goal was always to come back to Virginia,” she says, which earned her the question in California: “You’re going where?” Now, following internships at top wineries in France and New Zealand, she’s answered that question by taking a job that brings her full circle, working a few feet from the vines she tended at Kluge and a stone’s throw from the winery of her friend and mentor Rausse.

We sit at a long wooden table and she pours the new Blenheim white wines. Gone are the handmade-looking labels, replaced by sleek and colorful new ones that feature a redesigned logo. Gone too are the corks. In their place: more modern screwcaps. There is a rosé for the first time and a new red jokingly called “Dave’s Blend” that will feature a label designed by the man himself. 

“My vision for the wines,” Harmon says, “is to make them very crisp, clean.” Only the whites are currently bottled, but they definitely fit that description. The Viognier, much dryer than most in Virginia, reminded me of lesser-known whites from the Cotes du Rhone. Her red wines are still in the barrel, and although the blends have not been finished, they seem of a piece with the whites. These are elegant, restrained wines meant to go with food. I like them a lot, but will the tasting room crowds, used to bigger reds and sweeter whites, respond?

Harmon can’t say yet. She doesn’t know the quality of all the fruit, isn’t yet intimate with every inch of the vineyards. That’s a process that takes years. “It really is going to be a discovery,” she says, “and an exploration. And hopefully that’s not too confusing for people.”

News Flash: Ted Burns, an Associate Professor of Neurology at UVA, co-owner of local importing company Williams Corner Wine, and, in his spare time, East Coast correspondent for the popular wine podcast Grape Radio, has been nominated for a James Beard Award for his recent podcast on Thomas Jefferson and wine. Congratulations, Ted!

We all know that restaurants are hurting across the board right now, what with all the tightening of wallets, closing of corporate expense accounts and losing of jobs, but higher-end places, naturally, are suffering more than most, and many are starting to employ some interesting survival tactics. Take for example, high-end steak house chain Ruth’s Chris, the closest outpost of which resides in Tyson’s Corner. The restaurant’s publicly traded parent company has had much organizational turmoil, including large layoffs, and ended 2008 with $58 million in net losses. As part of a plan to get out of the woods and attract more diners, Ruth’s, best known for feeding groups of formerly flush-with-cash investment bankers across America for $2,000 tabs, has added steep discounts to the menu at many locations, including a steak-and-fries dinner for $19.95 and a three-course meal of “Ruth’s Chris classics” for $39.95. And the trend is hitting home as well. One of our own high-end peddlers of steak—The Upstairs, which sells only the best grade of USDA-rated steak called Prime—currently is running a major deal. Now through Mother’s Day, the restaurant is offering Prime rib-eye and Prime New York Strip steaks for a shockingly cheap $18 (sides are an additional $3). On the regular menu, a 12-ounce Prime rib-eye fetches $35, and a 10-ounce Prime New York strip, $37.

“We’re making it as cheap as humanly possible to entice some more people to come out,” says Upstairs owner Mark Brown. During this same time period, The Upstairs is also offering a $25 tasting menu of three or four courses on Tuesday nights.

Brown says this current economic recession has been an interesting learning experience for him. Before the financial world got all messed up and crazy, Brown says success in retail hinged on quality and controlling costs, but now, he says, “it’s all about price.” Take for another example, a discount The Upstairs offered this past Valentine’s Day, when a nice crowd of 65 was in attendance. “We wanted to get rid of some Dom Perignon, so we offered it for $150 a bottle that night,” says Brown. “We didn’t sell a single one. Two years ago, I would have sold all of it. I guess people are thinking it doesn’t matter that I can’t buy this cheaper anywhere else, I just don’t want to spend $150 on a bottle.”

Brown says he and chef and general manager Jaison Burke are looking forward to The Upstairs opening its patio space for the first time this spring, and though rumors have circulated that The Upstairs is for sale and that Burke himself may buy it, Brown says that for now, it’s business as usual. “Everything I own is perpetually for sale,” says Brown, whose real estate holdings include the Downtown Mall building that houses The Upstairs and Escafé as well as a few other properties, “but it’s not being actively advertised.”

Openings

One opening and two pending openings to report: Shenandoah Joe has opened an espresso bar in the old Java Java space on Ivy Road (the Downtown Java Java remains in operation under new ownership). Hong Kong Restaurant and Take-Out in the Southside Shopping Center is opening May 1, and Tres Amigos at 946 Grady Ave. (in the old Mamma Mia and short-lived El Dorado space) is “coming soon.”

Danny and Christina Wysong met during freshman orientation at William and Mary. But they’d have to travel through other relationships—and continents—before arriving at their destination: each other.

During that first year of college, they were both dating other people. And sophomore year, Danny studied abroad in Russia. When summer came, he was working as a camp counselor and Christina (a Charlottesville native) was getting ready for her own international adventure—a semester in Spain. “She was freaking out about it,” says Danny. “I sent her a letter full of advice and helpful hints on dealing with the language barrier.”

From that kind gesture a correspondence was born, and a nice old-fashioned one at that, since Danny had no email or phone access at camp. In their letters, “We were clearly really getting along,” Danny says. They went electronic once Christina was in Spain. Finally, Danny says, “I just really snapped and sent her an email: ‘Hey, I like you!’ But a lot better framed than that.”

Then Danny started talking about a visit. “He kind of joked about it, and I encouraged it, but figured it would never actually happen,” Christina says. He was serious, though. “I sold all my textbooks and flew to Spain,” he says. “My parents were ready to murder me. My mom said ‘Well, you better marry her.’”

When he finally got off the bus in the town where Christina was living, he was “jetlagged out of my mind.” He’d told Christina he was coming (“I didn’t want to do the stalker-esque thing, creepy thing, and pop up behind her at a café”) so she was waiting on a bench in the central plaza. “We kind of hugged,” she remembers, “we kissed real quick, and he said ‘Will you go out with me?’ I said yes and we went and got ice cream.”

That was fall 2005. They both say their relationship worked, even long-distance, because of how comfortable they are together. “We kind of look at the world in the same way,” she says. And he adds, “I don’t have to curb myself or censor myself.” They stayed together through school and then a move to Arlington.

Danny proposed last April on a trip to Williamsburg (“directly after eating a chicken sandwich,” he says) and on October 5, 2008, exactly three years after Danny arrived in Spain, they got married at King Family Vineyards.

These two never neglect the lighter side. “Christina can raise one eyebrow very well,” says Danny. “She knows I find this very amusing, so she did this continuously throughout the ceremony, when I’m saying these super-serious things, like ‘I will be with you forever.’”