Month: August 2009

Here in Virginia, we have a lot of things to be proud of—birthplace to many presidents, top-ranked universities, a myriad of flora and fauna—not to mention ham, peanuts and apples, oh my! Ask a Virginian to boast about his grapes, and you are likely to hear about Viognier. Sure, our warm growing season nurtures Viognier’s abundant aromatics, and who doesn’t love an alliteration like “Virginia Viognier,” but how much do we really know about this grape that we fancy our own?

The tale of Viognier dates back to when a Roman emperor brought the vines from Dalmatia to France’s Rhône Valley in 281 A.D. The grape’s most likely namesake is from the Roman pronunciation of “via Gehennae,” which means “road to hell,” alluding to how difficult Viognier is to grow. Highly susceptible to powdery mildew, Viognier yields are low and unpredictable. In fact, between the devastation of phylloxera (if only those pest management courses had been offered the fall semester of 1862!), the abandonment of the vineyards after World War I, and the grape’s finicky nature, by 1965, Viognier was almost extinct with only 30 acres of the vines left in France. In the late 1980s, the United States and Canada took a shot with Viognier, doubling the world’s acreage and setting Viognier back on its pretty little legs.

Let’s move on though, because once you smell a Viognier, you will be in an exotic garden in the mood for romance and this little history lesson will be long forgotten. Just like with a good woman, Viognier is so much more than meets the eye (and nose). Her flowing floral frock and sweet, heady perfume of honeysuckle, citrus blossom, lychee nut, white melon, peach, apricot and ripe pear is just an innocent front for the complexity of her soul. Completely dry and full-bodied (with curves in all the right places), Viognier offers a palate of ripe pear, lemon-lime citrus, almond, spice, peach, apricot, but with enough acidity to entice you to keep on sipping. With the texture of crème brulée, Viognier is reminiscent of Chardonnay, but with more wiggle in her walk than that sometimes dowdy matron of the wine world.

The best wine to me is one that speaks of its upbringing, or terroir, and Viognier is no exception. My inspiration for this column was a Viognier from its original terroir, the Côtes du Rhône. The wine was so indescribably delicious that I was momentarily speechless (until I swallowed it). I then tried to describe the ineffable: “It reminds me of just baked apricots topped with fresh cream, crushed amaretti cookies, and a drizzle of wildflower honey—yet completely dry and in liquid form,” I announced with conviction to no one in particular. I took another sip, half wondering if I had channeled Violet Beauregarde and her Willy Wonka Three-Course Dinner Gum, but managed quite happily to finish the glass without blowing up like a giant apricot.

My old-fashioned tastes always bring me to the Old World for my wine, so French Viognier will always have my heart, but its New World counterparts are pretty fetching too (and often less pricey). From Australia to Virginia, Viognier is worthy of a sincere courtship, rewarding its suitors from first seductive sniff to last satiating sip.

The biggest real estate kerfuffle of the summer—lowball appraisals.
 
Many Charlottesville homeowners have had to shelve or cancel plans to refinance or sell their homes due to appraisals coming in much lower—sometimes as much as 12 to 15 percent—than expected.

Why is this happening? Two reasons, explains Bill Hamrick, vice president and branch manager of C&F Mortgage Charlottesville, who sees lowball appraisals as a growing concern among Charlottesville homeowners.

Number one, government-sponsored mortgage investors Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae put new, highly abstemious appraisal rules into effect nationwide on May 1. The new rules are designed to curtail laissez-faire lending practices and freewheeling home valuations that fueled the housing market crash.
 
Number two, “Many appraisals conducted during the boom were inflated to begin with,” says Hamrick. “So a lot of these ‘lowball appraisals’ people are talking about may actually be a more accurate reflection of a home’s real value.”
 
Under the old rules, a homeowner seeking to sell or refinance a home would tell his real estate agent or lender what he thought the house is worth—say, $300,000. The agent or lender would run this number by an appraiser, the inference being this was the target number needed for the sale or loan to go through. If an appraiser came back with a valuation of $270,000—less than the target—the parties involved would obviously want to reconsider doing future business with this person. So it was in the appraiser’s self-interest to manipulate the numbers to better coincide with the target valuation. Not surprisingly, values became inflated. Enter the mortgage meltdown.

The new rules—outlined in a document called Home Valuation Code of Conduct which can be found at freddiemac.com—seek to eliminate the cozy relationship that existed between sellers, mortgage brokers and appraisers.
 
No longer are mortgage brokers allowed to order an appraisal or influence an appraisal report. Indeed, the new code prohibits mortgage brokers and real estate agents from taking any part in the selection of appraisers at all. Critics charge this has led to lenders outsourcing the selection of appraisers to independent appraisal-management companies, who assign appraisers with little to no knowledge of neighborhoods in question.
 
What’s more, appraisers are using short sales, foreclosures and other distressed properties as “comparables,” which distorts property values further. “Banks have suffered huge losses, so they’re leaning on appraisers to be more cautious,” says Hamrack.

What to do if an appraisal comes back less than expected? Unfortunately, right now, not much, says Hamrick.

Last week, the National Association of Realtors urged Congress to pass a bill that would impose an 18-month moratorium on the new appraisal guidelines. The issue is still being debated in Washington.
 
In the meantime, Freddie Mac issued another round of guidelines for lenders (and homeowners) aimed to encourage fair and accurate appraisals. Among their recommendations: utilizing only appraisers who are state licensed and show adequate knowledge of a neighborhood in question.

Adventures in trim

Top: Painting the trim pieces was half the fun. Bottom: The results made us feel all finished and stuff.

We were very happy to get to the stage in our renovation where we could focus on trim. Nonessential, almost purely aesthetic, trim was a sure sign we’d made progress from our early days of bathroom plumbing and floor-framing. However, the task was intimidating too. Unlike those earlier projects, trim would not be hidden. Our work not only had to be perfect, it had to act as camouflage for a multitude of imperfections.

We began with trim where the tops of walls meet beadboard ceilings. Measuring, cutting, painting and nailing up lengths of 1"x4" went pretty well, especially with the assistance of a nailgun, and we got better at measuring and marking with practice.
 
That was good, because the quirky nature of our old house meant that we needed to use trim pieces of many different sizes and styles. It seemed that at every corner or edge we were inventing something new. We spent many painstaking weeks trotting up and down the stairs to the basement, where the miter saw lives. My favorite part of the job was trimming along the big oak posts and beams we’d installed. Readymade oak “cove,” as it was labeled at the store, needed only to be cut and nailed, with no priming or painting.
 
Best thing about trimming? Just as we’d hoped, it really made us feel like we had completed something. It was the icing on the cake. And we no longer have to gaze at our earlier shortcomings.

Tray chic

If you’re a true Recessionista, you know the benefits of repurposing. This month’s project, then, is tailor-made for you. What was once an old tray now becomes a kitschy—yet chic—bulletin board, complete with magnets, for all your last-minute reminders. The best part? It’s almost embarrassingly easy.—Caite White

Materials: One metal tray (found at Goodwill or a local thrift store); super glue; saw tooth picture hanger; nail.

Tool: Hammer.

Glue picture hanger to the back of the tray.

Hammer a nail into the wall.

Hang the tray on the nail.

Materials: Three big buttons; super glue; small, round magnets (found at any craft store).

Glue button onto a magnet.

Enjoy!

No surprise: Lynsie Steele, who owns the Waynesboro-based gourmet ice cream business Perfect Flavor, is a foodie. She owns four copies of Julia Child’s classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking—including one signed by Child. “I cried when Colin gave it to me,” she says.

That would be Colin Steele, Lynsie’s husband. Their shared passion for food would be evident to any visitor walking into the kitchen of their Albemarle house, even if the Steeles themselves were not in the room. But then, they’re very often in the room. They’ve made their mark on it through hours and hours of cooking there, and through a recent renovation that brought in bright Mediterranean colors and an updated look.

The pair met several years ago at Greenberry’s, where Lynsie worked and Colin was a customer. Even though they “never exchanged more than 10 words,” as Colin says, they noticed each other—Lynsie could feel Colin’s presence whenever he walked in, even when her back was turned.

Eventually, she left to start her business. Six months later, some friends invited her to a party, at the home of someone she didn’t know. That someone turned out to be Colin. And in a fleeting moment during the party, standing in the kitchen, they fell in love. “We started talking and it was like no one else existed,” says Lynsie. “It was like the world fell away at that moment,” Colin adds. Later, Lynsie was reaching to put crackers away in one of Colin’s cabinets and “had this flash of doing that motion hundreds and thousands of times my whole life.”

Now, the pair are weaving a life together and with Colin’s two children, 13-year-old Nick and 10-year-old Kate. “Our kitchen is the beating heart of our home,” says Colin. “We do all of our cooking, eating, and socializing here; we have our fights, we make our plans.”—Erika Howsare

Lynsie: “Our relationship started in the kitchen and it’s grown in the kitchen. Our first batch of ice cream was in here.”

Colin: “We catered our own engagement party. When we got married we had Lynsie’s friend Ingrid, who’s an amazing chef, cater it for us out of this kitchen. We got married at our house. It’s a really important house to us.

“The house was built in ‘66 when the kitchen was a different place culturally. It was all closed off. There were salmon-colored countertops and the rest was stark off-white. We knocked out [a former wall that’s now a breakfast bar] and got rid of the closet. There’s tons of soapstone all over the property so [making countertops out of it] was the first thing we did. I love it. You can beat the hell out of it, put hot pans on it…”

Lynsie: “My favorite part is a different knob for every door.”

Colin: “We pulled the cabinets down and painted them. I did the lighting. We got a nice stove and put in gas—a propane tank.”

Lynsie: “We don’t have a microwave. It’s not 30-minute meals. On a life level, we have trouble hearing people say ‘I don’t have time to cook.’ We both have demanding full-time jobs but we cook from scratch. If we have mac’n’cheese it’s all from scratch. Not only is it better for us health-wise but it’s a great education for the kids. We share responsibility really equally about cooking. The kids are in here and they’re like, ‘What can I do to help?’ They can make things that a lot of adults can’t make; they can make bread better than me. They can whip up a salad dressing, roast vegetables, chop an onion the right way. If we sleep in on the weekend we hear pots banging and they’re making breakfast.

“People ask us [if we’ll expand the kitchen]. But I think it’s the perfect size. All the drawers are full; everything has its place. We do need a bigger fridge, though. We get excited and cook for 10. We’re trying to get better about using leftovers.

“This was the family life I did not have growing up because my mother never cooked. We had frozen dinners, fast food. I used to watch ’50s sitcoms and wish it was like that. Here I am in 2009 and I’ve recreated that ’50s sitcom. My idea of a home and a family is good smells coming out of the house. Colin wanted the same thing—having a family in this environment where your existence revolves around food.”