Author: Jessica Luck

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Living

Crushing it: Why this year’s harvest could put Virginia wine on the national map

Grapes ferment in large tanks throughout the production facility before being loaded into a press. Photo by Paul Whicheloe

He pulls the golf cart onto the right side of the gravel path: “Let me show you some of this viognier.” Carrington King, vineyard manager at King Family Vineyards in Crozet, stops the driver of a Kawasaki golf cart heading in the opposite direction of the tasting room, toward the processing facility, loaded down with bright yellow crates called lugs, each filled with 25 pounds of grapes. The crates are marked with the name Roseland in black, the name of the farm and the name of a chardonnay/viognier/petit manseng blend the winery produces. King plucks a cluster of grapes and holds it up to the afternoon sunlight to show how these berries, part of a second harvest of viognier this season, are starting to raisin and dehydrate.

“See how it’s drying nicely, no rot? And that”—he points to a brown discoloration—“that’s a little sunburn, but it’s perfectly fine.”

He pops a few grapes in his mouth.

“Super, super sweet. A year like this you can do interesting projects like this.”

Steeped in history

Our region is part of the Monticello American Viticultural Area, the state’s oldest AVA, founded in 1984. It’s named for the estate of one of the biggest proponents of American winemaking, Thomas Jefferson, who dreamt his home would be surrounded by flourishing vineyards that could compete with the Old World style of winemaking. Jefferson enlisted the help of notable Italian winemaker Filipo Mazzei, who researched the local terroir and planted thousands of vines around Monticello and at farms nearby. Although the American Revolution cut down Jefferson’s dream, if he walked the Monticello Wine Trail today he might see something closely resembling his vision.

The Monticello AVA, which includes Charlottesville and the four surrounding counties of Albemarle, Greene, Nelson and Orange, is made up of 33 wineries and encompasses 800,000 acres in the area on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. About 30 varieties of grapes are grown here, with some of the most prominent being chardonnay, cabernet franc, merlot and our state grape, viognier.

Virginia winemaking saw a resurgence in 1976 with the founding of Barboursville Vineyards by Gianni Zonin, heir to a family wine enterprise in the Veneto region of Italy. In August, the Daily Meal, which gathers input from wine industry professionals and factors in awards and accolades from wine publications, named Barboursville No. 8 on its 101 Best Wineries in America list (Michael Shaps Wineworks came in at No. 57, Jefferson Vineyards at 94).

What makes it Virginia wine?

Vineyards and wineries in which 85 percent of the fruit comes from the Monticello AVA, with the remainder made up in local grapes from around the state, may enter the Monticello Wine Cup Awards each April.

Statewide regulations are a little less strict: 51 percent of the grapes have to come from Virginia land owned or leased by a winery for that wine to be considered a Virginia farm wine (the label will read American wine).

Some of the larger wineries operate under a different classification: 75 percent of their grapes must come from within the state. And the wines of any winery with 75 percent or more grapes grown in Virginia are labeled Virginia wines.

But Virginia is often overlooked when it comes to making the grade as a top wine region in America, with heavy-hitters like Napa and Sonoma, and New York’s Finger Lakes and Oregon’s Willamette Valley getting all the national headlines. In fact, some wineries in California produce as much wine as all of the wineries in Virginia together. Sadly, in early October, wildfires in Northern California killed 42 people and scorched 240,000 acres, destroying six wineries in the Napa and Sonoma regions.

Locally, we also battle Mother Nature: This fall’s lack of rain caused City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to issue mandatory water restrictions earlier in the month—no watering your lawn, take brief showers—to help offset the lower water supply levels (the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir fell to 42 percent capacity in just two months).

But our hot, dry autumn is actually good news for grape growers and vineyard owners. A drier season with more mild temperatures means a longer growing season, which allows the fruit to fully ripen on the vine. That means they are picked at the perfect point of ripeness, when the balance of sugar and acid levels for each variety is at its peak.

This year could not only be a banner year for Virginia winemakers in terms of grape yield, quality of the fruit and thus quality of the wine produced, it could be the year that puts Virginia wine on the map, many say.

Hearty harvest

Emily Pelton couldn’t believe what she was tasting. It was the end of July, and the first sample of sauvignon blanc grapes had just come in from the field at Veritas Vineyard & Winery in Afton, where Pelton is head winemaker.

She expected the berries in a random sampling to be tart, like they usually are, but instead Pelton was hit with a punch of sweetness: “Oh, that’s nice!” she thought.

That was one of the first signs that this year would be “a vintage in our books,” she predicts, up there with her favorite vintages in 2009 and 2010.

Although the area also experienced a drought in 2010, that one caused a surge in sugar in the grapes and fast ripening, which led to a smaller yield, Pelton says. This year, she says they hauled in 382.2 tons of grapes between the 50 acres under vine at her family’s winery and another 50 on farms within 30 minutes’ drive, which will make about 26,000 cases of wine (there are 12 bottles in a case). An average year would yield 15,000 to 20,000 cases for the vineyard.

Emily Pelton, head winemaker at Veritas, helped her parents, Andrew and Patricia Hodson, start the winery in 1999. Photo by Paul Whicheloe

Several factors contributed to this year’s bountiful harvest, says Joy Ting, production manager and head enologist at Michael Shaps Wineworks. For one, there was an early bud break in the spring, which generally makes winemakers and growers nervous, because one cold snap could wipe out their crops. But the milder temperatures held, translating into a longer grape-growing season. Most wineries started picking their first white grape crops at least a week early—Pelton says they started picking August 10, almost two weeks ahead of schedule. King Family picked its first chardonnay grapes for its sparkling wine August 3—a full week earlier than it’s ever harvested. In addition, wineries were still harvesting their last red varieties at normal times (early to mid-October), and were even able to do second-round pickings of certain varieties, such as King’s viognier.

The small amount of rain (our area dodged residual effects from Hurricanes Irma and Maria) meant the threat of disease such as rot was lessened, and it also allowed grapes with more concentrated flavor because the vines could focus on their job—growing fruit.

“I feel like the cabernet franc this year is some of the best cabernet franc that I’ve seen since I’ve been in the industry, about five years,” Ting says. The sauvignon blancs, viognier and rosé don’t need to go through malolactic fermentation, which reduces acidity, and will be released in late summer 2018. Most of the reds like cabernet sauvignon, tannat and petit verdot will continue to age in barrels for another year after being pressed and undergoing malolactic fermentation. They will be available in late 2019. “But I would hesitate to say that, only because I really feel like across the board the fruit was very high quality. From the very early whites all the way through the reds…for Virginia, I feel like it was a really wonderful growing season for us.”

Down to a science

As Carrington King passes by blocks of grapes, he points out their labeling system of using cattle tags on each row: red for merlot, pink for cabernet franc, yellow for petit manseng. We stop near a block of viognier, where people are hand-picking the second harvest of the grape, which will likely be used for a small-batch orange viognier (a method of winemaking in which white grapes are fermented on the skins like a red wine, creating an amber hue and giving the wine “nice tannin”). King’s brother’s father-in-law is out in the field, as is King’s mother, Ellen, picking alongside year-round employees. The vineyard is a family endeavor—David and Ellen King started the vineyard in 1998, and the couple’s three sons now help operate the 327-acre farm and vineyard.

King says all the grapes are handpicked—“It’s hard to find them, you have to hunt way up high,” he says. Gathering berries for sampling (which begins about a week after veraison, when the red grapes go from green to red and the white grapes start softening) is not a very scientific process: Someone grabs a Ziploc bag and walks along a path with a row of vines on either side. While looking straight ahead, he’ll reach in and grab some berries off a cluster, sometimes off the top, sometimes off the bottom, and ping-pong between the two rows to ensure a sampling of berries that get both morning and afternoon sun. By not looking at the berries you pick you’re ensuring as random a sample as possible–our eyes are naturally trained to flesh out the best-looking berries.

“When we’re sampling and trying to get tons per acres we do berry weights and cluster weights. On average our berry weight was lower than most years,” King says. “Typically a winemaker would love to have smaller berries, especially in a red where the ratio of juice to skin favors better color, better tannin, better extraction, because your ratio of juice to skin is higher on the skin side. Now, in central Virginia we don’t know what to call average because it’s been so variable every year.”

Employees of King Family Vineyards handpicked a second harvest of viognier grapes last week. Photo by Paul Whicheloe
King Family winemaker Matthieu Finot and vineyard manager Carrington King sort freshly picked grapes by hand. Photo by Paul Whicheloe

Once the sample comes in the process does turn scientific. The berries are crushed and the juice is strained into a beaker, and a pH meter and a refractometer measure the pH level and percent of soluble solids—the sugar level of the juice. As the sugar accumulates in the grape, the pH level increases. When the grapes are first tested the pH might be 2.8 or 2.9, increasing to 5.3 or 6, as it gets more basic (7 on the pH scale is neutral). But acid is good for wine—if it’s not acidic enough the wine won’t taste balanced. Chardonnay used in sparkling wine, for instance, is picked at a lower pH level of 3 to give the wine an “acidic tingle and freshness,” King says.

“When it gets closer to harvest (three weeks after veraison) we might take samples every few days, to try to say what’s the progression of sugar accumulation and how quickly is the acid going down, to try to find the right balance point of when it’s the right time to pick that grape,” Ting says. “And that’s one of the nice things about not having rain coming. We get to dial that in a little more carefully. If it’s going to rain, we’ll usually pick it before the rain, if we feel like it’s close to ripe. This year we would take samples, and we would almost be able to predict ‘well okay, it looks like it’s gaining such and such sugar per day, so it looks like this weekend it should be right where we want it to get’ and it would be right about where we expected it to be.”

Michael Shaps, which has about 80 acres of vineyard under lease or management in eight counties in the state for its own wines, also does contract winemaking for clients who bring in grapes from their own vineyards, and Ting says grapes from all over the state saw similar consistency this year. Shaps was the original winemaker at King Family, and was succeeded by Matthieu Finot in 2007.

Finot, whose lab is housed in the “newish” production facility at King Family (it’s their fourth harvest in the new building), echoes other winemakers in their love of this year’s crop with good acid, which keeps freshness in the wine and helps it age well.

“I’m very excited with the chardonnay, and the cab franc will just be wonderful this year: good ripening, good color, good tannin extraction,” he says. “I think it’s going to be a key vintage for what we do. We had some rain at the beginning of September, just to give us harvest, then it went back to nice, sunny and dry. On a whole I’m very happy with it. Usually when you talk to the winemaker at this time they’re all depressed…here, it’s like yay!”

Experimental thinking

When asked what her favorite varieties this season are, Pelton lets out a little yelp and squirms in her seat. It’s like asking her to pick a favorite child. She concedes that her sauvignon blanc was “killer” this year—not that the viognier wasn’t—but the sauvignon blanc stands out for its intense aromatics. You can pick out distinct notes of grapefruit and passionfruit, specifically pink grapefruit.

“You can really start diving in there and saying, ‘Ooh, I can smell this!’” she says.

For reds, she names both cabernet franc and petit verdot, but finally settles on cab franc.

King also names their cabernet franc and petit verdot as the red varieties he’s most excited about this year: “The chemistry was amazing,” he says.

King Family hauled in 240 tons of grapes this season from its more than 30 acres, which translates to 12,000 cases. King says demand is going up every year, as is production and new plantings: In 2016 they made 2,200 cases of Crosé, which lasted in their tasting room until July. The year before, they produced 1,800 cases that sold out in September. Each year they’re selling out earlier: They will bottle 4,000 cases of the 2017 vintage of the cult favorite rosé, a staple at summer polo matches at the vineyard.

Although King Family mainly sticks to its stable of wines, it created its small batch series four or five years ago to allow Finot to experiment, and in a banner year like this there’s a little more room to play.

“What’s really fun for us is making these little tiny batches to make very select bottlings,” King says.

Newly released this year for King Family is a wine called Mountain Plains, which was the original name of the family’s property when a 22-year-old Thomas Jefferson, then an attorney, signed the deed. The “super meritage” is a blend of petit verdot, merlot and cabernet franc—two barrels of each.

Currently being processed in King Family’s production facility is a whole cluster petit verdot–pressed with stems and all–much the way they would have done in the Old World when grapes were crushed underfoot. The stems give the wine more tannins, Finot says, but that can be risky. He points to a similar experiment a few years ago with a dry petit manseng that is now being served in the tasting room. When he first tried it he thought it was very harsh and acidic, out of balance, and he considered dumping it. But he kept aging it in barrels, and after two years he ended up with a drinkable wine.

“Now it’s one of the wines I really love,” he says.

Berry good

Although the viognier grape, which has intense, complex aromas of stone fruit with tropical notes, was named our state’s signature grape in 2011 (its thick skin can stand up to Virginia’s heat and humidity), it comes in as No. 6 in grape production totals from a 2016 commercial grape report prepared for the Virginia Wine Board. Here are our state’s top five:

1. Cabernet franc (929 tons)

2. Chardonnay (760 tons)

3. Merlot (620 tons)

4. Cabernet sauvignon (533 tons)

5. Petit verdot (495 tons)

Blenheim Vineyards, which made roughly 4,500 cases in 2016 and will bottle 8,000 cases this year, has added the albariño grape, which generally flourishes in Spain, to its portfolio. Ting points to Bleinheim and Afton Mountain Vineyards as early champions of the grape variety, good for making a fresh white wine. Kirsty Harmon, winemaker and general manager at Blenheim, says both the albariño and sauvignon blanc did well this year, and she made a little wine out of pinot noir, which she hasn’t been able to attempt in years past.

“I’d say that it is potentially the best harvest at Blenheim since I’ve been winemaker for 10 years,” she says.

And Veritas’ Pelton is experimenting too, but less with grapes and more on winemaking styles and the growing process. In 2014 she helped found the now statewide Winemakers Research Exchange in which wineries in Virginia can submit experiments for blind taste tests. Last year the exchange had 10 different tastings; Pelton submitted four or five projects.

The future of local wines

Today there are more than 260 wineries statewide compared with 193 in 2010. In 2015, the wine and grape industry brought in $1.37 billion, and wine production nearly doubled in that time frame from 439,500 cases to 705,200, according to the Virginia Wine Board’s 2015 Economic Impact Study.

Today’s wineries, with careful site selection for plantings and fruit monitoring along with evolving winemaking, are a far cry from the early days 40 years ago, King says. He says he’s often asked who his competitors are. His answer: He doesn’t have any. He says all the winemakers, vineyard owners and grape growers are friendly with one another and eager to share insights to create the best wine and customer experience they can.

“It’s a very intimate thing to sell something that you’re going to imbibe—it’s not tennis shoes or a belt buckle. It’s going in your body,” King says. “If someone has a bad experience somewhere, they might write off Virginia wine.”

Two weeks ago Pelton traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, for a luncheon hosted by Garden & Gun magazine. Only Virginia wines, including Veritas and Early Mountain Vineyards, were served, and guests didn’t know what they were drinking until Pelton walked around to each table to chat with the luncheon’s attendees. Their feedback? They were surprised by the wine’s origins, but they loved it.

“I would just like to point out we have such pride in our Southern food culture,” Pelton says. “I’d like people to start having the same [feeling] about their local brewery, winery and cidery.”

Categories
News

Sister, sister: Doula collective wants all moms to have positive birth experiences

Rachel Zaslow, left, started Sisters Keeper Collective two years ago, after seeing a need for doulas of color to help Latina and African-American women. Crystal Johnson, right, serves as the doula coordinator for the group, and Doreen Bonnet, middle, is a doula-in-training. Photo by Natalie Jacobsen.

Crystal Johnson chose to have her youngest child, Olivia, at home. Johnson lost a baby between the births of her fourth and fifth children, and she says her doctor at UVA kept telling her not to worry about her high blood pressure during the pregnancy. When she was at a doctor’s visit while pregnant with her fifth child, Elias, the doctor asked lots of questions, trying to figure out why she had lost the baby, whom she named Sadie. The staff kept asking Johnson if she was sure it had been her husband’s child. As Johnson and her husband, Roger Richardson, left the room, Johnson heard the doctor say, “It probably wasn’t his baby.”

Because her pregnancy with Elias was considered high risk and she had to get an ultrasound every other week, Johnson asked if her insurance would cover them. The doctor said she was certain Medicaid would cover the tests—Johnson says the doctor assumed that because she was black, and had multiple children, she was on Medicaid.

But Olivia’s birth was a completely different experience for Johnson. Rachel Zaslow and Debbie Wong served as her midwives, and Johnson called them at 3am last December 17 to let them know she was in labor. Olivia, her sixth child, came into the world at 7:21am. The midwives cleaned everything up while the rest of the kids got ready for school.

“I feel like women—especially black women in the community—have poor birth experiences over and over again,” says Johnson, who now serves as the doula coordinator for Sisters Keeper Collective, an organization of about 45 African-American and Latina doulas who serve as advocates for women of color before, during and after the birthing process. “And they don’t know what they have to do to get a better experience.”

Zaslow runs Mother Health International, a nonprofit that is dedicated to improving neonatal mortality rates in areas of the world where they are the highest. The organization has a birth center in Uganda where it trains midwives (health professionals who can deliver babies at birthing centers, homes or hospitals), and they have done work in countries such as Senegal and Haiti. Zaslow spends up to six months of the year outside of the U.S. working with the group.

Zaslow, who moved to Charlottesville from New York a couple of years ago with her family, says high neonatal mortality rates and high mortality rates for mothers during childbirth aren’t exclusive to other countries. She points to New York City, where black women are 10 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. According to the Midwives Alliance of North America, more than 16 percent of African-American babies born in 2013 were born preterm (less than 37 weeks), compared with 10 percent of white babies. MANA says that African-American women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women.

The Greater Charlottesville Improving Pregnancy Outcomes Workgroup, run by the Thomas Jefferson Health District, works to reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes in Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson counties. The group, which includes a variety of stakeholders in the health care field, meets monthly.

In 2014, 2,638 babies were born in the Thomas Jefferson Health District: 2,003 white, 360 black and 275 other races. The department of health calculates five-year rolling averages for infant mortality, and says the total number of infant deaths is small each year (Charlottesville, for example, experienced no black infant deaths in 2013 and 2014). Nevertheless, a disparity among the races is evident, Zaslow says. The infant death rate in Charlottesville (per 1,000 births) from 2009-2013 was 12.7 for black babies and 4.8 for white babies. In Albemarle, it was 5.9 for black babies and 3.0 for white babies.

There are many layers to the root cause of this disparity, Zaslow says, but a key component is that this difference exists across class lines. An African-American woman who eats healthy and sees the best doctors still has a much higher chance of dying in childbirth than a white woman, which points to racism and oppression as the underlying causes, she says.

When Zaslow asked local members of the African-American community about their birth experiences, she heard the same phrases over and over again: “We don’t get treated fairly in Charlottesville. We don’t get taken seriously.”

“Especially when you’re pregnant, it’s a very vulnerable time and if your doctor says your baby is going to die unless you do this, there’s a lot of room for medical power,” Zaslow says. “And in the medical profession, if you don’t think your patient is going to understand what you say, it’s easier to just give a blanket statement…instead of explaining ‘here are the benefits and here are the risks’ and now you have a choice.”

In an attempt to make the process less traumatic, a Sisters Keeper doula will meet with the parents a couple of times before the birth to discuss what to expect, talk about what choices the couple has and help train the mom to ask her health care team questions to better understand her options—and know she is allowed to say no.

“Trauma is intergenerational,” Zaslow says. “If a mom has a negative birth experience and feels shame or hurt or not listened to, that impacts how she mothers; it impacts her ability to bond with her baby; it impacts her ability to make medical choices for the baby. That leads to all kind of ripple effects, in the child and the community’s life.”

Doreen Bonnet helped Eunice Waituika through the delivery of Haniel, now 3 months old. Waituika’s husband is in the Air Force and had to leave two weeks before his second child was born.

Family ties

When Zaslow, who is a trained midwife as well as doula, started talking with other doulas and midwives in Charlottesville, she noticed a trend: Everyone was white. The people she talked to expressed frustration with wanting to help women of color, but didn’t know how to reach them.

“I started looking at these issues of trust that are apparent within the health care system itself,” Zaslow says. “For women to have trusted community-based birth partners who look like them, who can understand their experiences firsthand and who believe them and trust them [is key].”

Sisters Keeper Collective, which falls under the umbrella organization of Mother Health International, held its first training of 15 African-American and Latina doulas in April 2015, after Zaslow got the word out and visited different community spaces. But they quickly discovered one of the barriers to reaching their intended community was the word “doula,” which was unfamiliar to most people of color. They decided to call themselves birth sisters, to evoke the idea of a family member. Doulas not only provide information to families but act as emotional support, including helping to coordinate child care for siblings while the mother goes into labor, guiding her through breathing and visualization exercises during the birth and making sure she has the right resources after the baby is born, such as breastfeeding information.

Another barrier was the cost of the service, not just for clients but for the birth sisters themselves, who had to be on call and take time off work or find child care for their own kids when mothers went into labor. A five-year $500,000 grant, the organization’s largest, has come from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation. The money pays the birth sisters a stipend for each birth they attend, and the doula services are free for African-American women who are Medicaid eligible. Other community foundation grants cover all women of color, and the collective also allows women to pay on a sliding scale.

Elizabeth Moore trained as a doula when she was 22. She’d always loved the sacredness of birth and supporting women through the process. When the Charlottesville native moved back to town in 2013, she started gathering a list of doulas who might be interested in offering their services pro bono to members of the refugee community (Moore works with the International Rescue Committee’s New Roots gardening program). Moore coordinated the volunteer doulas, informally called the Charlottesville Volunteer Doula Network. A couple of years ago she and Zaslow began talking about ways to combine forces. When Moore receives a referral from area organizations such as Jefferson Area CHIP, IRC and UVA, she’ll either send them to Sisters Keeper or connect a mother-to-be with a doula within her network; sometimes a doula from each group is assigned so they can both be on call.

Moore says they help with about 10 births a year, and that many of the refugee moms are having their first babies, which means heightened anxiety. A lot of the time a doula will do a pre-birth hospital tour for the women, so they can see the rooms and ask questions about paperwork for birth certificates, for instance. Often, because the family is new to the country and doesn’t have a support system and the father must care for other children, the doula role becomes even more important.

“Every birth is so, so special,” Moore says. “I remember the last one I was at was with one of the Sisters Keeper doulas, so we were both there and the father was with the kids. Afterward, he was very emotional and said, ‘Because you two were here, [it was like] her mother and sister and aunt and everyone was here to support her.’”

Latoria White was part of the initial birth sister training for the Sisters Keeper Collective two years ago. She had informally served as a doula during the birth of her niece and nephew, and realized how important that advocate role was as she helped her sister voice her decision to deliver vaginally even though she’d had an emergency cesarean section with her first baby.

“Recently I had asked my mom about her experience birthing me. My father was an absent father and she said she was in the birthing room alone,” says White. “So that was kind of full circle for me, now wanting to be there because no one should have to go through that experience alone.”

One of the biggest obstacles for White, who has a master’s in psychology and worked as a rural services adult outreach advocate at Sexual Assault Resource Agency and was a casework counselor at Shelter for Help in Emergency, has been helping families from historically marginalized populations learn more about their rights. She wants to help women take charge and make choices for themselves.

“I want moms to feel comfortable asking questions and let them know this is a reciprocal relationship,” White says. “I want them to know I’m learning from them as much as they’re learning from me. Each birthing experience I learn something about women, birth work and also something about myself.”

White loves the relationships and rapport she builds with the families she assists (she’s been a part of seven to eight births total), and she recently helped guide Mustafa and Salma Subhan, who are from Afghanistan, in navigating the American birthing process. In Afghanistan, fathers are not allowed in the rooms when a baby is born, and Mustafa says being present for the birth of his daughter, Kawsar, was such a special moment. He says he is grateful for the outstanding health care services he and his family received at UVA, as well as the care and respect from hospital staff for his wife and daughter.

And Latoria is “more than a doula,” Mustafa says. She not only helped the couple with advice before the birth and with birthing techniques, but she stayed with Salma at the hospital while Mustafa cared for their other children. She has also met with the family several times since the birth.

“Latoria is now a very close friend,” Mustafa says. “I respect her very much and am thankful for what she did for my family.”

Mustafa and Salma Subhan say their doula, Latoria White, became a close friend after the birth of their daughter, Kawsar, on June 27.

Lasting impression

“Do you want to see a photo of him?” Doreen Bonnet asks. She holds up her phone and scrolls through a couple of photos of a newborn baby—her first as a doula-in-training.

Bonnet is sitting in the living room of Eunice Waituika’s home, where she’s been visiting with the family and softly rocking 2-month-old Haniel. Haniel, which means “God’s grace,” is a good baby who hardly ever cries, according to his mother.

Bonnet, who works as a business analyst for a company that makes clay tennis courts, never thought she’d be doing this kind of work (each doula is partnered with another doula/midwife for three births before she can do one on her own), and she says her first birth experience was amazing. She met with Waituika (who immigrated from Kenya with her husband and young daughter in 2016) three times before the birth, for which birth sister/midwife Wong was also present. In these sessions they got to know one another, and Waituika talked about how nervous she was to give birth in an unfamiliar country. And Waituika’s first birth had not been a great experience—she was alone in a Kenyan hospital.

Waituika called her birth sisters at about 9am on May 19, and Haniel was born at 9:01 that evening. During labor, Waituika and Bonnet walked up and down the hospital hallway together, talking about Waituika’s home country and how she met her husband.

“That’s something beautiful, to witness the transition of a mother,” Bonnet says. “To see her that morning and see what a mother goes through, that transition that happens to give birth is amazing. I had to fight tears the whole time…people say it’s a miracle and it really is.”

Waituika says she couldn’t have done it without her birth sisters, because her husband had to leave for Air Force training two weeks before she gave birth.

“I just kept saying thank you to them because I don’t know that I would have made it without them. They really helped me—I was almost giving up,” Waituika says. “They were breathing with me and it made it easy. I wouldn’t feel as much alone in this when we would breathe in together. They carried the pain that I had. It was really nice.”

Future outcomes

Diane Sampson, a prenatal education coordinator with UVA’s Women’s Health Services and member of the Improving Pregnancy Outcomes group, refers patients who come to her clinics to the collective if she thinks they can benefit from their services.

“I think all women need to be emotionally supported in labor, but particularly with hospitals, labor and delivery can be a really scary place,” she says, “even if you feel empowered and connected. It’s really nice to have someone there who loves birth, who understands what women are going through and who acts like a sister or an aunt or grandmother through it. And I think there’s a particular need for women of color.”

“My vision for Sisters Keeper Collective is that when a black person in Charlottesville gets pregnant, the first thing they think and know is that they have a birth sister.” Rachel Zaslow

Sampson says nurses and physicians love working with doulas, because it strengthens the whole health care team for a patient. UVA added a midwifery primary care center in October 2015.

“Both models—the home visiting that CHIP does and the work the doulas do supporting families—both of these models have good evidence that they work and lead to healthier births and better relationships, better parenting in the long run,” says Jefferson Area CHIP Executive Director Jon Nafziger.

White says she hopes the collective continues to train as many doulas and that it attracts midwives who are part of marginalized communities. And Moore says although doulas have become more common in the last 10 years, there’s still work to be done, with “a huge desire to make that accessible to everyone, not just the wealthier middle class.”

On a larger scale, Zaslow says she hopes that a sense of trust and feeling safe within the African-American community will emerge over time and that needed resources, such as black moms meet-ups and pregnancy support groups, will help African-American women throughout their entire journeys as mothers.

“My vision for Sisters Keeper Collective is that when a black person in Charlottesville gets pregnant, the first thing they think and know is that they have a birth sister,” Zaslow says.

Categories
Living

LIVING Picks: Week of August 16-22

File photo

Family
Night Sky Festival
Monday, August 21

This festival includes various events from Friday, August 18 to Monday, August 21, culminating in a solar eclipse viewing at 2:40pm Monday. $25 per vehicle park entry, good for seven days. Various times. Shenandoah National Park, 3655 U.S. Hwy. 211 E. (540) 999-3500.

Nonprofit
5K & 10K Run for Autism
Sunday, August 20

Enjoy a run on the paved trail through Riverview Park, with registration proceeds benefiting the Organization for Autism Research. $25-45, 8:45am for 10K, 9am for 5K. Riverview Park, 298 Riverside Ave. 970-3333.

Food & Drink
Summer Harvest Class
Wednesday, August 16

Hone your pickling skills in this hands-on class. Enjoy a meal, then take home your own Mason jar of freshly pickled produce. Reservations required. $75, 6-9pm. Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards, 5022 Plank Rd., North Garden. 202-8063.

Health & Wellness
Face the Forest 5K
Saturday, August 19

Sign up in a group or individually to jump over obstacles and splash through the mud in this 3.1-mile race through the plantation grounds. Money raised benefits the Poplar Forest children’s programs and the YMCA. $35-40, 8am-noon. Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, 1542 Bateman Bridge Rd., Forest. 525-1806.

Categories
News

Photo gallery: Unite the Right rally, counterprotest

Photos from before, during and after the Unite the Right rally and counterprotest Saturday, August 12. Photos by Hawkins Dale

Photos taken during the Unite the Right rally and counterprotest at Emancipation Park, as well as the alt-right gathering at McIntire Park, and demonstrations at Justice Park and the Downtown Mall area today. Photos by Eze Amos, Lisa Provence, Jessica Luck, Hawkins Dale and Aaron Cohen.

 

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Categories
Uncategorized

Taking a stand: Steve Rubin’s fight for civil rights

Steve Rubin peers into his 1961 Rambler Classic the morning after his car was firebombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan in New Orleans.

The first thing Steve Rubin heard was not the wailing sirens of a fire truck, but the shouts of his house guest, actor Bob Costley, alerting Rubin his car was on fire. Rubin had expected this—he routinely checked underneath his car for a bomb before going to his teaching job at Louisiana State University New Orleans, but he admits he “didn’t even know what a bomb would look like.” And he had moved his son, Joshua, out of the second floor apartment’s front bedroom so that Joshua and his sister, Jennifer, shared the middle bedroom, away from the screened-in porch. Rubin, then president of the New Orleans chapter of the ACLU, had been receiving harassing phone calls at home from people he presumed were Ku Klux Klan members. 

It was March 1965, when Rubin stepped out of his house at about 1am to see his 1961 off-white Rambler Classic engulfed in flames. The next morning, a friend of Rubin’s, Ed Holander with the Congress of Racial Equality, who never went anywhere without his camera, snapped a photo of Rubin staring through the hollowed out car, now just a torched metal frame with tattered insides. Eventually three men—all members of the KKK—were arrested for setting fire to a church in town that same night, about 20 minutes before Rubin’s car was set ablaze. Rubin says he knows they were the same men who firebombed his car.

In typical Rubin fashion, he laughs a little at the memory, saying he was glad to get rid of that car, which “couldn’t outrun a Volkswagen.” He didn’t miss it, but finding an insurance company that would cover someone who was now the target of car torchings was another story. When Rubin visited nearby towns on ACLU business, he had to borrow a friend’s black Thunderbird so he was sure he could outdrive the KKK members who pursued him to the town’s borders.

Even with multiple threats and nonstop harassment—he entered his locked office at LSU on three occasions to find a business card from the Klan letting him know it had been there—Rubin never wavered in his dedication to civil rights and helping those in need. It was something that was unavoidable to him; something he had to do.

“I certainly wasn’t important to the civil rights movement though it was, and it changed my life forever,” he says.

Civil matters

Steve Rubin, 83, grew up on Long Island, New York, in a white middle-class liberal household. His father, Max. J. Rubin, served as president of the New York City Board of Education, and was an early outspoken critic of funding public education through real estate taxes, because it meant the suburban schools would be well off, and inner city schools would be poor. There’s a photo of Max Rubin and Bobby Kennedy together on the wall downstairs in Rubin’s study in his Charlottesville home, where other black-and-white images from the era, including the photos of Rubin’s burned car and one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hang. As Rubin takes the King photo off the wall to see if a date is written on the back, he points out a poignant Do Not Enter sign, just visible in the background. These photos and other pieces of memorabilia, a cover of Jet magazine with one of Rubin’s mentors, civil rights activist Mary Hamilton, on the front, to buttons from groups such as Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Congress of Racial Equality and the NAACP, are all the remnants he has from his time with the ACLU during the Civil Rights Movement.

Civil rights activist Mary Hamilton is one of Rubin’s idols. When she was addressed in court as “Mary,” she insisted she be addressed as “Miss Hamilton,” the same courtesy given to white people. She spent a month in jail for contempt of court, and the Supreme Court decision backing her changed courtroom procedures in the South.
Civil rights activist Mary Hamilton is one of Rubin’s idols. When she was addressed in court as “Mary,” she insisted she be addressed as “Miss Hamilton,” the same courtesy given to white people. She spent a month in jail for contempt of court, and the Supreme Court decision backing her changed courtroom procedures in the South. Courtesy subject

Rubin’s foray into civil rights began almost immediately upon his move to New Orleans in 1960 with his wife, Gail, who was pregnant at the time with their daughter, Jenny, and their young son, Joshua. Rubin had been working as a professor in Delaware for two years—his first job after graduating from Carleton College and NYU—when one of his Carleton professors suggested he study at Tulane University. Rubin received a scholarship to Tulane and pursued his Ph.D. in English (though he never finished it) while teaching at LSU’s New Orleans campus.

He remembers well the moment his life changed forever. He had been invited to a meeting of the Congress of Racial Equality and says the evening “stunned” him. One of the young women in attendance asked Ronnie Moore, a civil rights activist who was not more than 18 at the time, if he would march with them the next Saturday. Moore, without hesitation, said he would be marching on Monday in a little town south of Baton Rouge called Plaquemine, and he knew he was going to be beaten there and he would have to go to the hospital. But he said if he was out of the hospital on Friday, he would march with them the next day.

“What struck me was that nobody thought this was a remarkable answer, but I thought it was a remarkable answer,” Rubin says. “The very ordinariness of this anticipated experience…I went home and said, ‘Gail, I’ve got to do something.’”

That something began with Rubin working with the NAACP, for which he led a crusade to get the publisher of the morning and evening newspapers to stop identifying the race of black men who had committed crimes while not identifying white perpetrators. Rubin argued you wouldn’t identify someone as Catholic, so why include their race? The answer he received was that they were doing girls of New Orleans a favor by printing addresses and races of those accused of crimes because “a lot of them didn’t know where their friends lived.” Rubin fired a note back saying the response was “pure vaudeville.” And though he respected the work of the NAACP, which mainly focused on desegregation in schools, Rubin wanted to join an organization involved more directly on the front lines—he never could shake the image of a battered Moore marching. In the fall of 1963, Rubin joined the board of the New Orleans ACLU chapter, “a tiny group” then, became its president in 1965 and served as a national ACLU board member from 1965-68.

Justice for all

One of Rubin’s most vivid memories from his time as ACLU president was of a march from Franklinton, Louisiana, to Bogalusa, a town 19 miles away. He can’t recall the date of the march or how many people were involved, but what he does remember is the black woman who walked in front of him, with ankles so swollen he knew each step was excruciating.

“I could see that every step had to be painful for her, she was ahead of me, and she did those 19 miles,” he says. “I would get so moved by that.”

She was his reason to keep going–on that day and many others.

Rubin’s friend, George Thomas, who taught photography at MIT, took this photo of Dr. Martin Luther King in Boston. The photo has never been officially published, and Rubin has a couple of prints. Courtesy subject
Rubin’s friend, George Thomas, who taught photography at MIT, took this photo of Dr. Martin Luther King in Boston. The photo has never been officially published, and Rubin has a couple of prints. Courtesy subject

He participated in several marches and protests over the years, and learned the words to many spirituals that served as a mantra during the demonstrations. After moving to Charlottesville in 1993, Rubin got to see Odetta perform at the Gravity Lounge off the Downtown Mall—the last time he had heard her sing was at a CORE/ACLU event in New Orleans. He keeps a recording of Odetta singing one of the many hymns that became the soundtrack to the Civil Rights Movement on his desktop computer, and says he “has to hear it every so often.”

Years ago, three white farmers from upstate Louisiana visited Rubin’s tiny ACLU office in New Orleans, which was certainly not a normal sight. He said when they looked at each other he could see it in their faces: He was the enemy. The men told him they wanted their children to go to school but their children didn’t have birth certificates; in those days birth certificates were required to attend school because race was listed on them. They were afraid someone might say their children weren’t white, and thus they would not be able to attend all-white schools. Rubin called his friend Lolis Elie, a partner in the firm of Collins, Douglas and Elie and an eventual assistant district attorney for the city. Rubin laughs at how the white men initially were unsure about accepting help from this African-American lawyer, but that the suit on their behalf resulted in the removal of race on birth certificates in Louisiana.

Rubin remained friends with Elie’s family throughout his life. Elie’s wife, Geraldine, and daughter, Migel, have visited the Rubins at their summer home in Nova Scotia—where Migel ate crabs for the first time. And among the hundred or so photos on the Rubins’ refrigerator is one from a visit from Elie’s son, Lolis Eric Elie, who attended graduate school at UVA. Lolis Eric is wearing a white apron while stirring a big pot of his family’s signature gumbo that takes nine hours to make.

Charlottesville resident Steve Rubin was president of the New Orleans ACLU from 1965-68. Photo by Jackson Smith
Charlottesville resident Steve Rubin was president of the New Orleans ACLU from 1965-68. Photo by Jackson Smith

In the ’60s, part of Rubin’s job was to visit potential plaintiffs at their home on the ACLU’s behalf. During one visit to Bogalusa, he planned to speak with a family about desegregating the local hospitals—at that time black citizens had to drive to New Orleans, 75 miles away.

He pulled up to the house only to find all the neighbors camped out on their roofs holding rifles. Someone handed him a .22, and he thought, “What the hell am I doing on the roof with a loaded rifle? I’m not going to pull the trigger.” The night before, someone had shot into the house, and the neighbors were ready to retaliate. Thankfully, Rubin says he was never put to the test.

Rubin wrote multiple letters to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights John Doar, about numerous incidents that had occurred in Bogalusa (Rubin says it was common knowledge half of the local police force were Klansmen). In one letter, Doar responded that his office had brought a suit prohibiting discrimination at six restaurants in Bogalusa. While true, it wasn’t enough for Rubin, and he persisted in his correspondence. Years later a suit was brought against the Bogalusa Police Department—a victory.

Twice Rubin was chased from Bogalusa by KKK members after being there on ACLU business. They pursued him all the way to the causeway leading to New Orleans. The whole time he was driving he hoped he didn’t get a flat tire; or if he was in Elie’s car he anticipated how the car would swerve to the left if he hit the brakes.

The effects of Rubin’s involvement trickled down to his family. When his daughter called out “Good morning!” to a certain neighbor, he kept walking without acknowledging the little girl. That broke Rubin’s heart. And it got to the point where he couldn’t let his children answer the home phone, because the person on the other end would tell them, “I killed your daddy today,” or they would detail the route the children took to school. But both Rubin and his wife were steadfast in their part in the Civil Rights Movement and refused to stop being involved, despite threats. Their phone was tapped, too, they knew. On one occasion, Rubin received a call to be at a certain street at 3pm for a demonstration. When he got there, police cars had already surrounded the area.

“Yes, I worried about Gail and the kids but I think I did the right thing,” Rubin says. “I’m very grateful that I was there, no matter how minor a role or participant. I would have hated to be a spectator, because it was, after all, one of the major events in our lifetime in America. I was always grateful I wasn’t in Ohio, where I might have joined organizations but it was pretty white bread.”

In 1968, a lawyer who also served on the national board of directors for the ACLU flew to New Orleans from New York City to try to convince Rubin to become head of the national ACLU, which Rubin calls a “shocking” invitation. The man who accepted the position, Aryeah Neier, was “the right guy for the job,” Rubin says.

“When I left the movement I didn’t even want to read about it—I couldn’t,” he says. “I went 10 to 15 years without reading a word, unless somebody sent me a clipping. Now I’m greatly happy to have done it.”

Rubin went on to chair the English department at the State University of New York at Oneonta, the city where he and his family lived for 15 years. He and Gail moved to Charlottesville after many visits to see their best friends from their civil rights days in New Orleans.

“I was the winner here,” Rubin says. “I came away from the movement not having contributed a great deal, but it contributed a great deal to me. And I knew it when we left New Orleans.”

Finding a family

When you enter Mike Mallory’s office, one of the first things you notice is the “Steve Rubin wall” in the back right corner. As an homage to the longtime Ron Brown Scholar Program volunteer, Mallory, president and CEO of the nonprofit, has put up not just framed photographs of Rubin, including him with his torched car and an article written about the incident, but also photos of Rubin’s family—one of his father, Max, with his arm around Bobby Kennedy—the same one in Rubin’s study—and a photo of Rubin’s daughter, who was killed in 1984 in Togo, Africa, while on a Peace Corps assignment.

Rubin’s father, Max J. Rubin, right, served as president of the New York City Board of Education, and Bobby Kennedy used him as a resource on public education, especially regarding funding.
Rubin’s father, Max J. Rubin, right, served as president of the New York City Board of Education, and Bobby Kennedy used him as a resource on public education, especially regarding funding. Courtesy subject

The wall looks more like something you’d find in someone’s living room, which is fitting—Rubin, who began volunteering with the program in 1998, a year after it was established, is like family. Mallory says he and Rubin connected instantly when they were introduced by a mutual friend who told Mallory, “You just have to meet this guy.” Rubin opened up about what happened to his daughter, and that he had videotapes of the CBS special the network ran after her death, and Mallory said he would have them made into DVDs to preserve them.

“We just felt connected—it can’t be really explained,” Mallory says. “He’s a kind fellow and he would do anything for anybody, but I needed a lot [at that time].”

Again, Rubin jumped right in. Alongside a staff of just three at the time, Rubin volunteered as much as he could—up to 30 hours a week—serving as a reader of scholarship applications. Each year, approximately 25 African-American students across the country are awarded a $40,000 college scholarship through the Ron Brown Scholarship Program. Out of a field of 5,000 to 7,000 applications, Rubin and his team of readers would whittle the candidates down to the top 200. The 175 students who don’t receive scholarships are called Ron Brown Captains, and remain in touch with program graduates and mentors about opportunities for furthering their careers. Mallory, who has saved his calendars since 1987, can recall every Ron Brown Scholar Program recipient, and knows where they are now and what they’ve accomplished; continuing mentorship is a cornerstone of the program, as the scholars go through college and start careers/internships.

Rubin’s last official program title was “editor”—no correspondence was released without him having read it first. His most recent project began two years ago, when he laid the foundation for a book tracing the organization’s 20-year history, which will be released in April (a retired UVA professor took over editing the book when Rubin had to step away from volunteering after his health declined).

During days when Rubin came in to volunteer, Mallory had to institute the three-minute rule. He was only allowed to speak to each staff member or volunteer he passed for three minutes, otherwise, he’d never get any work done.

“He’s one of my favorite people!” exclaims Kiya Jones, a 1999 graduate of the Ron Brown Scholar Program who now leads the organization’s high school Guided Pathways Support program. For years she shared an office with Rubin, who told stories from his civil rights days.

“He talked about how he had done all this civil rights work in Mississippi and Louisiana, and then I later moved to Mississippi and got to travel a lot in Louisiana and I just don’t see how he could have done that,” she says. “Just incredible stories, not just how he survived there back then—it’s hard enough to survive in those places today— [but why] he chose to be there and do that work for so long. And, he has good taste in barbecue.”

Jen Fariello has been the Ron Brown Scholar Program’s official photographer since it started. She sees Rubin every year at the annual awards ceremony, and says she loves how he has become a mentor to all the incoming scholars and program participants—they know they have someone in their corner.

“The thing that always struck me about that is they’re the kindest, happiest, most positive and uplifting people I have ever met,” Fariello says about Rubin and his wife, who accompanies him to the ceremonies. As for Rubin himself, “He would give you the shirt off his back.”

Well, he did almost that one year, when one of the scholarship winners, who went on to attend Princeton and now works at Amazon, forgot his dress shoes. Right before the ceremony, Rubin gave the student his own shoes to wear.

“These people in this program, they transform the lives of these young boys and girls in a way unlike any other scholarship program; it’s not only money, but giving them mentorship, family and structure,” Fariello says. “The program is Steve getting to save a life all over again.”

Fariello is referring to the tragic death of Rubin’s daughter, Jennifer. Jennifer had been on a Peace Corps assignment in the village of Defale, in the West African country of Togo, for a year when she was murdered by a villager she had befriended. The woman, Giselle, had stolen some items from Jennifer, and instead of going to the police, Jennifer told the girl’s father, who was also her landlord. Giselle and two other men were charged with Jennifer’s murder—at the time the ninth killing of a Peace Corps volunteer in the program’s 23-year history. Rubin said in an article in the New York Times that despite feeling lonely, his daughter wrote to her parents that she knew she was exactly where she needed to be, helping women build more efficient stoves out of local materials, such as mud. The Rubins received many letters that the Peace Corps forwarded—and they answered every single one.

One day the Peace Corps called and said they had Togo on the other line. Two of Jennifer’s killers had been caught (the third fled to Ghana), and the court wanted to know if the Rubins wanted them executed—it would happen immediately. Rubin looked across the room at his wife, and said into the phone, “Tell the court we do not request they be executed.”

“It saved our lives,” Rubin said. “That was a stroke of good fortune to be given the option and not to have sought vengeance. We had subsequently thought we might not ever have been normal again had that not happened.”

Categories
Arts

Remembering the titans of the entertainment world

The entertainment world will never be—or look—the same again. Here, locals share memories of some of the great talents we lost this year.

Editor’s note: This list was made before the deaths this week of George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. 

David Bowie

I didn’t really know him. We weren’t friends and I never touched him (though I wanted to), but David Bowie touched me—mind, heart and soul. He was the soundtrack of my teens and then my 20s, the musical background of my life with my boyfriend, and then husband.

We didn’t really fit in, my husband and I. He was a long-haired musician, and I was a rebel with a thousand causes. We were in a small town in Virginia that leaned to the right. Bowie gave us permission, in his lyrics, dress and actions, to be ourselves. To embrace being different. We reveled in it, spewing out his lyrics like we were chanting religion. We saw him twice in concert—saved and saved until we had enough money to buy tickets. I wore a white T-shirt that had an Aladdin Sane flash down the front, completely hand-beaded by me—each bead a prayer to the man who made us feel like heroes. He was (and still is) mine.

On the day he died, a big part of me went with him. I’m still reeling from the shock of it, but I always knew he was only visiting.

Jann White, artist

Prince

The loss of Prince Rogers Nelson marks the end of an era in the music industry. Prince was the last master of 20th-century popular music and performance. This tradition included many great multi-talents like Cab Calloway, T-Bone Walker and James Brown. Prince was able to master all of the facets of performance, such as superlative singing, dancing, audience interaction, showmanship and soul. He was also a spectacular songwriter/guitarist, arguably one of music’s best guitarists. But Prince’s greatest contribution was his music business acumen that allowed him to eventually own and control the fruits of his prodigious labors. 2016 took numerous talents from our realm, but Prince is the one for whom I felt the most loss…like a close family member.

Jamal Millner, musician

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen was the dark soul of our half of the century. Our sins. Our redemption. Our light and shadow. A million candles burning for the help that never came. I first found him in Robert Altman’s mournful, muddy, opium-soaked McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Then, there was his retreat into monastic Zen Buddhism and reinvention as a moody, gravelly god of frank pessimism. He was our man at closing time, dancing to the end of love from Manhattan to Berlin. He was our dark hope and our hallelujah. But everybody knows the good guys lost. In 2016, that’s how it goes.

Brian Wimer, executive director of IX Art Park

Photo by Jack Looney
Photo by Jack Looney

Sharon Jones

Certainly there was passion from us at the Satellite Ballroom, very excited, enthusiastically jumping at the opportunity for a show with Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (every time), just as there was when talking it up with customers at Plan 9 or with anyone who would listen. The band was incredibly tight, studied and together. The Dap-Kings were enough for a show unto themselves, but when Sharon hit the stage, we were putty. It was over. Hyperbole is warranted.

However, the true beauty in her performance was the democracy. We were part of the show. Sharon made sure the show was a party for everyone. Her gifts were extraordinary as a singer; her charisma was hard to chart as a performer. It was a true joy to work six shows with them, the last one being May 29, 2014, as part of her triumphant return from cancer before the relapse and almost 10 years since our first show with them.

Danny Shea, Starr Hill Presents promotion and booking

Muhammad Ali

We often think of a boisterous, “I am the greatest!” Muhammad Ali when we remember him. He told himself and the world this statement to hold himself up under the weight of many challenges; whether it was Joe Frazier, the U.S. government, racism or Parkinson’s.

We know, however, that the power of his presence was steeped in his conviction that there was something greater than himself. Muhammad’s choices were rooted in this faith and the love he shared with everyone around him no matter what religion, race or socioeconomic status. When I was a child he would read passages of the Koran to me knowing that I was not a Muslim but always talking about how to treat oneself and others. The readings, but more importantly his actions, embody his principles of unity. Muhammad was larger than life. We all lost an inspiration and a teacher.

Jennifer Tweel Kelly, Muhammad Ali family friend

Ralph Stanley

When Dr. Ralph Stanley died, we lost a national treasure. There is no other way to put it. He had a wealth of knowledge of times gone by and was representative of a golden age of music that can never be repeated. He was one of the pillars upon which the genre of bluegrass was built. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with him, but the time I did spend with him, he made me feel comfortable. He welcomed me into his home and willingly shared memories of his long and well-lived life. He was an inspiration. He was a giant, and all of us Americana/country musicians stand in his shadow.

Jim Waive, musician

Florence Henderson

In her five years on “The Brady Bunch,” Florence Henderson played the mom we’re supposed to want: preternaturally calm, dippily sincere, 100 percent happy making her home. Meanwhile, in real life she went on a date with the actor who played her oldest son, was a devotee of hypnotherapy thanks to her second husband and, at 76, took fifth place on “Dancing With the Stars.” Florence could front with those shagtastic golden locks and perfect white teeth, but while she was serious about a career that spanned six decades, she never took herself too seriously. Truth is stranger, and way more fun, than fiction.

Miller Susen, actress and mom

Earl Hamner

Earl Hamner, gentleman, storyteller, citizen of the world, has moved on. We will miss his warm, Chesapeake accent, assuring us that all is right with the world, telling stories of the people he knows, in the land he loved, a most humble and generous soul. When things seem most bleak, the opening lines of The Homecoming come to mind: “It was a night of miracles, of great changes…Anything is possible if you believe it can be.” Thank you, Earl!

Boomie Pedersen, artistic director of The Hamner Theater

Alan Rickman

I was 12 years old and obsessed with the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, my introduction to Alan Rickman. I watched it every weekend, the VHS tape soon ruined. A storyteller, Rickman prized the trust of his audience. He became such a perfect conduit of wild imagination, from Galaxy Quest to the Harry Potter films, that we believed him. Rickman courted us as the dry-humored romantic. His projects My Name is Rachel Corrie in 2005 and A Little Chaos in 2014 celebrated the voice of women. We lost a truth-teller of the human spirit, adamant for our participation.

Christian Anderson, actress

Publicity photo

Leon Russell

In 2015, LOCKN’ had the privilege of pairing Leon Russell with Tedeschi Trucks, Dave Mason, Chris Robinson and others, and reuniting him with 17 of the 23 original 1971 Mad Dogs & Englishmen members. Leon was failing—the wheelchair, the cane, the skin pallor—but the voice and the mastery of his piano was intact. He thanked me for getting Joe Cocker’s rep to agree to a Mad Dogs & Englishmen reunion and not throwing in the towel when Joe died. I said, “That’s ridiculous, we both know Derek Trucks carried the water,” because Derek had.

The rehearsal days felt like a happy high school reunion: Clearly these were old friends, and masters of their craft who’d been through a lot together. The show was landmark, and afterward Leon told me to thank my mom for letting me see the Mad Dogs movie as a kid. The last thing I told him was, “Rita Coolidge just hugged me.” He raised an eyebrow, then smiled and said, “She hugged me too.” Farewell to a master piano player and songwriter, the man in the hat, the ringleader, a superstar.

Dave Frey, LOCKN’ Festival co-founder

Publicity photo

Merle Haggard

Years ago, while waiting backstage at the Grand Ole Opry for a music awards show to start, I watched as a very quiet, stoic and kind man walked through the back door. He went down a hallway of Rebas and Garths and Shanias and mother-daughter Judds and whatever high-hair, faux-country star was standing there, and took his seat in the audience. I wondered why Merle Haggard chose not to go through the red carpet gauntlet of press and publicity.

Then it dawned on me: He earned the right to walk in the back door. Simply put, Merle Haggard was one of the greatest voices and songwriters of any genre in my lifetime. His gift in connecting to the common man was through brutal honesty in what he wrote about: a decent job, the love of family, kindness to all regardless of class and race. Merle’s legacy lives on in the brilliance of Sturgill Simpson, the raw power of Margo Price, the brilliant songwriting of Jason Isbell and through Vince Gill continuing the tradition of the Bakersfield Sound. There will never be an artist more prolific in song and with such beauty of voice than Merle Haggard.

Marybeth Aungier, LOCKN’ associate

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Borrowed Beams of Light

Catch Borrowed Beams of Light in its brief return to local stages on a bill stacked with tidings of indie rock joy. Publicity photo

Adam Brock is back from the West Coast and is ready for a rare appearance as frontman of local music heroes Borrowed Beams of Light for a night of psych-influenced power pop and indie rock. New Boss, Naked Gods and Group MMS play opening sets, and Nasty’s Thomas Dean spins a late-night after-party.

Thursday, Decmber 29. $7, 9pm. The Southern Café and Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.

Categories
News Uncategorized

Local nonprofits employ creative collaborations

Boys & Girls Club participants make their own individual pizzas topped with protein, vegetables and pineapple at PB&J Fund’s kitchen. Eze Amos

On a recent day, Cristine Nardi, executive director of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, was working with four different nonprofits on a variety of challenges: a succession plan for an executive director; how to handle a potential sexual harassment issue within the organization; how to do a 360-degree evaluation for an executive leader; and coaching a coalition on how to have challenging conversations.

CNE began 10 years ago as a resource center for things such as tips on grant writing, skill building and financial strategy. And although it still offers those services, CNE, a nonprofit itself, has gone “outside its four walls and in the community, to partner with nonprofits and their community partners to figure out how to solve community problems using the tools that they have in their toolbox,” Nardi says.

If there’s one word that describes all nonprofits, it’s flexible. They must be flexible not only in terms of the community’s needs and wants, but also in terms of how they match their infrastructure with programming. As Nardi points out, for-profit businesses are funded by their customers—people buying a product, with the goal of returning profits to their shareholders. But in the nonprofit world there’s a difference between the customer and who’s funding the business.

“Nonprofits are one part of the community—they’re the part of the sector that’s front and center in solving community problems but they can’t do it alone,” Nardi says. “In order to solve those community challenges there has to be engagement of other sectors—public and private. Nonprofits have a lot of direct skills and expertise and employ them, but it’s important to understand community problems require community solutions.”

One example of that has been the Mental Health Coalition, which Erika Viccellio, now executive vice president at United Way-Thomas Jefferson Area, helped found in 2009 when she served as executive director of the Charlottesville Free Clinic. She organized a meeting of everyone in the mental health space to discuss how they could create a better system for adult mental health services. While there is still “tremendous unmet need” in our community, that coalition led to information sharing and concrete planning, and now integrated care is available at the free clinic, Region 10 and Sentara Healthcare. “I’m convinced it’s the way to go—coalition work,” Viccellio says. “Thinking about issues, problems that need to be solved outside of our own organizations and as a community.”

To that end, CNE is looking toward the next 10 years and how nonprofits can be prepared for the future. Nardi says they’re looking at what makes a community resilient, which means being aware of environmental changes. Locally this includes a change in demographics in the growing senior population, population growth overall, increased racial and ethnic diversity and an increased amount of food insecurity.

Bright Stars preschoolers in Debbie Shelor’s class at Greer Elementary play the pumpkin patch game before leaving for the day. Photo by Eze Amos
Bright Stars preschoolers in Debbie Shelor’s class at Greer Elementary play the pumpkin patch game before leaving for the day. Eze Amos

Early Education Task Force

It’s 2:20pm on a Wednesday and the Bright Star students at Greer Elementary School have just woken up from their nap. With sleepy looks on their faces, they walk to their cubbies and retrieve their jackets and cloth book bags (each adorned with an object that starts with the same letter as the child’s first name) in preparation to leave for the day. But before they are dismissed, there’s one activity left: the pumpkin patch game. Although called a game, the activity is a clear example of what teachers in the Bright Stars preschool program call active learning—when children learn best by doing, touching, feeling and acting.

As a youngster covers his eyes in the corner of the room, one of his peers swipes a paper pumpkin cutout from the middle of the circle and swiftly hides it behind her back. To find out who took the pumpkin, the student must walk up to a fellow student and ask, “Did you take the pumpkin from the pumpkin patch?” If she is the pumpkin-picker, she must reveal the gourd she grabbed. If not, the student has to respond, “It wasn’t me.”

In this case, the guesser marches up to his classmate seated to the right of teacher Debbie Shelor, and inquires about the missing pumpkin. The students start giggling–he guessed correctly on the first try.

Bright Stars, part of the Albemarle County Preschool Network that also includes Head Start, Early Childhood Special Education and Title I, is funded through a grant from the Virginia Preschool Initiative funneled through the Albemarle County Public Schools and the Department of Social Services. And its coordinator, Ann McAndrew, is a member of the Early Education Task Force, a collective of area organizations, businesses and government representatives that was established in July 2015.

“I know a lot of the players in the community who have interest in little kids better than I would have otherwise,” McAndrew says. “I think by having a community group, it grabs some attention to the issue that wouldn’t be there doing it on our own.”

The task force’s mission is that every at-risk child in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area has access to high-quality early education. Specifically, it focuses on 4-year-olds, because members wanted to start with a quantitative goal. The group believes that, over time, investments in education at a younger age will result in greater long-term outcomes such as a stronger workforce and local economy.

The task force was born out of an early education summit hosted by United Way-Thomas Jefferson Area and Charlottesville Tomorrow in April 2015. Although task force chairperson Erika Viccellio wasn’t yet working at United Way then, she attended the summit and said the energy around the issue was “palpable.” Mike Chinn, president of S&P Global and chairman of the Smart Beginnings Thomas Jefferson Area Leadership Council, initiated the community discussion on the importance of equal access to education for young children. Chinn said the Smart Beginnings Council realized that the progress they were making in the early education arena was slower than they would have liked, and decided they needed a group that could really learn and get deeply involved in the issues to produce better outcomes. The result was a diverse task force of 16 members, which includes nonprofits and organizations working in the early-education sphere, Albermarle and Charlottesville government representatives, philanthropists and entrepreneurs. In addition, a vision keepers group was formed, which meets quarterly to tackle the larger questions of priorities or funding issues. Members of that group include big names in local education: superintendents of both school districts, Pam Moran and Rosa Atkins, Albemarle County Executive Tom Foley and Charlottesville City Manager Maurice Jones, Bob Pianta, dean of UVA’s Curry School of Education, Frank Friedman, president of Piedmont Virginia Community College, Chinn and others.

“I think what’s evolved is our thinking about making progress,” Chinn says. “We really moved the conversation forward and we tried to define what we call ‘the gap.’ To understand some demographic work, do work around programs already in existence and really understand specifically what the gap is, in terms of numbers and dollars.”

The task force, which meets monthly, received funding to hire a consultant to create a fiscal map of all resources in the community at the time for babies to 5-year-olds. The results found that the gap between 4-year-olds eligible for high-quality pre-K programs and available space was 250 to 350 kids. The task force outlined four goals for its first year: expand existing pre-K services, leverage resources to meet ongoing costs of providing high-quality pre-K to 4-year-olds, increase public awareness of the importance of quality early education and increase the number of pre-K classrooms participating in Virginia Quality, a program that ensures state benchmarks are being met in schools.

One specific—and measurable—goal was to reduce the number of at-risk children needing placement by 25 percent. In fiscal year 2016 that goal was met, with 71 additional 4-year-olds placed in preschools (28 through Bright Stars, 23 in a mixed-delivery pilot project partnership with private preschools and 20 funded by a United Way scholarship). Another concrete outcome of the task force is the move toward creating a digital-based preschool application that’s the same for the city, county and Head Start, so that the application process for parents (especially for transient families who move throughout the school year) is convenient.

Viccellio says one of the biggest hurdles initially for the task force was that everyone was already operating with a full plate, so it was paramount that they developed clear, actionable goals and a vision.

“Everyone is talking about partnership and collaboration but there aren’t a lot of examples of multisector collaboration where they’re having demonstrable results like this,” Viccellio says. “Really, I think it’s what we, the collective we, the community, is interested in thinking about: How are we better together? This is an example where when you share not just ideas but resources then you can get to a much bigger picture—you get to a systems change rather than just a stronger organization or entity.”

The task force is currently in year one of a two-year $250,000 grant from General Assembly monies earmarked for early education, and it has also received a grant from the state for innovative partnerships, as it looks at models that can work in other communities.

Currently, 90 percent of eligible 4-year-olds in the city are in quality preschools, with about 70 percent of children in Albemarle County. Viccellio says the task force is confident it can get the county’s number up to 90 percent in the next couple of years. And after all 4-year-olds have been served, the group will likely explore funding options and solutions for 3-year-olds. One hurdle is funding–Virginia Preschool Initiative pays for about a third of the cost of placing 4-year-olds in preschool, but that funding doesn’t exist for 3-year-olds. Chinn says a long-term funding strategy must include “creative solutions.”

“The bottom line is in addition to all the money that’s saved in remediation down the line for kids that show up behind in school, giving the kids the best start at the beginning sets them up for success that leads to the opportunities that we want for a healthy economy down the road,” Viccellio says.

Area demographics

8,115 children age birth to 4 in Albemarle and Charlottesville

1,030 of those children (12.7 percent) live in poverty

22.4% of those children in Charlottesville live in poverty

9.5% of those children in Albemarle County live in poverty

17.4% of the children in the state in that age group live in poverty

$13,623,379 total funding for services and initiatives in Charlottesville and Albemarle County to promote early childhood development

Food Justice Network

Charlottesville is certainly a foodie town, with its Restaurant Weeks and festivals dedicated to all types of food, but several organizations are working toward a larger food goal: to create and build a healthy and just system for all of our residents. In September 2015, the Food Justice Network received a two-year grant with the goal of combatting some of the structural inequalities that exist in our community surrounding access to healthy food. What began as a meeting of the minds of 10 core groups has grown to include 20 members, made up of nonprofits in the food-access world, as well as businesses such as Whole Foods and a farm.

“For us, it started because there’s such a vibrancy of local food organizations doing similar but supportive work, and we found we were often competing for the same grants and working in the same communities, and we wanted to turn that into a positive,” says City Schoolyard Garden Executive Director Jeanette Abi-Nader. “At the same time, the local food movement in Charlottesville is so popular, there’s a lot of foodie culture that doesn’t really address some of the structural inequities.”

One of the first things the network did was collaborate with a doctorate class at UVA to assess what neighborhoods each organization was already serving, as well as what a snapshot of their participants looked like and in what ways the organizations were already collaborating. Many have been working together for years, such as the Local Food Hub, Bread and Roses at Trinity Episcopal Church, International Rescue Committee’s New Roots program, City Schoolyard Garden, Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville and more. The group is still in a fact-finding phase for its long-term goals, but it’s starting by focusing on smaller concrete projects.

Most residents are aware that the City Market sells artisanal food and wares and produce from local farmers, but they might not realize that Market Central, a nonprofit, sponsors the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program at City Market, which allows SNAP recipients to use their dollars to purchase fresh food. And through private funding and a partnership with the IRC, Market Central offers up to $20 in matching SNAP funding, as an extra incentive for in-need residents to shop at the farmers market. Cecile Gorham, chairwoman of Market Central’s board, says she sees SNAP recipients buying free-range eggs and free-range beef, something they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

“When people can afford better food you’re actually investing in their health and saving money in a different direction,” she says.

Network members say the meetings (held about every other month) have been beneficial because they learn what other organizations are doing in the food-access world and what other resources are available to their clients.

“We conduct focus groups with patients (in the Food Farmacy program) and record comments anonymously, which is vital information for us to have,” says Laura Brown, director of communications and marketing for the Local Food Hub. “Last year a lot of people said, ‘I always assumed the market was too expensive but this (learning about SNAP funding) encouraged me to go check it out and there are a lot of things in my budget.’”

One goal of the group is to strengthen its voice in the community. Last year the group worked with the organizers of the Tom Tom Founders Festival to hold a panel in April titled “Making Local Food First for All.” And, a few weeks ago, representatives from the network attended a local food stakeholders meeting to plan for next year’s Tom Tom festival, and they were able to come to the table as a group with community-wide ideas on how to make events accessible to everyone.

“We have elements of food systems, sharing food and cultural sharing, so the network lets us be confident that we’re not being too focused on just our own organizations, goals and purposes but instead really looking at how can we work at as wide a community level as possible,” says Lisa Reeder, food and farm access coordinator of the Local Food Hub. She says through the Local Food Hub’s Fresh Farmacy, an obesity-prevention program that delivers local produce to free clinics, they learned barriers to food access in our community include economic, physical proximity to stores, cultural appropriateness for refugee families, language barriers and a lack of cooking skills.

Another barrier to food access is familiarity. Maria Niechwiadowicz, program coordinator with Bread and Roses at Trinity Episcopal Church, says because at-risk families are working with constrained budgets, they are not likely to purchase unfamiliar foods, for fear that if their family doesn’t eat them it’s money wasted. One program seeking to combat that is the PB&J Fund, which hosts cooking classes for children and teen mothers at its downtown facility. PB&J partners with Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Virginia and Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge to teach kids cooking skills, nutritional information and also introduce them to new foods.

What started in 2009 with one class of eight kids has morphed into nine weekly classes serving about 90 children.

“We really feel once they start cooking with the food then they’re much more open to trying it,” says Courtenay Evans, chef and culinary educator. “It’s to gain a skill set as well, to be able to cook at home and also have resources and knowledge to know how to cook healthfully. Our hope is that it will allow for choices for the children as they grow up.”

Whole Foods is a newer member of the network, having joined in the last four to six months, but Kristen Rabourdin, field marketing team leader with Whole Foods, says joining the network is in line with the company’s goal of being mission-driven.

“I think people as a whole would be surprised to hear about so many individuals who fall through the cracks—people who truly rely on the services like the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank and an emergency food source as their main food source,” she says. “The need is growing and not going away. If all of us can start putting it on our radar, then we can help fulfill the need in our community.”

The conversation around food access is all encompassing, network members say, including supporting farmers who grow local food to giving power in terms of food choices back to disenfranchised people.

“I do think a hot topic this year and in the next couple of years in local food is going to be food justice, food access and food equality,” says Reeder. “We’re hoping to elevate this discussion so it’s not just our group talking about it but it’s a part of Charlottesville.”

Food Justice Network snapshot

Leadership team includes: City Schoolyard Garden, City of Promise, the Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville, International Rescue Committee: New Roots, Local Food Hub and Trinity Episcopal Church—Bread and Roses

Other organizations involved: Cville Foodscapes, Institute for Environmental Negotiation, PB&J Fund, Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry, New Branch Farm, Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, Casa Alma, Charlottesville City Schools, Emergency Food Network, Piedmont Virginia Community College, Growing for CHANGE, the Virginia Cooperative Extension, Whole Foods and Market Central

Justice for all:

18 neighborhoods in Charlottesville

8 organizations are working with nine or more of the neighborhoods

10th and Page is the most-served neighborhood

Strategies most commonly used:

graph

Categories
Knife & Fork Magazines

Why we love cauliflower

Photo: Rammelkamp Foto

Cauliflower, the hearty veggie cousin of broccoli, kale and cabbage, is mimicking everything from pizza crust to rice to mashed potatoes. But it’s a star in its own right—no reinvention needed. From appetizers to main dishes, restaurants are featuring florets in a variety of ways.

Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria

Cavolfiore al forno, $6

Lampo in Belmont is known as much for its blistered-crust pizzas as it is for its ample small plates, meant to be shared. Our pick? The roasted cauliflower dish, made with garum (a type of fish sauce), Calabrian chile and mint that’s served at room temperature. Co-owner Mitchell Bereens says the idea for the dish came from a series of books he was reading about modern cuisine and food history. They talked about how different Italian food was before Christopher Columbus brought things like tomatoes from the New World, which most people associate with “traditional” Italian cooking. Bereens found garum was used in ancient Rome, and he countered the salty fish sauce with sugar and acid, like in Thai cooking, but added lemon, white wine, parsley and Calabrian chiles, which are often used in Southern Italy.

Milan Indian Cuisine

Lasooni gobhi, $6

The lasooni gobhi dish at Milan is true to its name (lasooni means “garlicky” and gobhi means “cauliflower”). The dish arrives at your table a fiery red color, but the tangy sauce is only on the medium side of hot, with just a slight kick at the end. And the batter on the cauliflower is light—not greasy or heavy, perfect for a starter. The cauliflower florets are coated in a lentil and corn batter along with fresh garlic, salt and pepper and deep fried. The crispy pieces are then cooked in the restaurant’s “special sauce”—a zesty tomato base with in-house ground spices, with more garlic and sherry vinegar added.

The Fitzroy

Cauliflower “steak,” $12 ($6 as a side, above)

In the vegetarian world, main dishes are often treated as an afterthought (think mounds of pasta), but The Fitzroy puts cauliflower center stage, serving a slab of it roasted with a Bold Rock cider beurre blanc. First the “steak” is seared at a high temperature for color and texture and then finished in the oven. The cider sauce is an homage to Normandy, France, a place renowned for its cider, where it is often used in cooking.

Parallel 38

Crispy cauliflower, $10

As with all good things, the idea for this crispy cauliflower dish came to Parallel 38 owner Justin Ross in a dream. He had been watching The Hundred-Foot Journey the night before, and he dreamt he was cooking and making cocktails in a garden where all of the spices were growing on bushes and trees and were prepped and ready to go. The spice base in this dish is a chaat masala/pink peppercorn mixture that is sprinkled on the cauliflower after it’s flash-fried. The blend of chaat masala (cumin, coriander, ginger, mango powder, hing, chili powder, salt and pepper) and the pink peppercorn (the soft berry from the Brazilian pepper tree) adds an unexpected crunchy coating to the dish. And the tangy champagne vinaigrette is a nice counterbalance to the sweet, fruity peppercorns.

The Alley Light

Cauliflower gratin, $10

This dish arrives at your table with a satisfying thud: a hefty white casserole dish heaping with cauliflower. This traditional French country comfort food is meant to be savored: The cauliflower is slow roasted with garlic, bay leaf and olive oil and dolloped with smooth pillows of Mornay sauce made with Comté and parmesan. Chef/owner Robin McDaniel says The Alley Light will switch to a butternut squash gratin once the weather cools. We can’t wait.

Categories
Living

How to celebrate national beer month in Virginia

Champion Brewing Company, founded by Hunter Smith in 2012, is expanding to Richmond with a brewpub set to open by the end of the year. Photo by Eli Williams

Locals certainly don’t need another reason to imbibe in our area’s tasty brews—but we’ll take it. August is Craft Beer Month in our fair state, which means breweries are holding celebrations and events to showcase their wares.

The biggest event to hit our area is the fifth annual Virginia Craft Brewers Fest, hosted by Devils Backbone Brewing Company August 20. The celebration features 85 breweries, which will offer tastings of their beers from 1-7:30pm, as well as music from three bands and nosh from nine food vendors. And don’t worry about having to do rock-paper-scissors with your friends to secure a DD, camping on-site is available (for an extra fee), and includes tent camping, glamping shelter options or an area for your RV. The festival has sold out the last three years, so get your tickets early.

Get in on the action

If you’ve ever wanted an up-close look at how beer is made, now’s your chance. Wild Wolf Brewing Company is hosting hop-picking parties daily (until all the pickin’ is done) at its Nelson County location. Beer-lovers can help fill buckets with locally grown hops and earn Wild Wolf bucks to use on future beers.

Blue Mountain Brewery is also offering a chance to help, with a Hop Pickin’ Party from 11am-7pm August 19 at its Barrel House in Arrington. A volunteer two-hour shift earns you a free lunch and souvenir T-shirt.

A lively bunch

Starr Hill Brewery has been celebrating Virginia Beer Month with several events in August. One dollar of every pint sold in its tap room in Crozet this month goes to The Bridge PAI. And this weekend includes a Lockn’ pre-party with Disco Risqué August 19 and a Back to School party August 21 with music from The Fredds Unplugged.

Opening soon

Champion Brewing Company will open a brewpub in downtown Richmond, and it’s expected to be up and running by the end of the year. Champion will provide the beer for the space, located at 401 E. Grace St., both from its Charlottesville location and brewed on-site in Richmond.

For the food, Champion is partnering with chef Jason Alley and Michele Jones of Pasture and Comfort restaurants in Richmond.

“The Richmond market has been very supportive of our beers, particularly our experimental brews, since day one,” says Champion president and head brewer Hunter Smith in a release.

Wood Ridge Farm Brewery, which grows its own barley, oats, rye, wheat and malt, has supplied malt for other local breweries and distilleries, such as Champion and Devils Backbone, in the past. Now it’s opening its own brewery in Lovingston on September 3.

Closer to home, Random Row Brewery (608 Preston Ave.) and Hardywood Brewery (1000 W. Main St.) are both looking at fall openings. On August 9, Random Row brewed its first batch of beer on its larger brew system, a session IPA with Mosaic and Chinock hops, that will fall in the 4-5 percent ABV range. They plan to have 14 kegs of the session IPA at the brewery’s September grand opening, the date of which they’ll announce soon.

Hardywood, based in Richmond, is opening a nano brewery here in which they’ll brew small batches of one-offs. Beers that get C’villians’ stamp of approval could eventually hit the larger market. The brewery’s outpost, located in the Uncommon building, is projected to open in September or October.