Author: meganheadley

With all of the frost, fungi, and fruit flies that Virginia winemakers have to fret over, it’s easy to forget that they also have some fun along the way. And it was in the name of fun that friends and colleagues Jake Busching, Matthieu Finot, and Emily Hodson Pelton came up with the idea three years ago to make a winemaker’s wine that blended equal parts of wines made at their respective vineyards: Pollak, King Family, and Veritas. They called it “3”—three winemakers, three wineries, three vineyards, three varietals, one wine.

The joint effort was not just the earnest winemakers’ way of presenting the industry as a unified space where they learn and grow from one another, but it was also a reminder to us that they love what they do. In 2010, they produced 150 cases of “3” from the 2009 vintage, each took 50 cases to sell from their tasting rooms, and released the wine at a party in March 2011 as a special edition collaboration. At $33.33 a bottle, the relatively high price tag reflected its limited availability and the craftsmanship of a trio sharing dirt of which they are duly proud.

Both the 2011 and 2012 releases were blends of Busching’s Cabernet Franc, Finot’s Merlot, and Pelton’s Petit Verdot. Something they did differently the second year, though, was submit the back label to the TTB with percentages that added up to 100 since one-third/one-third/one-third didn’t cut it, nor did 33.33 percent/33.33 percent/33.33 percent. Just as soon as they’d perfected their recipe (and math), Mother Nature threw a wrench in the works with a lousy 2011 red vintage. Busching’s transition from Pollak to Mount Juliet Farm (where he’s soon to open Grace Estate Winery) further complicated matters as he didn’t have enough red to contribute his fair share. Being young, enterprising winemakers though, they simply looked on the, um, bright side and made a white blend for this year.

Getting the correct proportions took more experimentation trials than did the reds and the meetings, much to the winemakers’ chagrin, took place in their cellars instead of with pints in hand at Blue Mountain Brewery. “We even had a morning meeting once—and there were beakers involved,” joked Busching.

Still, they had plenty of fun cobbling together this year’s release from last year’s vintage. The Petit Manseng and Chardonnay (16.66 percent of each to be exact) comes from Grace Estate, the Chardonnay and Viognier (also 16.66 percent of each) comes from King Family Vineyards, and the remaining 33.36 percent is Viognier from Veritas.

The label simply got inverted from a white “3” on a black background to a black “3” on a white background and the team couldn’t help but admire it when we all sat down to taste the wine over lunch. Even in bottle shock, the wine still managed to strut its stuff, making no apologies for being a lighter hue.

With time in our glasses, flavors of ripe pears studded with cloves morphed into those of perfect white peaches with hazelnuts and then into juicy pineapple with coconut cream. Out of the six barrels that made up the 1,800-bottle production, only one was new, so the result is an integrated and judicious wisp of oak that adds weight more than it does taste. Then, just when the texture coats the mouth, a swoop of acidity clears the tongue like a Zamboni on ice.

We brainstormed food pairing suggestions while we sipped—everything from shrimp and grits to spicy Asian spare ribs —and basked in this beacon of Virginia spring that’s just around the corner. And since “3” is all about having some fun, the three amigos ask that you come to the 3:33pm release party on Sunday, March 3 at Veritas dressed all in white to match the wine. They promise you won’t be the only one.

A case and a cup
Barboursville Vineyards took this year’s Governor’s Cup for its 2009 Octagon 12th edition in the competition judged at the end of January and announced last Thursday at the Virginia Wineries Association’s Governor’s Cup Gala in Richmond. The Bordeaux-style Meritage (70 percent Merlot, 15 percent Cabernet Franc, 10 percent Petit Verdot, and 5 percent Cabernet Sauvignon) that’s made in only auspicious vintage years topped 377 entries from 93 wineries. It’s the fourth Governor’s Cup that Barboursville’s won, but the first for the Octagon, which Governor McDonnell called “one of Virginia’s most iconic red wines.” The winner, along with the next 11 highest scoring wines (listed below), comprise the Governor’s Case, and will serve as drinkable marketing ambassadors for the local industry throughout the year.

Cooper Vineyards: 2010 Petit Verdot Reserve
King Family Vineyards: 2010 Meritage
Lovingston Winery: 2009 Josie’s Knoll Estate Reserve
Philip Carter Winery: 2010 Cleve
Pollak Vineyards: 2009 Cabernet Franc Reserve
Potomac Point Vineyard and Winery: 2010 Richland Reserve Heritage
Rappahannock Cellars: 2010 Meritage
RdV Vineyards: 2010 Rendezvous
RdV Vineyards: 2010 Lost Mountain
Sunset Hills Vineyard: 2010 Mosaic
Trump Winery: 2008 Sparkling Rose

Assuming his new post as executive chef of Glass Haus Kitchen this past fall, Ian Boden had big shoes to fill—but they were all his own. The Northern Virginia native who put his New England Culinary Institute degree to use for 10 years in the kitchens of top New York restaurants, opened Staunton Grocery in early 2007 as an ode to our embarrassment of locally produced riches. For the nearly five years that it stood, Staunton Grocery collected accolades as big as its fan base. When the doors closed in December 2011, mourners across Virginia kept their ears pricked to Boden’s every tweet for clues as to where he might land next.

To Charlottesville’s luck, his first perch was here, at Blue Light Grill last spring. It was an exciting, albeit totally unexpected, move, since the Downtown Mall establishment’s known more as a watering hole than a fine dining destination. That was the whole idea, of course, and while it certainly raised its reputation, the fit wasn’t right. The crowd still seemed more focused on bottle-to-glass drinking than farm-to-table eating.

No matter for a big fish in our relatively small pond though. In no time, Boden was snapped up by J.F. Legault and Francois Bladt, who were in the process of reconceiving the X-Lounge, which was nearing the end of its own more than five-year run. With the chef in place, the new restaurant had its concept (“inspired American cuisine”), and the décor (sleek, industrial metal warmed by Brazilian hardwood, dramatic light fixtures, and a 16′ photograph of lazing cows by Paul Goossens) and dream team (Mike Yager from Palladio and Todd Grieger from Maya among them) came together in just under three weeks. “X-Lounge was a sprint. This is a marathon, but we needed someone like Ian,” said Legault.

And since Glass Haus Kitchen’s November 1 opening, Boden’s shoes have grown even bigger. The evening I was there for a guest chef dinner with Aaron Silverman (a McCrady’s and Momofuku alum who is opening Rose’s Luxury in D.C.), the team was celebrating a rave, 2.5-star review in the Washington Post titled “A meal that makes up for the long drive.” I suddenly felt a sense of propriety over this new addition to our notable culinary scene. What if pilgrimaging D.C. diners make it impossible to get a table? Fortunately, between the horseshoe-shaped bar, the booths and tables downstairs, and the mezzanine tables upstairs, there are 70 seats to fill. And once warm weather’s upon us, a freshly preened patio will accommodate even more.

Dinner service begins at 5:30pm Tuesday through Saturday and a bar menu’s served until midnight on Friday and Saturday evenings (though that’s not to say that the $3 to $14 offerings shouldn’t usher in happy hour too). Ebullient might be a better description for any portion of time spent consuming Boden’s inventive takes on salty snacks (like fried mortadella sliders or truffle tater tots with truffle aioli) alongside one of bar manager Sally Myer’s handcrafted cocktails. I’m still dreaming of the pretty little vodka, St-Germaine, hibiscus, grapefruit, and sea salt foam number that warmed me after a commute across the tracks in a wintry deluge.

As expected, the dinner menu, with appetizers from $9 to $18, main courses from $22 to $32, and desserts for $9, reflects Boden’s commitment to sourcing locally, yet the preparations sometimes eclipse the ingredients themselves for no other reason than their impressiveness. When presented with “spaghetti & meatballs”—meatballs made from rabbit and pork fat, pasta made with parsnips, and a sauce made with rabbit stock and cream and studded with yellow foot mushrooms—I forgot to even wonder (or care) what came from our area farms. Boden believes it should just be a given that chefs use local products and that any chef who’s not is being irresponsible.

The five-course tasting menu with wine pairings has been immensely popular and Boden’s keeping inspired by inviting chefs he respects to cook with him for an evening or two. The top chefs get to geek out collaborating on the menu and guests get to swoon over the results of two culinary masterminds who, without a doubt, are playing a silent game of culinary one-upmanship.

Two more guest chef dinners are already on the calendar—one on February 27 with Jason Alley from Richmond’s Pasture and one on April 24 and 25 with Ed Hardy from Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster in Harlem. They’re a surefire cure for even the most jaded palate. Let’s just hope that Hardy doesn’t go back to New York with a tip for the Times critic.

I’ve always been proud to be an equal opportunity lover of wine. Sure, I’m not wild about anything too buttery or beastly, but as long as it’s a well-made, balanced wine, there’s a happy home for it in my glass. So imagine my surprise, amidst all this open-mindedness, when years of field research revealed a verifiable dislike of the wines from an entire wine-producing region. Time and time again, if it was from South Africa, I no likey.

The fact that I didn’t seem to be alone assuaged my guilt in part (Pinotage, South Africa’s signature red that’s a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault, is known for splitting a crowd as quickly as Norton), yet my dislike wasn’t limited to that particular divisive wine. Even my favorite white grape, Chenin Blanc, turned me off when it bore South Africa’s name of Steen. The wines always had a redeemable quality or two, mind you, but I couldn’t get past the taste of acetone (or was it latex?) in every sample I tried.

I was so embarrassed by my own prejudice that when I noticed that Bill Curtis was devoting one of his Wine Club evenings to the wines from Groote Post in Darling, South Africa, I signed up immediately. I predicted that Bill would seat me next to the estate owner, Nicholas Pentz, and that I would be forced to hold my tongue, keep an open mind, and learn something. And, if all the wines tasted like a cheap balloon? Well, I could spit in the name of professionalism.

Groote Post, 44 miles north of Cape Town, is one of the estates Curtis visited on his trip two years ago. He returned charmed by the Pentz family’s wines and within one sniff, so was I. It didn’t hurt that Pentz, burly and tanned from the 95 degree South African summer, warmed our arctic air and frosty hearts with a presentation that was as entertaining as it was informative.

Though wine in South Africa dates back to 1659 (the first vintage grown by Dutch East Indian Company as a scurvy preventative for sailors stopping at Cape Town), slow growth followed by an 1866 phylloxera wipeout necessitated a complete do-over. In the early 1900s, more than 80 million vines were planted and a wine glut was born. In 1918, a growers’ cooperative formed, imposing a strict price-fixing quota system. Quantity became valued over quality. Overcropping meant underripe grapes and underripe grapes meant latex wine. Add in the illegal exportation as a result of the Apartheid regime, and South Africa didn’t have much incentive to make great wine.

Winemaking improvements came fast and furious when Apartheid ended in 1994 and five years later, the four-generation, dairy-farming Pentz family started bottling a new beverage. Now, they grow 10 different varietals on 250 acres of their 7,400 acres (where Angus cattle and antelopes still roam), producing 30,000 cases a year. Exporting still isn’t a huge business (80 percent of Groote Post’s sales are domestic), which explains why Pentz would leave the winery three weeks prior to harvest to come to the U.S. in the dead of winter.

With 600 wineries countrywide, tourism generates a lot of revenue. Groote Post sells about 18 percent of its wine to the 9,000 visitors they attract each year. Pentz doesn’t take these sales at face value though. “Every bottle sold from the winery is like a TV show that plays back memories of the visit,” said Pentz. And with a four-mile approach, Dutch-inspired buildings dating back to 1708, and slopes rising 4,600 meters above sea level, it’s bound to be a memorable one. There’s even a school on the property where Groote Post laborers (many of which were retained from the dairy farming days of Apartheid) can take evening classes.

Sauvignon Blanc is Darling’s darling, with a terroir so perfectly suited to growing ideal grapes that the wine is usually bottled within two months of harvest, maintaining all the same fig, gooseberry, and kiwi qualities it exhibits in the vineyard. Amongst the reds, the Pinot Noir won my heart with its assertive black currant fruit tempered with a centering acidity. Curtis aptly called it a Côtes de Nuit on steroids.

By the end of the evening, not only had I licked my plate and drained the majority of my glasses without reaching for the spittoon once, but I also had added traveling to South Africa to my (wine) bucket list.

Seven reasons to love South African wines
Available at Tastings of Charlottesville

Groote Post Old Man Sparkle NV. $27.95
Groote Post Sauvignon Blanc 2011. $25.95
Groote Post Riesling 2010. $22.95
Groote Post Reserve Chardonnay 2009. $31.95
Groote Post Reserve Pinot Noir 2009. $41.95
Groote Post Merlot 2010. $30.95
Groote Post Shiraz. $25.95

Miracle grower
Len Thompson, an independent grape grower in Central Virginia, received the 2012 Grower of the Year award presented by Virginia Secretary of Agriculture Todd Haymore at the Virginia Vineyards Association’s (VVA) Annual Technical Meeting and Trade Show at the Omni on February 1. Thompson, who also works at Rockbridge Vineyards, grows Chardonnay and Chambourcin grapes on six acres in Amherst County.

With days this cold and dark, a little trickle of sweetness goes a long way to cure a mean case of cabin fever. But reserving syrup for breakfast is selling the elixir short. These places around town are seeing the forest through the trees (and they’re not just maple) by treating us to syrup in everything from beginnings to endings.

Belly up to the bar at Glass Haus Kitchen for inventive snacks like “animal crackers”—southern fried chicken skin and crispy pigs’ ears lacquered with a smoky glaze of Virginia hickory syrup, housemade red wine vinegar, and bourbon.

The piggies don’t need a blanket at Brookville Restaurant, where smoked Surry sausages snuggle up to mustard and Virginia maple syrup for a combination that hits every taste bud, and then some.

Local maple syrup goes gourmet at Fleurie Restaurant in a parfait of Polyface Farm chicken liver and foie gras where the hint of sweetness—along with the acidity and crunch of a grape, almond, and celery salad —tempers the dish’s utter (albeit welcome) unctuousness.

At the C&O, an appetizer of poached Maine lobster gets bathed in a vanilla Chardonnay butter before it’s perched atop chive blinis and anointed with Virginia maple syrup.

The authentically Italian-sized portions at tavola are a blessing when you realize you have room for the chestnut cheesecake, with its crushed amaretti crust and drizzle of mugolio —an Italian syrup made from pine cone buds.

When you can’t decide between another beer or dessert, Horse & Hound Gastropub solves the dilemma by pairing a vanilla porter ice cream-topped warm maple bread pudding with Breckenridge Brewery Vanilla Porter.

Barking up a different tree
While the maple syrup industry’s busy harvesting xylem sap from sugar, red, or black maples, Joyce and Travis Miller are foraging for hickory bark in Berryville, Virginia.

About a year and a half ago, the couple discovered that roasting hickory bark, extracting its flavor, and adding it to a turbinado sugar-based reduction would create a syrup that lends itself to both sweet and savory preparations.

Once only at farmers’ markets, now Wildwood’s Hickory Syrup is sold to our area restaurants through the Local Food Hub as well as to retailers like Relay Foods, C’ville Market, Rebecca’s Natural Food, Yoder’s Sugar and Spice, and Greenwood Gourmet.

The original makes a woodsy glaze for salmon, the vanilla bean gracefully gilds a torchon of foie gras, and the brandy-infused vanilla adds a solid swirl of indulgence to your morning bowl of oats.

Frosted flakes
For the neat-nicks who’d rather not deal with sticky bottle tops and fingers, get your maple fix in flake form at The Spice Diva. An ounce costs $5, but just a sprinkle delivers the same 100 percent pure maple punch as a hearty pour of the sticky stuff.

Liquid gold
Why is pure maple syrup so much more expensive than Mrs. Butterworth’s? The maple season is only four to six weeks long and it takes 40 gallons of boiled down sap (from at least four different trees) to make one gallon of the real McCoy. Its grade, A or B, depends on density and translucency. The lightest of the bunch even get to add “fancy” to their title.

Sap happy
Maple trees aren’t tapped until they are at least four years old and 10″ in diameter.
Freezing by night and thawing by day are the ideal conditions for sap flow.
A tablespoon of maple syrup has about the same number of calories as a tablespoon of white cane sugar (50 calories), but also contains potassium, iron, phosphorus, and B-vitamins.
You can freeze an opened container of maple syrup for long-term storage.
Quebec produces about 75 percent of the world’s maple syrup. Vermont? About 5.5 percent.

In December, Robert Parker, the 65-year-old lawyer-cum-wine-scoring demigod, sold a substantial portion of his bi-weekly newsletter, The Wine Advocate, to a group of investors in Singapore. And, a mere month after telling the Wall Street Journal that he would never give up editorial control, he bequeathed his editor-in-chief title to Singapore-based, former Australian wine correspondent Lisa Perrotti-Brown. Parker will retain the title of chairman and continue reviewing the Bordeaux and Rhône wines of which he’s so partial. Questions remain as to whether Parker’s shift is a savvy business move cloaked as semi-retirement, but one thing’s for sure: the wine writing campus has gotten a whole lot roomier without the big man on it.

In the 34 years that Parker’s Maryland-based consumer wine guide grew from a free rag mailed to 600 Americans to a paid subscription distributed to 50,000 people across the U.S. and 37 countries worldwide, he scored countless wines with his million-dollar sniffer. Using a 100-point scoring scale, Parker made both extraordinary (96-100 points) and unacceptable (50-59 points) pupils out of a beverage that’s main purpose is pleasure.

Of course, in America, the land of 35 brands of toothpaste, we treated these scores as our guiding gospel and bought what papa preached. Parker’s influence grew to caricatural proportions, his blessings driving up prices and demand so much that this “advocate” for consumers became an enemy to anyone without bottomless pockets.

Those producers willing to extract and chapitalize (see Winespeak 101) their way to the top began tailoring their wines to suit a palate that, by the very nature of being inundated with hundreds of wines a day, came to favor high-octane fruit bombs over balanced, elegant examples. This homogenizing trend even got a name, The Parker Effect, and Bordeaux producers started waiting for Parker’s ratings before setting the release price of their wines.

However, with the reins now in different hands and a different land (which, by no accident, is the most rapidly developing economic region in the world), will wine scores continue to find their way onto retailer’s shelf-talkers? Even though several other publications adopted the use of scoring (Wine Spectator, Jancis Robinson, and Gambero Rosso among them), the practice has been falling out of favor thanks in large part to a movement toward more unique, terroir-driven wines. Two years ago, lovers of these minimalist wines, which are made to embrace the variabilities of nature rather than to ameliorate them, created an online manifesto called the Score Revolution (scorevolution.com). Illustrated by a 100 with a red line through it, their M.O. is “saving place of origin with elegance.” Though the group has yet to stage an actual revolution, they did manage to collect the signatures of 754 individuals and the support of 155 wineries and organizations, one of which is Charlottesville’s own Market Street Wineshop.

Other shops around town, like Wine Warehouse and Rio Hill Wine & Gourmet, use scores, albeit sparingly, to speak to consumers who don’t always trust their own palates.

Yet, in Bill Curtis’ 22 years since opening Tastings of Charlottesville, he’s never relied on scores to sell wine. Rather, he tastes every wine before he buys it and asks his customers 20 questions in order to learn their tastes. “My mantra from the beginning has been to put the customer in better touch with his or her palate,” said Curtis.

Accusations of score inflation have plagued Parker ever since he awarded perfect scores to a whopping 19 Bordeaux from the 2009 vintage. (In contrast, he only gave six wines 100 points in the equally hyped 2000 vintage.) And in the one spit that he expels before deeming these wines flawless and, according to his scoring system, “worth a special effort to find, purchase, and consume,” their prices triple overnight.

But even if Bordeaux and the Rhône continue to fall under his dictatorship, the rest of the wine world may soon be restored to democracy—and perfection will go back to being rightfully unattainable.

Virginia wine takes flight
The numbers for fiscal year 2012 reveal that sales of Virginia wine have topped last year’s high by 1.6 percent, or an additional 8,000 cases, bringing the total cases sold in 2012 to 485,000. Perhaps more newsworthy though is that the export sales of Virginia wine grew from about 700 cases in 2011 to more than 3,300 in 2012—a more than 300 percent increase. Driving the majority of these exports are China and the UK, both regions upon which Governor McDonnell has focused, and the latter of which Chris Parker (a Brit who’s lived here for 20 years) has devoted his time introducing to our wines.

WINESPEAK 101
Chapitalization (n.): The controversial practice of adding sugar to wine to increase its alcohol content, and therefore, boost its body.

You can’t fake charm. It’s got to come naturally, and it does for Nellysford, the little town nuzzled in the bosom of Wintergreen’s mountains. It’s not trying to be anything that it isn’t, yet manages to enchant everyone who passes through, some so much so that they stay forever.

Few places are more illustrative of this than Basic Necessities, a wine and gourmet food shop located off Route 151 between a hardware store and Blue Ridge Pig. In 1997, Kay Pfaltz, who grew up in Charlottesville, bought the barebones building that had been a bakery (and an apple shed prior to that), transformed it into an Provençal-inspired cottage, and filled it with exactly what someone who’d just returned from 10 years in Paris considered the “basic necessities” of life: bread, cheese, and wine. She originally envisioned the space as a wine bar too, but since Virginia’s ABC laws required more substantial edibles, she added late breakfast (they open at 10am) and lunch Tuesday through Saturday, dinner Friday and Saturday nights, and brunch on Sundays.

And it’s been that way ever since. In fact, little changed even after husband and wife Keith Dix and Beverly Lacey bought the business in 2003—a story that’s befittingly charming. Dix, an organic farmer, stopped into Basic Necessities on a land-seeking trip and fell in love with the shop and the town. He started Blue Heron Farm two miles away, but was still in search of a soul mate. He got in touch with Lacey, an old flame from Ohio, who planned a visit. They had their reunion at Basic Necessities and married soon thereafter. When they heard that Pfaltz had lost her original partner and was selling the shop, Lacey decided to buy it, but only if Pfaltz would stay. And she’s still there, lending her impassioned expertise on French wine (which she says she learned “by picking up a book in one hand and a glass in the other”), while Lacey greets guests, serves when short-staffed, and even bakes the weekends’ dessert offerings. They use produce from the farm and Pfaltz’s mother makes all of the soups. The dinner menu, while limited, is mighty impressive given that the kitchen is the size of a laundry room and has no stove.

Behind the cheese and wine selection is the dining room, warmed by a gas-burning fireplace and the sunny colors of Provence. Six rustic tables dressed with mismatched French country linens and cobalt blue-handled flatware set the stage for where the restaurant’s ethos plays out: a place where simple food and wine bring friends and family together to converse for hours at the table.Diners browse the wine racks (which favor independent and sustainable growers from France, but boast representatives from Virginia to South Africa) for a companion to their meal for the bottle’s retail cost, plus $7 corkage. The wines come with the professional service of Pfaltz, who also writes a monthly wine column for Nelson County Life and leads wine tasting tours around France every year.

An amuse-bouche (like crostini topped with sassoun, a Provençal spread of fennel, almonds, herbs, and anchovies) piques the appetite while digesting the menu. Even for one with so few choices—there’s only one appetizer, one special salad, one vegan or vegetarian entrée, one fish entrée, one pasta entrée, and one meat entrée—decisions are tough. Every entrée ($18-26) includes a tasty mixed greens salad and bread to dip into a bowl of freshly-grated parmigiano doused in grassy olive oil.

A hefty wedge of wild greens pie—earthy greens studded with salty feta, golden raisins, and a hint of spice in a phyllo crust—came with mousse-like whipped sweet potatoes (from Blue Heron Farm) and perfectly cooked green beans. Caramelized onions and raw milk blue cheese topped Timbercreek Organics beef tenderloin and the combination of butternut squash, mushrooms, and béchamel made for a luscious lasagne. All were so delicious (not to mention piping hot) that no diner would guess what little chef Sallie Justice has at her disposal.

Blues and folk musicians perform during dinner and a harpist adds to the delight of Sunday brunch when light streams in through the windows and mimosas and impossibly fluffy pancakes are on the menu. Sally Rose, an up-and-coming folk singer that washed dishes there for six years, performed while we lingered over cheese and a 2000 Pomerol. A generous scoop of Lacey’s chocolate bread pudding with amaretto crème anglaise made an ideal breakfast the next morning, but only because four hours had passed and we’re not lucky enough to live in Nellysford.

Americans have a love affair with Tuscany and few grapes are as quintessentially Italian as the cherished region’s workhorse, Sangiovese. Chianti Classico may be where it’s best known, but it’s in Brunello di Montalcino (where the grape’s grosso clone accounts for 100 percent of the wine) that it’s the most revered.

That’s not saying a whole lot as of late though. Ever since the “Brunello-gate” or “Brunellopoli” scandal of 2008, in which 6.7 million liters of 2003 Brunello were impounded under accusations that it contained Bordeaux varietals, Brunello’s fallen from grace like an athlete caught doping. That’s not to say that its prices have dropped any, but the wine’s far from the object of desire that Burgundy, Bordeaux, or even Barolo are.

The genuine article, which has a surprisingly short legacy for an Italian-born wine (the Biondi Santi family was the first and only Brunello producer for the first half of the 20th century and by 1960, the count numbered 11), occupies a vast style spectrum despite its relatively piddling 3,000 acres, use of only one grape, and DOCG-mandated aging requirements. Traditional producers harness the grape’s dusty, lean characteristics by using huge Slavonian oak barrels called botti, in which to ferment and age the wine so that the presence of oak is integrated, if not indetectable. The result, after the required four years of aging (five if it’s a riserva), is a garnet-colored wine that you can see through. It tends to be fairly austere with an exacting acidity, the bitterness of the cherry flesh that’s closest to the pit, and the spiciness of cedar. Nothing pairs with traditional examples of Brunello quite like the pasta with cinghiale ragù (wild boar sauce) famous in this region 75 miles south of Florence.

Modern producers mollify the grape’s edges by fermenting and aging in barriques, or small French oak barrels, making a weighty, lusty, cocoa-licious wine that’s darker, more accessible, and ready to drink sooner. These are precisely the same qualities that the producers who adulterated their Sangiovese with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot were after, and sadly, both practices make Brunello indistinguishable from the masses and unidentifiable as Italian. The addition of such “alpha” grapes cloak how distinctive and sublime Sangiovese can be in Montalcino’s auspicious terroir that boasts warm, dry microclimates, altitudes of 1,600′ above sea level, and layered marine soils.

Proposals to permit percentages of Bordeaux varietals in Brunello did float around in the years following the scandal, but regional pride (or perhaps just old-fashioned peer pressure) won out. Besides, Tuscan producers are already allowed to blend Sangiovese with Bordeaux varietals in Super-Tuscans—a now-dying breed that grew out of Chianti Classico producers’ frustration in the ’70s and ’80s over government-imposed constraints and lack of freedom to experiment. The wines went with “Super” to mitigate for their lowly vino da tavola designation and to legitimize their three-digit price tags. But by mid-2000, people had stopped buying them—they lacked the sense of place that make Italian wines so charming.

In 2011, laws did relax a bit for Rosso di Montalcino (Brunello’s baby brother) when producers were granted the option to use 15 percent of grapes other than Sangiovese. Still, more changes loom on the horizon. Some traditionalists find the one-size-fits-all aging requirements (the longest in Italy) too stringent—especially in weaker vintages when a wine might not have the backbone to withstand four to five years in the cellar. And one idea that’s gaining traction is the creation of eight sub-appellations based on altitude and soil type. Because more angular, aromatic wines come from the schist (see Winespeak 101) and sandstone soils and cooler temperatures in the north, and more potent, structured wines come from the compact clay soils and warmer temperatures in the south, defined labeling might better assist consumers in finding their preferred styles.

Gianfranco Soldera, part of the Brunello elite along with Biondi Santi, would like to see all Brunello back where he believes it does best—in non-clay soils at elevations above 1,000′, and in Slavonian oak for at least three years. Recently, his outspokenness placed a target on his back, and in early December, vandals broke into his estate’s cellar and opened the valves of 10 barrels of six different vintages of aging Brunello. The loss, amounting to 80,000 bottles and undefined economic damage, though beyond unfortunate, might be just what Brunello needs to become covetable again.

WINESPEAK 101
Schist (n.): Flaky rock-based soil that retains heat well and is rich
in magnesium and potassium, but poor in nitrogens, forcing vines to gain vigor in search of moisture and nutrients.

Six ways to taste the Tuscan sun
Canneta Brunello di Montalcino 2004. Tastings of Charlottesville. $46.95
Fattoria Scopone Brunello di Montalcino 2007. Wine Warehouse. $50
Le Gode Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2001. Tastings of Charlottesville. $79.95
Mocali Brunello di Montalcino Vigna delle Raunate 2007. Wine Warehouse. $60
Poggio Apricali Brunello di Montalcino 2006. Tastings of Charlottesville. $44.95
Verbena Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2004. Tastings of Charlottesville. $79.95

If the holiday season’s been a gluttonous rampage that began with leftover Halloween candy and ended with the roof off your kid’s gingerbread house, then you’re not alone. The new year offers a chance to make amends, and the weight loss market, that $60 billion (give or take) cash cow, has promised its fair share of panaceas over the decades. There’s been cabbage soup, Dexatrim, baby food, grapefruit, Jenny Craig, SnackWell’s, Atkins, South Beach, and the list goes on.

Now, with attention spans like a goldfish’s, we turn to cleanses any time we feel like we owe our bodies an apology or want to shed a few pounds with abrupt (rather than prolonged) suffering. It doesn’t hurt that they come with major celebrity endorsements (Gwyneth Paltrow, Beyoncé, and Salma Hayek all tout their favorite detoxifying regimens) and the chance to atone publicly by sharing pictures of your measly daily intake.

The idea of drinking only juice or water to refresh the body isn’t new. Most religions recommend a fasting period to cleanse the soul and strengthen the mind’s control over the body’s cravings. It’s only been recently though that the mainstream has adopted cleansing as a glamorous way to purge our pipes of so-called toxins.

Juice fasts are the most accessible. Juice tastes good and delivers enough sugar that one feels deprived of little (other than the act of chewing) over the three to seven days that they are “prescribed.” Commercial lines like Blueprint, Cooler Cleanse, Organic Avenue, and Juice Press all sell freshly-made kits of raw fruit and veggie juices (often blended with a nut-milk for a dash of fat and protein) that amount to 1,000-1,200 calories a day. You’ll pay between $60 and $70 for the convenience of having the cold-pressed line-up in your fridge. Or, you could buy a juicer—between $40 and $400 —plus the heaps of (organic, since pesticides are some of the toxins you are flushing from your system) produce that you liquify into six daily juices. (Relay Foods has gotten in on the action by selling $6 to $8 juicing kits that include the produce needed to make 24 ounces of juice at home.)

Two years ago, I completed The Clean Program, a 21-day cleanse, to which I added an extra week in the beginning to prepare my caffeine- and alcohol-accustomed system. I kissed those two delights—along with dairy, gluten, sugar, meat, and other purported dietary offenders—goodbye and replaced my solid morning and evening meals with liquid ones. I could have paid $300-plus for the supplements to make up those liquid meals, but opted instead to make “clean” smoothies for breakfast and “clean” soups or juices for dinner, with a rule-abiding chewable meal for lunch.

After a few days of debilitating headaches and crankiness, I took advice from the program’s virtual support group and started a magnesium supplement. It helped and I made it through the month without gnawing off my own arm, sneaking sips of mouthwash, or losing my will to live. I didn’t notice any big changes in my health or appearance (who knows if the whites of my eyes were actually whiter), but I am glad I did it, if for no other reason than to prove that I don’t need cookies, coffee, cheese, or wine in my life—I just want them.

For the hardcore, there’s the Master Cleanse —10 days of water flavored with lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. At only 100 calories a glass, you can treat yourself to anywhere from six to 12 a day, drunk either hot or cold. The diet, intended to flush the body of dietary, hormonal, and environmental toxins, as well as “material” that’s built up in the colon, is one that much of the medical community finds futile. Doctors argue that our bowels have evolved over millions of years to clean themselves and that the digestive tract is a one-way tube with no place for anything to reside. The notion that our guts need a rest is also refuted by medical experts who say that they are strengthened by the act of digesting protein and fiber (of which juice or flavored water have none).

You’ll no doubt lose some weight on a cleanse—you’re taking in far fewer calories than usual—but health practitioners warn against the metabolism-slowing, fat-storing response that kicks in when meals are skipped too often. Not a problem for us all-or-nothing types though—we’ll happily anguish for 10 days if it means enjoying the remaining 355.

If you are reading this on New Year’s Day, then chances are that even your own inner reading voice is hurting your head. My husband was born on the first of the year and never got to have birthday parties on his actual birthday, because, oddly, every single one of his friends’ parents (and his own) weren’t feeling well.

Hangovers and New Year’s Day go together like rum and Coke, tequila and lime, Kahlua and cream—oh, sorry, is this making you queasy? Well, it might be too late to pull you from the brink of death, but ever wonder why some nights you can tie one on and wake up feeling fine and other times like you’ve been trampled by a herd of Clydesdales?

We all know that dehydration is the cause of a hangover (actually, drinking alcohol in excess is, but you don’t need a lecture when you feel this lousy). Alcohol’s a diuretic and every time you urinate, your organs’ become thirstier and thirstier, and a thirsty brain responds by banging on your skull like a gorilla in a cage. Consuming water throughout your night certainly helps your cause, but it turns out that certain types of alcohol cause worse hangovers.

Congeners, toxic chemicals produced during fermentation and aging, are the biggest culprit. They wreak havoc on our nervous systems while our livers metabolize the alcohol. They come in varying concentrations depending on an alcohol’s distillation process. Every time a liquor is distilled, it loses more congeners. Generally speaking, dark liquors like bourbon, brandy, whiskey, tequila, and red wine contain more congeners than clear liquors like vodka, gin, and white wines. Bourbon, for example, has 37 times the amount of congeners that vodka has.

Though they are considered impurities, congeners are a large part of what give dark liquors their color, aroma, and flavor and why clear liquors are virtually flavorless. You can pretty much bank on the fact that plastic handles of booze (no matter the color) haven’t been distilled as many times as the top-shelf bottles, so the next time you are tempted to save a dollar, remember that cheap drinks come with consequences.

Of course, red wine hangovers can be fierce, no matter whether it’s DRC or Two Buck Chuck. Red wine contains a high level of congeners, but there’s more at play. Sulfites, too often the blame for headaches after red wine consumption, are actually a problem for less than 1 percent of the population. Histamines, tannins, prostaglandins, and tyramine have all been identified as potential contributors to why mornings after a red wine binge are uglier than those after a night spent drinking white, but the specifics would make anyone’s head ache.

You can’t go by congeners alone though. A bottle of Bud contains six times more congeners than a Long Island iced tea, yet only a fraction of the alcohol, so two Buds are going to go over a lot more comfortably in the morning than two Long Island iced teas. And certainly, mixing liquors into one drink (or through the course of an evening) is the fastest route to Nauseatown. Then throw a bunch of sugar in there too, so that your blood sugar spikes when you are invincible, tearing up the dance floor and then comes crashing down when you are defeated, lying on the bathroom floor.

So what to do after you’ve hit the bottle too hard? Even if you didn’t intersperse units of water with units of alcohol during your debauchery, try to drink 16 to 20 ounces before going to sleep. In the morning, as tempting as coffee or a “hair of the dog” may sound, skip it until you are feeling human again—they’ll just dehydrate you more. Take ibuprofen or aspirin over acetaminophen (your liver’s already working overtime), eat some carbs, and go back to sleep.

Somehow through modern research, hangovers have been estimated to cost the United States $148 billion in lost productivity each year. Imagine how high that number would be if we were required to work—or plan or attend birthday parties—on New Year’s Day. Way to start 2013 off with a bang! Shhh, keep your voice down.