Author: Robert Harllee

I first encountered an ovoid concrete fermentation vessel at Austria’s innovative biodynamic winery Meinklang in 2004. Actually, there were a few of them, all lined up and looking like 1950s science-fiction rocket ships, held upright by fin-shaped buttresses. A startling departure from the oak barrels and stainless-steel vats I was accustomed to seeing, the eggs, as they are commonly known, filled me with wonder. In fact, they were so strangely attractive that my fellow travelers and I soon found ourselves running our hands over the smooth-but-textured surface of one, and smiling with delight.

I did the very same thing during a recent trip to Crozet’s Stinson Vineyards, one of just a few Virginia wineries using concrete eggs. I’m not an oddball—winemaker Rachel Stinson Vrooman assured me that most visitors feel compelled to rub them. “And they take many pictures, as if it were a rock star,” she says.

The making and storage of wine in rounded, earthenware containers called amphorae dates back to the Neolithic period, and was practiced by ancient civilizations including the Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks. Renowned French winemaker Michel Chapoutier was inspired by this history when he designed the first contemporary concrete egg, which was manufactured by Nomblot in 2002. When Stinson opened eight years later, it bought its eggs from Nomblot. Small, minimalist, and modern, the winery’s style is complemented by the concrete vessels.

Concrete egg fermenters have many things to recommend them. The thick, dense walls insulate the fermenting wine and keep the temperature stable. As the yeast goes to work it gives off heat, creating convection currents that circulate warmer wine at the bottom to replace cooler wine at the top. This movement allows complex flavors to develop through continuous contact with the lees (yeast sediments) in an automatic batonnage (stirring the lees to lend a creamy texture). Tiny, air-filled pores on the interior walls oxygenate the circulating liquid, allowing redox to occur—essentially, the oxygen regulates the level of naturally occurring sulfur compounds.

In sauvignon blanc, the only wine Stinson makes with the eggs, sulfur can produce flavors of passion fruit, citrus, smoke, and flint. But if the oxygen weren’t present to keep the sulfur in check, the wine would smell skunky. I’m not making this up! The sulfur compound thiol is what makes a skunk’s spray so vile, but it also gives garlic its pleasant zip.

Okay, the chemistry lesson is over—let’s talk about wine, in particular Stinson’s excellent sauvignon blanc. When it comes out of the eggs it is blended with the same wine that has been fermented in stainless steel, which, unlike concrete, preserves fruit flavors. The finished product delivers good minerality, complexity, body, and texture. This texture, a creaminess on the palate, I definitely noticed when tasting the wine. I also tasted notes of peach and citrus.

If making the wine this way sounds labor-intensive, well, that’s because it is. But as the cool wine flowed across my tongue, filling my mouth with complex, refreshing flavors, it made me smile—just like a concrete egg itself.

Stinson Vineyards, 4744 Sugar Hollow Rd., Crozet, 823-7300, stinsonvineyards.com

About 10 years ago, concurrent with the onset of the artisanal cocktail movement, small-batch European vermouths began showing up in the U.S. market. Winemakers took notice, and some started experimenting with producing their own. Today, vermouth is enjoying a moment, with some of the very best being made in our own backyard, by Afton’s Flying Fox Vineyard.

Winemakers Elliott Watkins and Emily Pelton were inspired by small-batch gins, with their quirky bottles and elaborate labels, to make vermouth for Flying Fox, the Veritas spin-off. It’s safe to say they’ve succeeded. Not only are the vermouths delicious and intriguing, but they have fabulous labels and, yes, a quirky bottle.

The label designer is Dani Antol, of Rock Paper Scissors, the Charlottesville custom paper-goods shop. Watkins wanted “the labels to be the tasting notes,” Antol says. They harken back to watercolors of fruits and flowers popular in the 1800s but are fresh and modern. Each one shows the ingredients—botanicals, fruits, and spices—that impart the wine’s flavors.

A fortified wine, vermouth always includes wormwood, a bitter, medicinal herb. What makes the Flying Fox version unique is that four iterations, one for each season, are produced yearly. Two are available now: Fall Sweet Vermouth No. 18.03, flavored with orange peel, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, and persimmon; and Winter Sweet Vermouth No. 18.04, made with raisins, dates, apple, pear, and cinnamon, and finished with bitter-sweet pomegranate. The Spring Sweet Vermouth No. 19.01, due for release in mid-April, will feature notes of strawberry and rhubarb.

Flying Fox sources most of the ingredients locally, and has begun growing botanicals. With the unusual elixirs growing in popularity, a greenhouse to ramp up production of the flavorful additives is on the drawing board. Purists may enjoy the vermouth on ice, but it also makes a sweet cocktail.

Flying Fox Vineyard, 10368 Critzer Shop Rd., Afton. 361-1692. virginiavermouth.com

Recipe

The Foxtail

Not your run-of-the-mill martini, this drink offers subtle fruit and herbal flavors.

1.5 oz Hendrick’s Gin

3 oz Flying Fox Spring or Summer Vermouth

Twist of lime peel

Splash of club soda

Serve over spring-water ice in a tall glass.