Three Notch’d Brewing Company was one of the area establishments that welcomed back customers May 15, under Phase One of Virginia’s reopening. “We’ve really been preparing to do this for eight weeks,” says Scott Roth, the brewery’s president. PC: Sanjay Suchak
On Friday, May 15, a number of Virginia businesses got the green light to reopen (with restrictions), as part of Phase One of Governor Ralph Northam’s plan. But locally, response has been mixed, with some establishments instituting new safety measures to bring in badly needed customers, while others stay shut for now. Though the number of positive COVID-19 tests and hospitalizations in the state have declined over the past two weeks, there has been at least one new reported case of the virus almost every day for the past two weeks in the Charlottesville area.
Under Northam’s plan, restaurants with outdoor seating (along with places of worship) can reopen at 50 percent capacity. With its ample outdoor space, Three Notch’d Brewing Company is in a position to be a “leader in the community in setting a really high standard for what [reopening] should look like in our industry,” says president Scott Roth.
“We’ve really been preparing to do this for eight weeks. We’ve had a gloves-and-mask policy since March, and have required that our employees do daily wellness checks and screenings,” Roth adds. “[We’ve] been able to secure hand sanitizer to put on every table…[and] have 40-something-odd seats spaced appropriately on the patio,” among other health and safety measures.
In-person sales are vital to local craft breweries and wineries, and many have taken the opportunity to reopen. Random Row and Decipher Brewing have implemented policies similar to those at Three Notch’d, while Devils Backbone and Starr Hill are also requiring reservations and asking patrons to wear face coverings when not seated at their table. Champion Brewing announced its two locations will remain closed except for takeout and delivery, while it “continues developing plans for safe outdoor seating.”
Some wineries, like Keswick and Veritas, are also requiring reservations, while Knight’s Gambit allows walk-ins.
Multiple local restaurants have opened up their outdoor seating too, such as Ace Biscuit & Barbecue, The Lazy Parrot, and Martin’s Grill.
Under Phase One, non-essential retail is also allowed to open at 50 percent capacity, and several local retailers are now allowing limited in-person shopping. Customers can schedule a private shopping appointment at downtown boutiques Darling and Arsenic and Old Lace Vintage, as well as at The Artful Lodger and Lynne Goldman Elements. They can also shop (without an appointment) at certain stores, like Mincer’s at Stonefield, which is allowing no more than six customers inside at a time, and is requiring all customers and employees to wear masks.
Following state guidelines, some nail salons, hairdressers, and other personal grooming businesses across town have opened up by appointment only, including Boom Boom Nail and Waxing Lounge, His Image Barber Shop & Natural Hair Studio, and Hazel Beauty Bar. While restrictions vary at each establishment, all customers and employees are required to wear face masks at all times, forbidding services (such as lip waxing) that require removal of masks.
Despite all of these reopenings, dozens of other local businesses have decided to stick with contactless curbside pickup and delivery for now, citing health and safety concerns.
“Some of you may ask what it will take for us to reconsider and open our doors again. Again, in all honesty, we’re not quite sure. Certainly, a much more robust testing and contact tracing policy by our state and country,” said Ragged Mountain Running Shop in a May 12 Facebook post. “Beyond that, the emergence of more effective treatment options, widespread antibody testing, and on the distant horizon, a vaccine.”
While a couple of restaurants on the Downtown Mall, such as Vita Nova and Taste of India, have opened up their patios, many have decided to hold off—including Draft Taproom, The Whiskey Jar, Ten, The Fitzroy, The Pie Chest, The Alley Light, Citizen Burger Bar, and Zocalo.
Some, like Citizen Burger, pointed out that the mall is not the ideal location for safe outdoor seating. Though tables can be spaced at least six feet apart, restaurants have a limited amount of patio space available. Mall pedestrians are also able to walk right next to the patios, making it potentially more difficult to enforce social distancing guidelines.
Brooke Fossett, owner of The Brow House, has also decided not to reopen under Phase One, because she and her employees did not feel it was safe to do so.
“We literally touch people’s faces,” she says. “Salons and spas should not have been in Phase One. I know how bad some of them—and us—are struggling, and I wish that there was more support from the government for our industry.”
Hairstylist Claibourne Nesmith, who will not be opening her salon, The Honeycomb, until Phase Two, also thinks that personal grooming businesses should not be open now, and were thrown into Phase One “to appease people,” she says.
“Right now we don’t have adequate access to PPE…We don’t even have Barbicide or reusable tools that they are requiring for us to have,” says Nesmith. “If we’re getting all these requirements to be this careful, it kind of sounds like we’re not ready to go back.”
And under the state’s restrictions, those in the personal grooming industry who do go back to work will not be able to make much money, due to their limited amount of appointments (and tips), says Nesmith, who is currently advocating with others for partial unemployment benefits for employees who rely on tips (including waiters).
The Harrison apple, an heirloom variety once thought to be extinct, was reintroduced by Tom Burford of Albemarle CiderWorks—and used to make an award-winning cider. Photo: Courtesy Albemarle CiderWorks
On Friday, January 17, Albemarle CiderWorks and MudhouseCoffee Roasters scored top honors in the 2020 Good Food Awards in San Francisco. Among more than 2,000 entrants, the cidery and coffee producer were regional (South) winners in their respective categories—ACW for its Harrison cider, and Mudhouse for its Geisha Moras Negras roast. Bestowed annually by the creators of Slow Food Nations, the awards recognize “players in the food system who are driving towards tasty, authentic, and responsible food in order to humanize and reform our American food culture.”
Albemarle CiderWorks’ Harrison cider took top regional (South) honors at the annual Good Foods Awards in San Francisco. Photo: Courtesy Albemarle CiderWorks
As the name suggests, the ACW cider is made from the Harrison apple, an 18th-century variety that fell out of use and was thought to be extinct until its rediscovery in the late 1970s. Years later, ACW’s Thomas Burford became the first contemporary orchardist to cultivate the yellow, black-speckled Harrison, and today it is widely grown and popular among cider makers (but too ugly for supermarket sales).
The story of Mudhouse’s award winner begins in 1960, when the Geisha coffee variety was introduced in Panama. Mudhouse sources its beans from a third-generation family farm there. Grown at an altitude of about 5,400 feet, the fruit is hand-picked by migrant laborers from the Ngäbe-Buglé indigenous region, and it is quite precious. Eight ounces of Mudhouse’s Moras Negras will set you back $75. That’s more than most of us would be willing to pay. But at the 2006 Best of Panama event, an executive from Vermont’s Green Mountain Coffee remarked, “I am the least religious person here and when I tasted this coffee I saw the face of God in a cup.”
If you’re into that sort of thing, you can buy the stuff at mudhouse.com.
Speaking of awards…
Five local vineyards wowed the judges at the 2020 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, securing prestigious awards and doing the Monticello American Viticultural Area proud. Jefferson and Barboursville vineyards, Veritas Vineyard & Winery, and Trump Winery earned Double Gold designations for five wines, and newcomer Hark Vineyards was the only Best in Class winner from Virginia, singled out in the classic packaging category for its 2017 chardonnay label design. The Chronicle’s annual event is the largest in North America, drawing 6,700 entries from 1,000 wineries this year. Judges dole out Double Gold medals sparingly but found worthy recipients in the Jefferson Vineyards 2018 viognier, Barboursville’s 2018 vermentino, and Trump Winery’s 2016 meritage (a red blend consisting primarily of cabernet franc). Veritas nabbed two double-golds for cabernet franc bottlings, the 2017 reserve and 2017 standard in the $40-and-over and under-$30 categories, respectively.
This is nuts!
Sorry, fans of dairy alternatives like soy and almond milk, you may have to adapt to new terminology. A bill just cleared the Virginia House Agriculture Subcommittee defining milk as “the lacteal secretion, practically free of colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of a healthy hooved mammal.” The measure is intended to protect the commonwealth’s dairy industry from the surge in popularity of plant-based “milk” products. The legislation is moooving up the lawmaking food chain for further consideration.
Munch madness
C-VILLE’s Restaurant Week 2020 kicks off Friday, January 24, with 40 restaurants offering three-course meals for $29 or $39 (plus tax and a huge tip, please)—and presenting some tantalizing dishes. We’ve got our hungry little eyes on a few, including: Little Star’s seared rockfish with escarole, chipotle, manchego, and pimento fundito; Fleurie’s pan-roasted Polyface Farm chicken with braised cabbage and bacon; Kama’s grilled Virginia oysters with uni butter; 1799 at The Clifton’s rainbow trout with sweet potato, kale, and orange emulsion; Three Notch’d’struffled mushroom ragout with potato gnocchi, vegetarian bordelaise, baked kale, and pecorino; and to top things off, Common House(aka Vinegar Hall)’s buttermilk panna cotta with persimmon jam. A portion of the proceeds benefit the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, so eat up!
Bird is the word
Bowerbird Bakeshop, that is. The team behind the City Market stalwart recently announced a brick-and-mortar location at the Tenth Street Warehouses this spring. On Monday, co-owners Earl Vallery and Maria Niechwiadowicz surpassed their $5,555 GoFundMe target (by about $500) to defray part of the $70,000 start-up costs. Ten percent of all donations above the goal benefit City of Promise, the nonprofit working to empower underserved populations in Charlottesville.
Movin’ on up
It’s last call at Ace Biscuit & BBQ’s Henry Street location. The charming storefront next to Vitae Spirits will close on January 26 as the kings of carbo-loading move to bigger digs at 600 Concord Ave., just a couple of blocks away. No opening date at the new location has been announced.
Plus ça change
Less than a year after taking the helm at Gordonsville’s Rochambeau, Michelin-starred chef Bernard Guillot has returned to France, citing personal reasons. But the restaurant won’t miss a beat, as Jean-Louis and Karen Dumonet step in to fill the void in early February. The couple met long ago at cooking school in Paris and have been collaborating on restaurants all over the world for 35-plus years. Their latest project, Dumonet, was a popular French bistro in Brooklyn.
It’s mai-tai o’clock somewhere
Now that it’s actually cold outside, Brasserie Saison is hosting a Tropical Tiki Getaway so you can mind-trip to a warm, sandy beach. The intimate downstairs Coat Room will be decorated like a luau (we see a fake palm tree in our future) and paper-umbrella cocktails will be served. Wear your Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops. 6-10pm, Thursday, January 30. 111 E. Main St., Downtown Mall, 202-7027, brasseriesaison.net.
The Farmhouse at Veritas plunks you down in the middle of the vineyard, setting the tone for the farm-to-table fare inside. Photo: John Robinson
“I think this may be the next Inn at Little Washington,” I said to my husband as we stepped off the wide porch of The Farmhouse at Veritas and out into the moonlight. I was tipsy, and the evening had been romantic, so I was happy and maybe exaggerating a little. Only time will tell.
Like the acclaimed Inn at Little Washington, which opened its doors more than 40 years ago with a menu that included shrimp scampi and veal scaloppini for under $10, The Farmhouse at Veritas, in the Blue Ridge Mountains foothills west of Charlottesville, started with modest intentions. A family home for nearly 200 years, the early 1800s farmhouse was repurposed in 2012 as a comfortable and graceful six-room inn that echoes the welcoming style of its namesake, Veritas Vineyards, next door.
Chef Andy Shipman rarely dines out, relying mostly on his culinary instincts—and inspiration from books like The Noma Guide to Fermentation and the multi-volume Modernist Cuisine—to guide his cooking. Photo: John Robinson
“Because we were so small, we started off thinking we’d just be catering to the house guests,” says Patricia Hodson, co-owner with her husband, Andrew, of the vineyard and farmhouse. “But then people who weren’t staying would ask, ‘Can we come and dine?’ And we’d say, ‘Sure, why not?’”
As word got out, more cars wound their way up the mountain for the four-course, wine-paired dinner, which always starts with a glass of Veritas sparkling wine on the shaded porch or stone patio. It was easy enough to see what was fueling the word-of-mouth marketing: guests exhaled deeply as they relaxed into a rocker and took in the view—a hillside of vines across the road, dripping with the same viognier and cabernet franc they’d find in their glass later.
After about a year, with the 36-seat restaurant selling out every weekend, the Hodsons had preliminary proof of the need for fine dining in Nelson County. But without a major population center nearby (no offense to Charlottesville, of course), an owner’s steps along the fine-dining continuum can be a tightrope walk: the risks of a misstep can be considerable, but the potential for glory—well, just look 70 miles north.
Chef Patrick O’Connell’s balance has been perfect at his Washington, Virginia, restaurant in Rappahannock County. After four decades of creative cookery and synchronized service with a huge dollop of theatrical whimsy, The Inn at Little Washington is now one of a handful of Michelin three-star restaurants in the country. (Many people think the town’s actual name is Little Washington: Such is the power of the restaurant.)
Chef Shipman’s mid-September menu opened with this rabbit-ramp sausage with chili hot sauce, egg yolk, upland cress, and American cheese. His plate compositions tend to be elegant and minimal. Photo: John Robinson
In the kitchen at The Farmhouse at Veritas, Chef Andy Shipman, 32, balances space, time, and expense against flavor. Flavor typically wins. Take breadso, for example. Like miso, breadso begins with a grayish mold called koji. The koji is added to leftover sourdough bread dough, salted lightly, and set aside to ferment for four months. Egg yolks are then laid carefully in the breadso, which acts like a blanket as they cure for several days. The yolks harden a bit, and are grated over a seasonal tomato salad, for garnish and a bit of umami flavor. The process is precise and requires patience, but the results are delicious.
Shipman could have skipped the breadso step if he’d used a sugar- and salt-based curing recipe like the one that made the rounds on social media last year. But he says the breadso gives the egg yolks a deeper, richer flavor that balances with that of the tangy tomatoes from the inn’s garden.
Chef Shipman is mostly self-taught as a cook. His restaurant career began at The Sunken Well in Fredericksburg, where he picked up skills as a dishwasher and busser—plus a lot of empathy for the grind of many kitchen jobs. Later, as a line cook at Foode, also in Fredericksburg, he learned from the smart and charismatic chef Joy Crump, who impressed Shipman with her dedication to craft and masterful kitchen management.
Shipman—an introvert with a close-cropped beard and unblinking blue eyes that let you know he’s listening—is not an easy interview: given a yes-or-no question, he’ll answer yes or no. But when asked about his cooking, out comes the Instagram and a verbal cascade.
About plating constructs, for instance: “Most plates we’ll go high and tight. We try to keep it in the middle. We like to hide a lot of things. Not too much garnish.”
That’s apparent in what at first seems to be a simple plate of asparagus with hollandaise. “It’s asparagus with roasted red peppers on the bottom, there’s preserved lemon underneath, and the hollandaise is actually mouselline,” the chef explains. “It has a little cream added to it, and instead of using butter we use duck fat, so it’s a duck fat mouselline topped with a sorrel leaf.”
Shipman hasn’t been to The Inn at Little Washington. He gets most of his ideas from reading. (The Noma Guide to Fermentation and Modernist Cuisine are recent sources of inspiration.) He ponders whether visiting superstar restaurants would help or hurt his creativity.
“There’s a natural urge to copy,” Shipman says. “When you don’t go to a lot of restaurants, instead of ideas coming from the outside in, they come from the inside out.”
Were Shipman to drive north and check out the Inn, he might notice that the air is magical but not so rareified that it leaves you breathless. The secret ingredient that makes an amuse-bouche of truffled popcorn and a tiny tumbler of minted pea soup so addictive? A very pragmatic device: sugar. In the snug dining rooms, the tables can be a bit tight, placing the occasional entering or exiting derriere directly at eye level. And romantic conversations take a back burner to constant food deliveries—12 amuse- bouches, entrées, and sweets on a recent visit—plus plenty of plate clearing and silverware shuffling. Dining at a Michelin three-star restaurant isn’t about you. It’s for you, but not about you.
Not so at the Farmhouse at Veritas. “Remember that we had some customers who told us they left [here] feeling hungry?” Patricia Hodson asks her husband at a recent dinner.
Finished with his work in the kitchen, Shipman stops by the owners’ table, where Mr. Hodson engages the chef on the portion size of one of the night’s menu items. “You have these lovely delights of the palate, but then you have the main course and you get this…galumph,” he says. “Might the rib-eye portion have been a bit too large?”
Patricia disagrees, saying they’d intentionally added a substantial meat course to the menu. Shipman has likely heard this back-and-forth before but still listens attentively. He’s a partner in the evolution.
Whether to keep a hearty and popular meat- and-potatoes course on the menu or downsize it and add maybe a fish course, or a cheese course before dessert—a French practice that Andrew Hodson likes—is one of many steps a fine-dining restaurateur must finesse on the way toward creating a legacy.
For now, future plans for The Farmhouse include expanding the kitchen and then adding a second seating. What stays the same? The convivial pre-dinner glass of Veritas sparkling wine, served on the patio on warm summer evenings, or comfortably ensconced in a leather armchair by the fire in cooler weather. A flavorful, four-course tasting menu that’s both abundant and original. Generous wine pairings. Friendly but unobtrusive service. In the end, a night that’s all about you.
The Farmhouse at Veritas. $85 per person plus tax and gratuities for four courses plus wine pairings. Reservations required. 72 Saddleback Farm, Afton. (540) 456-8100. veritasfarmhouse.com.
Taleofthetape: How two great restaurants measure up
Food
The Inn at Little Washington offers three tasting menus ($248 per person, plus optional wine pairings for $170 per person.) One menu starts off with “a Tin of Sin”: a cunning sardine-type tin filled with imperial osetra caviar, Chesapeake blue crab, and cucumber rillette. The Inn’s trademark fanciful naming and adorable (really!) packaging can elevate a special night out into a gaga fest. The food, never more than a few bites of any one plate, ranges from fork-stoppingly, eye-closingly good (pepper-crusted duck breast with brandy-roasted peaches) to a bit overwrought (a rather mushy tin of tuna and foie gras confit in black truffle vinaigrette).
The Farmhouse at Veritas offers a four-course menu ($85 per person, including wine pairings) that changes every other week. A recent first course featured an engaging minimalist plating of a square of maple-brined Autumn Olive Farm pork belly roasted for 60 hours, a spoonful of Dr. Pepper-tamarind reduction, a tiny round of cornbread, and a small stack of housemade pickles. Deep flavors and texture contrasts throughout the meal show plenty of thought, and classic sauces—such as a spectacularly flavorful bordelaise on an eye of rib-eye sourced from Lynchburg’s Seven Hills Food Co.—show patience.
Ambience
The Inn at Little Washington is awash in silks and brocades, fringed lampshades and fabric-swagged ceilings. Conversations are muted, superlatives many.
The Farmhouse at Veritas has that rambling feel and wood smoke smell of the best old houses. Couples are seated on an enclosed porch ringed by windows, with tables spaced to allow quiet conversation, while small (and the occasional large) groups move inside to two formal dining rooms. Tables are set with flowers from the garden and special touches like vintage cutlery with pearl-handled knives.
Service
The Inn at Little Washington’s service is a gliding minuet danced by an army of attractive, graceful servers somehow not colliding, never spilling, always smiling. You don’t care for that particular wine pairing? Here’s a new one. Want to know what’s in a dish? Just ask. Everyone knows the answer. To everything.
The Farmhouse at Veritas’ service begins and ends with restaurant manager, Angel Cruz, who, at 7pm on the dot, with a broad smile and erect posture, invites guests to take their seat for dinner. Cruz or Chef Shipman briefly introduce each course, and Cruz describes the wine pairings, all from Veritas Vineyards. Attentive servers smile but don’t intervene without a cue. Cruz keeps a watchful eye on every detail. The meal moves at a leisurely pace—one of the benefits of having only one seating a night, but still like clockwork through the four courses.
Clientele
The Inn at Little Washington’s price tag means “special occasion” for most diners, but the crowd is surprisingly diverse with a mix of families, lovestruck anniversary couples, and blasé Washingtonians who know the staff by name.
The Farmhouse at Veritas’ pre-dinner wine helps loosen everyone up, so there tends to be friendly chatter, especially if the day was spent a-winerying. The crowd is mostly couples who’ve driven out from Charlottesville or nearby Wintergreen, guests staying the weekend at the Inn, or the occasional girlfriend group.
True Heritage wines use grapes planted on historic estates in Keswick that are collaborating with Veritas on the new project. Photo: Veritas Vineyard & Winery
Afton’s Veritas Vineyard & Winery has announced the launch of a new label, True Heritage. Breaking away from the traditional Virginia winery model (mostly on-site and local sales), True Heritage will focus on wider distribution to both meet and increase demand for the Commonwealth’s reds and whites. The rollout targets retail outlets and restaurants in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. But Veritas CEO George Hodson and head winemaker Emily Pelton say the ultimate goal is to reach national and even international markets.
The brand name is a humblebrag
about Virginia’s place in U.S. winemaking history. As the True Heritage website notes, Jamestown settlers planted vines in 1609, and the first American vineyard—with 85 acres under cultivation—sprang up in Williamsburg in 1619, a full 160 years before missionaries put vines in the ground in California.
Today, Virginia bottles a fraction of the wine that industry-leading California does. But critics have noted a marked improvement in the quality of the vintages produced here, and True Heritage aims to capitalize on this. Planted on the historic Keswick estates Castalia and Ben Coolyn, 50 acres of vines currently produce grapes for True Heritage, and 150 more vineyard acres are planned.
United we eat
In October 2017, about 700 people attended the United Way’s first Community Table at the Jefferson School City Center, where they reflected on the violent white supremacist rallies of August 11 and 12. The third Community Table event—part of the city’s Unity Days—is a free event that takes place from 6-9pm on August 8 at IX Art Park. Attendees will gather for guided but casual conversation over a family-style meal by Harvest Moon Catering. “We all know that sharing a meal is one of the best ways to create new relationships,” says Caroline Emerson, United Way vice president for community engagement. “Getting to know each other can lead to greater awareness and understanding.” Register by emailing acommunitytable@unitedwaytja.org. Seating is limited, and attendance is determined by a lottery.
Just peachy
Nothing says summer quite like homemade ice cream, especially when it’s of the peach variety. For the past 35 years, Chiles Peach Orchard has donated peaches to the Crozet Lions Club, which then uses the freshly-picked fruit to make the creamy frozen stuff. Get a taste at the peach orchard from 9am-6pm on August 3, and 10am-6pm on August 4. All sales benefit the Crozet and Western Albemarle community. 1351 Greenwood Rd., 823-1583, chilesfamilyorchards.com.
The view from on high: Enjoy Monticello in a whole new way—with a glass of local wine in your hand. Photo: Thomas Jefferson Foundation
Join Thomas Jefferson—aka Bill Barker, the new T.J. impersonator—for local wine, beer, and picnic fare from Farm Table, on June 14 on the west lawn of the presidential plantation. Monticello is always a beautiful place to visit, but at twilight, with an adult beverage in hand, you may gain a new perspective. (Hell, Barker may even seem to be an apparition.) Stroll the grounds, explore the gardens, and take in the views from the mountaintop as evening approaches and the work week fades in your rear-view mirror. If the mosquitoes swarm, you can escape inside for a special tour of the upper floors. Also offered, sans Barker, on July 12 and August 9. $5 admission; pay-as-you-go for food and drink. Indoor tours must be booked in advance. 931 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy., 984-9800, monticello.org.
Wine and dine
Summer winery dinners are kicking into high gear, offering a special night out for the local staycation crowd. On June 14, Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards’ Strawberry Moon Wine Dinner features Mara des Bois strawberries (they’re small, French, and sweet, like Audrey Tautou) from the winery’s kitchen garden in each dish of chef Ian Rynecki’s multi-course meal, which also includes wine pairings by Michael Shaps of Michael Shaps Wineworks. Veritas Vineyards’ Starry Nights food, music, and wine events take place June 8, July 13, and August 10, featuring live bands and a range of offerings, from simply laying out a picnic blanket to enjoy the evening on the expansive grounds to a three-course meal on the porch. A more down-home experience awaits at Knight’s Gambit Vineyard on June 29, when Americana band Kat & the Travelers play on the porch while a food truck serves up tacos. Overlooking a horse pasture and with mesmerizing mountain views, Knight’s Gambit is an Albemarle County gem. Meanwhile, on the evening of June 14 at Glass House Winery, in Free Union, Charlottesville’s ADAR Duo provides the tunes and the Two Brothers Southwestern Grill food truck rolls in from Ruckersville. See the wineries’ websites for details.
The comfy fireplace furniture creates an intimate feel in Veritas Vineyard’s tasting room. Photo: Stephen Barling
Whether it’s bitterly cold or just damp and dreary, one of the best places to wait out winter is beside a roaring fire (preferably with a glass of wine). Luckily, plenty of area wineries fit the bill, with cozy couches and toasty fireplaces to sit beside while you sip.
“We go for a living-room kind of feel in our tasting room,” says Paul Summers, owner of Knight’s Gambit Vineyard. “It’s homey and comfortable, and the fireplace no doubt adds to that.” So does the resident hound, Fig, who often lounges on a sofa near the fire.
The tasting room at Septenary Winery also feels like a living room, with four chairs by the hearth. A two-sided fireplace warms up the cavernous public room at Barboursville Vineyards, cranking out heat for visitors seated at tables on one side and patrons at the tasting bar on the other. At Veritas Vineyard & Winery, the most coveted tasting room seats are the overstuffed leather sofa and chairs near the fireplace.
At King Family Vineyards, a big fieldstone hearth anchors the winery’s Pavilion—and draws a crowd. When the oak logs are crackling, fragrant smoke fills the air and a beer-hall vibe prevails, with patrons engaged in animated conversation at the Pavilion’s long wood tables. “It’s very relaxing and warm, like sitting in someone’s great room,” says King Family’s events coordinator, Kelly Bauer. —J.B.
More kudos for BBQ Exchange
Recently recognized by the Food Network for one of the best BBQ pork sandwiches in America, The Barbeque Exchange, in Gordonsville, has been nominated by the USA Today 10Best for Best Brunswick Stew in Virginia. An expert panel selected the nominees, and readers will choose a winner (to be announced March 8) by voting on the 10Best website. —Simon Davidson
Greens (and more) cook-off
Calling all cooks and fans of good home cooking: The African American Heritage Center’s fifth annual Greens Cook Off takes place from 3-5pm February 9 at the Jefferson School. Greens, macaroni and cheese, and pound cake will be judged; visitors can graze on the entries and vote for their favorites. Learn more at jeffschoolheritagecenter.org. —S.D.
Cheese, chocolate, and champagne for lovers
On Valentine’s Day, the holy trinity of cheese, chocolate, and champagne will converge at Oakhart Social. Righteous Cheese’s Carolyn Stromberg Leasure and cheesemonger Sara Adduci, formerly of Feast!, will open four rare-producer champagnes and give instruction on pairing bubbly with cheese. A spread of local chocolates will also be available, because…Valentine’s Day! For tickets and info search Chocolate, Cheese & Baller Bubbly at eventbrite.com —S.D.
Ladies get their Galentine’s on
It started with Leslie Knope, Amy Pohler’s character on the TV sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” but craft distiller Vitae Spirits is carrying on the tradition of Galentine’s Day with its second annual party, at 5pm February 7. As Leslie said, it’s all about “ladies celebrating ladies.” Vitae’s version will feature a pop-up shop—along with booze, of course—with products from women-owned businesses. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Sexual Assault Resource Agency. —Jenny Gardiner
Super cidery
Potter’s Craft Cider—with a little help from Virginia’s taxpayers—is growing. Potter’s will invest $1.68 million to quadruple its production and refurbish Neve Hall, a former church built in 1924, as a tasting room. The project gets a boost from a $50,000 grant from the commonwealth’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund, and matching funds from Albemarle County. —J.B.
Duner’s chef to become owner
Duner’s executive chef Laura Fonner has announced she’ll be acquiring the upscale Ivy restaurant from current owner Bob Caldwell after his retirement next year. “It’s a natural move for me,” says Fonner, who has worked at Duner’s for 15 years. —J.G.
The Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville parades local holiday cheer with floats, marching bands, living history performers and more.
FAMILY Virginia Glee Club Christmas concert Saturday, December 9
The UVA Glee Club performs seasonal favorites with plenty of opportunities for the audience to sing along. $5-15, 8-10pm. First Presbyterian Church, 500 Park St. virginia gleeclub.org
NONPROFIT Holiday Heritage Parade Saturday, December 9
The Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville parades local holiday cheer with floats, marching bands, living history performers and more. Free, 10am. Downtown Mall. downtowncharlottesville.net
HEALTH & WELLNESS Taking control of stress Thursday, December 7
This class (part of a series) focuses on the effects of stress—both acuteand chronic—on our bodies and health. Learn several techniques for stress management. Free, 1- 2pm. Sentara Martha Jefferson Health & Wellness Center Patient Education Room, 590 Peter Jefferson Pkwy. 654-4510.
FOOD & DRINK Christmas caroling party Friday, December 8
While enjoying a glass of wine or hot chocolate by the fire after dinner (included in price), join the UVA Sil’hooettes in singing Christmas carols. $20, 6-9pm. Veritas Vineyard& Winery, 151 Veritas Ln., Afton. veritaswines.com
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 WhicheloeKing 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.”
A 30-some-acre spot on the top of Veritas Vineyards’ “saddleback” contains viognier and cabernet franc. It’s the first site, says winemaker Emily Pelton, with “considerable elevation and gorgeous aspect.” Photo courtesy of Stephen Barling.
Several decades into Virginia’s booming post-Prohibition wine economy, we are starting to home in on some special vineyard sites throughout the state. In France, you’ll find heavily protected and coveted grand cru and premier cru sites; in other wine-centric countries you’ll find similar infrastructures protecting the best vineyards. What sites are emerging as Virginia’s equivalent to grand cru vineyards?
A straightforward answer is much more elusive than you might think, because the question is being asked, perhaps, a bit too early. Learning the land takes time because agriculture takes time. The search for quality in the wine business is an especially drawn-out process because, though grapes are an annual product, a grape vine plant has a similar lifespan to a human, and grape vine roots can take decades to reach the depth and maturity they need to truly express their place. Only when the vines are echoing their environment can the influence of special sites shine their truest. This clarity of site quality can take decades and generations to discover. You just can’t rush it.
“I’d say for the most part that we are so young as an industry that most of our best sites are unplanted and yet to be discovered,” says Early Mountain Vineyards’ Ben Jordan. “I’m not the first to say so, but I think the best is yet to come.”
As the industry grows into its next phase, it’s helpful to revisit some vineyards that seem to have that “special something” in the hopes that we can glean a bit of experiential knowledge.
Ankida Ridge
“There are a few characteristics that make Ankida Ridge a great site for growing quality wine grapes,” says winemaker Nathan Vrooman. “The elevation and relative altitude of the vineyard allow for excellent drainage of cold air, which helps to mitigate our risk for spring frost.” Additionally, the slope of the vineyard, combined with the loose rocky soil, allows for water drainage, so the plants are forced to send their roots deeper into the ground. Being on a mountainside, there’s almost constant air movement, so the plants and the fruit tend to dry very quickly, which results in lighter fungal pressures.
Barboursville Vineyards
Barboursville winemaker Luca Paschina is always reevaluating his vineyard blocks for the highest quality material to make his Octagon blend. Among the vineyard’s 900 acres, there is a particular area that the wine team has designated “santa,” as if holy. For the past 18 years, it has been producing, with almost impeccable consistency, its prized merlot, which is the starting block of the winery’s Octagon blend.
“Many elements make the block special,” Paschina says, “starting from the medium vigor red clay soil to the gradually steep slope facing to the east, which allows for a nice early morning dew-drying sun and for a cooling during the late summer afternoons.”
Michael Shaps Wineworks
For Michael Shaps, who produces wine from grapes grown on various properties, three special vineyards stick out in his mind: Carter Mountain for its cabernet franc, the Gordonsville’s Honah Lee Vineyard for its petit manseng and Loudoun County’s Wild Meadow vineyard for its chardonnay.
“What makes Wild Meadow so special is not one particular variable, but how all the elements come together,” Shaps says. “The soil is lighter, loamier with less clay and with good drainage. But that in conjunction with the slope, exposure and its northern Virginia location, which provides cooler nighttime temps during the critical last two weeks of ripening, help to produce very balanced chemistry, which in wine vocab means fresh fruit.”
Veritas Vineyards
Emily Pelton, winemaker at Veritas, loves the new vineyards her family has planted. She works mainly with the vineyards from Veritas’ first plantings in 1999, but says the newer ones—planted in the last four years—are quickly gaining her favor.
“We cleared 30-odd acres on the top of our ‘saddleback’ and we have planted it to viognier and cabernet franc,” she says. “I think it may be the promise of the future that makes my heart skip a beat every time I visit these vineyards, or it may be the view, I’m not sure. This vineyard would be my first site that has considerable elevation and gorgeous aspect. Fingers crossed!”
Jake Busching Wines
Winemaker Jake Busching is currently focusing on 800- to 1,000-foot elevation sites with clay-based soil: Honah Lee, Carter Mountain, Wild Meadow and similar vineyards that are slowly being tuned in vintage after vintage.
“Monticello reds and Northern Virginia whites stand out to me, just as the Shenandoah Valley has so much to offer,” Busching says. “But like all of the sites, we need more time to suss it all out. We are headed into greatness. Patience seems like our best ally.”
Erin Scala is the sommelier at Fleurie and Petit Pois. She holds the Diploma of Wines & Spirits, is a Certified Sake Specialist and writes about beverages on her blog, thinking-drinking.com.m.
