For the first time ever, Total Wine - the mega-retailer of wine - devotes a page to North Carolina in its seasonal 448-page wine guide. That's the good news.
The bad news? Only three wines are featured - a white, a red and a blush, all Muscadine-based from Pilot Mountain Winery.
Here's how North Carolina is introduced: "Most regions throughout the U.S. attempt to produce wine from popular grapes such as Chardonnay and Cabernet, whether their soil and climate are well suited to growing them." This text runs beneath a half page, buccolic shot of hillside vines, which look suspiciously like such popular grapes as Chardonnay or Cabernet.
Talk about a Rodney Dangerfield introduction. North Carolina's traditional European vinifera can't get no respect. This in a state with 13 Total Wine locations. Virginia - with 14 Total Wine locations - doesn't fare much better, getting two pages in the guide, most of featuring sugary, gimmicky blends and fruit wines.
When nearly half your retail locations in the U.S. are located in North Carolina and Virginia, you'd think Total Wine might acknowledge the vinifera, the majority stakeholder in these two states..
Some N.C. favorites? Raffaldini (Sangiovese); Childress (Cabernet Sauvignon); Shelton (Riesling); RayLen (Merlot); Hanover Park (Mourvedre); RagApple Lassie (Viognier); Westbend (Chadonnay); Grove (Tempranillo); McRitchie (Petit Verdot); Junius Lindsay (Roussanne); Round Peak (Nebbiolo).
Posted:
7/23/2011 12:47:51 PM by
Ed Williams | with
0 comments
So, I'm in the middle of a new recipe Sunday - pesto veggie tart.
This plays to the strengths of everything coming out of the garden: Zucchini, squash, tomatoes, corn, basil. You can't beat ingredients straight out the door, fresh picked.
The goat cheese comes just down the road from the Goat Lady. I can't swear to where the egg came from. The parmessan cheese and pie crust come straight from the grocery store. We're not that self-sustaining.
I'm thinking the 2009 Grove Winery Sangiovese would go great with this dish. It sits in my kitchen wine rack, never optimum storeage because the kitchen temperature fluctuates wildly, particularly when I'm in cooking mode.
So I decide to knock a little chill into the bottle, bring it down a couple degrees, let it show its best when that veggie tart springs from the oven. Because the 2009 Grove Winery Sangiovese will go great with this dish.
I crash it into the ice in the deep freeze. You know, just a few minutes, to knock a chill into it.
Of course you know what happens next.
The food prep gets away from me. The veggies are not quite browning like the recipe hopes and it demands my attention. The egg-goat cheese are defying the whipped consistency I want so I got to get all S&M on top of that.
And where's a decent knife when you need one to slice these cherry tomatoes for the topping?
Meanwhile, Izzie the dog is sniffing and jumping for some cheese, cheese, cheese in her dog dish.
These are issues that are rousted while I'm intermittently assessing a Beaujolais Crus from the Julienes region while also enjoying some cheap Chardonnay and Merlot from California.
I'm a multi-tasking kind of guy.
So you know what happens next.
Monday, next morning, I open the freezer to grab an ice pack for lunch for work. And there in the ice bin is purple ice, a blown cork, and my 2009 Grove Sangiovese getting all Titanic on me.
Cussing, I recork as best I can, set it in the kitchen drainer and vow to assess the damage at day's end after work.
As I write this, the 2009 Grove Winery Sangiovese - despite the abuse I put it through - is darn tasty. I'd say more, but I'm going back for a second glass.
Posted:
7/18/2011 8:16:00 PM by
Ed Williams | with
0 comments
Fewer than a dozen winemakers or assistant winemakers are women among the 90-plus wineries in North Carolina, commercial winemaking today still a male-dominated craft.
Here is a look at one of them: Linda King, North Carolina's first woman winemaker....
At 16, Linda King earned a cosmetology license and worked the beauty shop at a local department store. From there, a series of jobs before the child-rearing years.
In 1972, a friend gave King a home winemaking kit. Linda wasn't into wine. "This was my Margarita and Manhattan phase," she laughs. But home winemaking was the rage in the early 1970s, so King tried making wine at home.
"The first wine was as enjoyable as a kick in the head. My second wine could have given cough medicine a run for its money, in a wheezy, over-40-couch-potato-chasing-the-dog-that-stole-the-remote kind of way," King says.
King hunkered into her hobby, courtesy of another gift: Membership into The American Wine Society. In 1980, she entered that society's amateur wine competition and won an award - the first woman to ever do so. Next, King earned a wine judging certificate from The American Wine Society. By 1984, she was running that program.
In 1989, Schuster Cellars in Pennsylvania hired her as winemaker. King thought: I've made it. But in 1994, the owner died and his family shuttered the winery.
King was out of a job and decided to enroll in computer sciences at a local college. Three classes shy of a degree, Ohio winery Chalet Debonne called with a job offer in 1997. King jumped on it, learning all she could about grapes and winemaking in that cold-weather state.
In 2002 came a call from RagApple Lassie in Boonville: What will it take to get you here as our winemaker?
North Carolina wine? "I thought it was a crank call," King laughs.
Today, King produces award-winning wines for RagApple Lassie. She pioneered Zinfandel and Syrah in North Carolina. In addition to the usual varietals, she crafts solid Viognier, Pinot Gris and a high-end red blend, "Hobon's Choice."
In addition, she is a respected wine judge across the U.S. "It keeps my palate sharp. And I've been able to meet some of the most incredible people in the wine industry. Robert Mondavi, Louis Martini. To think I sat next to those guys ..."
Posted:
7/15/2011 9:45:34 AM by
Ed Williams | with
0 comments
What's up with wind machines in the vineyard?
They're meant to protect against frost damage in early spring.
Seems a long way aways right about now, right? But during summer tours, visitors wonder: What's up with that?
As vines awaken from their long winter nap, they are susceptible to frost injury before, during and after bud break. And for wind machines to work best, that frost threat has to come by way of an inversion, in which very cold air is trapped at the surface by a warmer layer above it, says Sara Spayd, N.C. State University Extension Specialist. The wind machines stir and mix the layers, raising temperature slightly.
Shelton Vineyards employs 17 machines, Biltmore has four, RayLen has two, and Round Peak has one. In a twist on the concept, Childress Vineyards has used a helicopter to create the same effect.
The machines are pricey, running between $20,000 to $26,000 per unit. Because each machine can protect 10-12 acres of grapes, that works out to about $40,000 in grapes, says Dennis Wynne, Biltmore's Vineyard Director. "Yes, they're expensive, but they can pay for themselves in just one night."
Wynne adds: "We've run them five times this year."
Round Peak Vineyards near Mt. Airy has been more fortunate. "I haven't had to trigger it in two years. But if, once every 10 years, you did and you saved a crop, it's worth it," says owner Ken Gulaian.
Given the initial cost, some vineyards in other parts of the country are experimenting with a new idea: Stirring the air in the early summer morning hours to dissipate the dew and humidity.
For anyone living near a vineyard wind machine, the experience is far from eco-friendly. "They are loud, powered by a heavy industrial motor," says Biltmore's Wynne. "You have this 20-foot blade that makes this loud chopping sound. If you have neighbors nearby, you're going to hear from them."
Posted:
7/11/2011 8:08:13 PM by
Ed Williams | with
0 comments
My wife reminds me:
"A real man is a woman's best friend, never standing her up or letting her down, reassuring when she feels insecure, comforting after a bad day.
A real man inspires her to do things never thought possible, to live without fear, without regret.
A real man enables her to surface her deepest emotions, most intimate desires.
A real man is assuring - assuring in that way that she feels she is the most beautiful woman in the room, most confident, most seductive, most invincible.
Oh wait, sorry. Got mixed up.
I was thinking about this North Carolina Chardonnay."
Posted:
7/7/2011 9:24:55 PM by
Ed Williams | with
0 comments