Late Bloomers Farm

I came across this great video. It’s not in English, but…

You get the picture.

This is the first installation of Passport to Connecticut Wineries, or Sophie and Cecelia’s adventures tasting  their way through Connecticut wineries!

On Saturday, June 28, 2009, we visited DiGrazia Vineyards and McLaughlin Vineyards.

DiGrazia Vineyards

I was immediately impressed with the grotto at the entrance. Once inside, the tasting consists of your choice of six of their 15 wines. Matt was our tasting guide and explained the whole process to us.

Matt, explaining the intricacies of a DiGrazia tasting

I tasted Anastasia Blush, Honey Blush, Blacksmith Port, Wild Blue, Wild Blue Too, Fieldstone Reserve, and Newbury. (I know that’s seven—I tasted some of Cecelia’s choices too!) I’m a red wine lover and don’t care much for white wines, rosés, or dessert wines and was pleasantly surprised with the Anastasia Blush, the Honey Blush, and the blueberry wines. I felt their reds were a little lacking: the Fieldstone Reserve had strong hints of iodine and the Newbury didn’t have much of a finish. Still, I have friends for whom the Newbury would be a good glass of wine. The blueberry wines were the surprise of the day since I am somewhat biased towards wine made with grapes. These delicious wines are also very high in antioxidants.

The tasting team at DiGrazia

The staff is delightful and make for a fun tasting, but are new to the business and could not tell us much about the composition of the wines. Perhaps we’ll have to come back at the end of the season when they are more, well, seasoned.

I left with bottles of Anastasia Blush, Honey Blush, Wild Blue, Wild Blue Too, and Newbury.

McLaughlin Vineyards

I have been to McLaughlin’s tastings numerous times before, but this was the official Passport visit.

McLaughlin tastings are a tour though each of ther six wines: Chardonnay, Coyote, Snow Goose, Red Fox Rosé, Merlot, and Vista Reposa. Liz (our tasting guide) recounted the details and highlights of each of the wines as she poured. The McLaughlin tasting includes the etched McLaughlin wine tasting glass.

Vista Reposa is a particular favorite of mine. It goes with nearly everything I cook and each person I introduce to it enjoys it. The Red Fox Rosé is new this season and is quite refreshing. The Merlot goes particularly well with dark chocolate. I don’t generally like Merlot or dark chocolate, but together, I do!

Bruce McLaughlin: the man and his grapes

New life

Up close

I left with bottles of Merlot, Red Fox, and (of course) Vista Reposa. My apologies to Liz for leaving the camera in the car. I’ll catch you next time and make an update.)

Regular readers of this blog know that I visit McLaughlin Vineyards on a regular basis. They are one of the closest farms to my home and their Vista Riposa is a red wine that goes with just about everything I eat. This past weekend, I visited Digrazia Vineyards and Winery and enjoyed that as well.

This time, I took notice of the passports—the Passport to Connecticut Farm Wineries, a program sponsored by the Connecticut Farm Wine Development Council.

The Passport program is an adventure in Connecticut wine tasting. The way it works is that you pick up a blue passport at any of the participating vineyards on the Connecticut Wine Trail. Visit at least 14 of the 26 wineries and have them stamp your passport. Submit your stamped passport to a participating winery by November 8, 2009 and you will be entered into a drawing for these prizes:

First Prize: January 31 to February 13, 2010. 13-night stay at the Benalmadena Palace, Benalmadena, Costa, Spain.

Second Prize: February 14-27, 2010. 13-night stay at the Benalmadena Palace, Benalmadena, Costa, Spain.

Additional Prizes: 15 Weekend Getaways, two nights, one room double occupancy at the Courtyard by Marriott Norwich, Norwich, CT.

First and second prize include one room double occupancy and round trip airfare for two to Spain.

I’m not able to find any information online about the 2009 program, but here are the passport results from 2008. Visit ctwine to download a brochure of the Connecticut Wine Trail.

I decided that this is the year I’m going to get my Passport stamped! Cecelia (my childhood friend) will be joining me in this endeavor. That means you can look forward to a series on our adventures in wine! So here’s the deal—you can sit there and read about all the great wine we’re tasting or you can get out there and get a Passport of your own. Better still—you can do both!

By the way, if you’re in the area and want to do a meet-up for any of the tastings, let me know!

There were a number of meals this week that could qualify for the local meal of the week. This is a wonderful time of the year, with so many markets open.

How about yesterday’s meal? After a day of foraging, we had:

• wine from McLaughlin’s and Womanchego cheese from Cato Corner Farm, in Colchester, CT
• beef tenderloins (from Stuarts Family Farm) on the grill
• garlic scapes (from Missy’s) also on the grill
• pan-sauteéd spinach (from Holbrook Farm from last week—yes the green bags really work) with fresh garlic from Missy’s

We went to Ferris Acres Creamery afterward for ice cream, but the line was reeeaaaly long, so we postponed that until today! I finally ventured beyond the vanilla and have to admit their black raspberry is very, very nice. (In case you were wondering, Ferris has 154 cows!)

Apologies for the lack of pictures…don’t know where my head was at!

This Saturday, I brought my childhood best friend and my sister with me as I traveled from farmer’s market to farm, hunting and gathering my food for the week.

We began at the Bethel Farmers Market.

We went on to the Brewster Farmers Market.

Among other things, I scored catnip from the sisters and escarole and fresh garlic from Missy’s. Hooray for escarole!

Fresh garlic, complete with scapes from Missy

From there it was up to Stuarts Family Farm. In addition to the beef, I scored a chicken! Chicken is a new offering at Stuarts.

Jim and a chicken

The Stuart's cows (Angus and Herefords) sure love their grass!

Since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped in at DiGrazia Vineyards.

Water feature in the grotto at DiGrazia's

(NOTE: I’ll have more about our tasting in a future post.)

On to Maple Bank Farm (yes, you did just see us at the Bethel Market!)

Then to New Morning Natural Foods, where you can get, among other things, local raw milk.

Moving on to McLaughlin Vineyards, where Dee Dee had her hands full with a wedding reception, but that didn’t stop the tastings! Since McLaughlin also carries several cheeses that pair well with their wines, I was able to get one called Womanchego from Cato Corner Farm, in Colchester, CT. And finally, I met Bruce McLaughlin.

Bruce McLaughlin and his grapes

(NOTE: I’ll have more about this tasting in a future post too.)

For my Week #3 meal for the One Local Summer challenge I made collard greens and ham, loosely based on this recipe. The recipe called for ham hocks, but I used a ham steak. It said to cook it until the meat was falling off the bone, but since I didn’t have a bone, I cooked it until the ham steak was almost falling apart on it’s own.

I got the collard greens at Holbrook Farm and the ham steak was from Ox Hollow Farm, purchased at Maple Bank Farm. I got the hot pepper at Cherry Grove last summer and dried it.

Well happy, happy day! The Farmers Markets are opening around here—many early in response to customer demand! (See, it pays to be demanding.)

I began at the Brewster Farmers Market.

From Bluestone Farm, I got Cavolo Nero (Sicilian Kale), curly endive, and raspberry and mixed berry jams (for my fruit-on-the-top morning yogurt). I was delighted to learn that the Sisters named their kale recipe after me (because they use my default method of cooking greens: sauté garlic in olive oil, add chicken broth, add the cleaned cut greens, cover, turn a few times until wilted the way you like it. Voilà!)

Sister Emanual and KC the Marketmaster

Then it was off to the Bethel Farmers Market. This was opening week. I got there at 12:57 PM. They end at 1 PM. Next week, I’m going there first!

Still, I was able to score shallots and strawberries from Don Taylor.

I replenished my wine supply at McLaughlin Vineyards, picked up some Rough Cut Ranch eggs (the pretty multi-colored ones), and scored a few bottles of Avery soda (locally made using cane sugar). McLaughlin’s is turning into a hot spot for local goods.

And…they’ve begun raising bees at McLaughlin’s.

At New Morning Natural Foods, I got my Foxfire raw milk, Sankow’s Beaver Brook cheese, and a copy of the CT NOFA 2009-2010 Farm and Food Guide.

Okay, time to make this week’s One Local Summer challenge meal!

I can’t wait until this movie comes to a theater near me:

According to the Official Food, Inc. Movie Site:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Here’s my Week #2 meal for the One Local Summer challenge:

I got a fresh chicken at Holbrook Farm from a local farm in Roxbury—not sure why they didn’t say where. The chicken came with everything (head, feet, and the innards neatly packed in a baggie). We don’t generally get fresh chicken in CT because we don’t have slaughterhouses so farmers who raise meat products send their items over the border to NY to get processed. Part of the processing deal is that everything is flash-frozen and vacuum-packed, lest a germ get out into the population.

I cut up the bird into parts. Those in the picture got grilled. I sprinkled some salt, pepper and paprika on them. The paprika is from Amy LeBlanc’s Whitehill Farm in East Wilton, Maine. (I came upon Amy and her paprika at the NOFA Summer Conference 2008.)

I saved the breasts for some cutlets in the future and the rest of the parts got Ziplocked so I can make my own broth.

Here’s my dinner: a grilled chicken thigh and spinach sauteéd with ramps (both from Holbrook Farm).

For dessert, strawberries from Pell Farms in Somers, CT

This week’s forage began at Holbrook Farm where I scored:

• organic mustard greens
• organic collard greens
• strawberries (from Pell Farms in Somers, CT)
• organic asparagus
• organic beets (with the greens)
• a fresh chicken (with everything on it) from “a farm” in Roxbury, CT

Among other things, they also have garlic scapes this week. I’m waiting for mine to be ready.

Then it was on to Ferris Acres Creamery, where I scored two quarts of ice cream: prepacked vanilla and black raspberry. In case you’re wondering, Ferris ice cream is made from cream from their own cows.

Quick stop at home to get the ice cream in the freezer, then on to Stuarts Family Farm, where I stocked up on beef:

• ribeyes
• tenderloins
• burgers

I also picked up the latest issue of Edible Nutmeg and learned from JoAnn (Jim’s wife, Deb Stuart’s Mom) that Stuarts delivers to your door for orders of 30 lbs or more. Great to know!

Then on to Maple Bank Farm, where I scored:

• arugula
• spinach
• ham steak from Ox Hollow Farm (yes, they carry Ox Hollow meats!)

Among other things, they also carry chevre from Beltane Farm.

Note, Maple Bank Farm will be at the Bethel Farmer’s Market again this year. Opening day is next week: Saturday, June 20 from 9 AM to 1 PM. Congratulations to the Bethel Farmer’s Market on their new Web site!

And the final stop was New Morning Natural Foods where I got my weekly fix of raw milk, this week’s from Foxfire.

Whew! What a day! Can’t wait to eat.