>>Hi, I'm Tassie Pippert here at Early Mountain, where the wines are spectacular and the hospitality is second to none.

So go grab that glass.

It's time to Un-wine'd.

(smooth jazz music) >>Production funding for Un-wine'd was made possible in part by.

(bright music) >>The Virginia Wine Board, promoting the interests of vineyards and wineries in the Commonwealth through research, education and marketing.

There's a movement growing in Virginia's vineyards.

Discover more at virginiawine.org.

>>And by.

(smooth jazz music) (smooth jazz music) >>I'm sitting here at Early Mountain where they've made us a lovely charcuterie platter in their restaurant.

I'm here to visit with Aileen and Ben, who will talk to us a little bit about Early Mountain and Early Mountain wines.

You know, Ben is a local Shenandoah Valley boy who is a wonderful winemaker, and I can't wait to pair up his wines with some delicious food back in the kitchen, including gnudi with some sauteed vegetables, a lovely fried chicken sandwich and a wonderful stuffed pepper.

So go grab your glass.

It's time for us to head to the kitchen to make some food, and let's un-wine'd.

I love gnocchi.

It's one of my favorite Italian dishes, but I'm going to try something a little different for you today.

This is called gnudi, g-n-u-d-i.

It's the Italian cousin of gnocchi, but it's made with ricotta and semolina.

So here we go with some semolina in the bowl.

I have some Parmesan cheese, a little salt.

And I want to give this a little extra basil flavor.

So this is going to be a basil gnudi, so I'm gonna stir in just a little dried basil.

And I want to just kind of run that through with the fork a little bit so it's mixed up before I put my ricotta in it.

Now I'm gonna use just a 15 ounce carton of ricotta.

And for this, I really recommend a full fat ricotta.

It blends so much better.

Let's just mix that up.

What you're looking for is mixed, but not kneaded.

You do not want to knead this because it will get really, really tough.

Now there's only one hard part in making this, and that's piping it out.

You could drop it by spoons, but what I found out and I've tried this several times, it really works better if you use a little piping bag.

But if you don't have one, just a little spoon will do it.

Just don't make them very big because they will get extremely tough and hard.

Now I've got that pretty much mixed through.

And what I wanna do is just put some dollops into my piping bag.

I'm just gonna use a disposable piping bag.

This one, I can cut the end off to make it whatever diameter I want on the gnudi.

And you're looking for little cylinders.

So you don't want them really, really big.

And I just wanna drop some into the bottom of my bag, a little bit at a time.

And just kind of give it a squeeze as you go down so that anything that's dry can mix through.

But again, you're not kneading it.

Now I wanna take just a touch of semolina and just sprinkle on this sheet.

You can line this with wax paper if you'd like.

You can use it right on the cookie sheet, but I like to use something between the cookie sheet and the gnudi so in case it starts to stick, I have a little give and I'm not right directly on the metal.

Now I like to, because I have arthritis in my hands, kind of squeeze down to the very end, a little different than when you're doing a cake icing, because you don't wanna go to the very end then.

And then we just wanna pipe it out in little tubes.

And you can see that there will be some dry spots.

That's okay because what we're going to do is to push those back together, and you can push them back together on any end, just like this.

So we're gonna cut those into 1 1/2 inch pieces, or just pull them apart like this.

And then just lightly pat it, and that's going to be your gnudi, just like that.

Now I have a whole pan that I did in advance because you do want to chill these for up to an hour.

I'll grab that and I'll be right back.

(upbeat music) So while I heat up my pan to saute some vegetables and I get my water boiling, I'm going to cut some vegetables.

And I'm gonna cut these pretty thinly because that's the way I like them.

If you like a thicker zucchini slice, by all means, just do that.

Okay.

So the next step, I have my zucchinis sliced, they're ready to go in my pan.

I wanna take some olive oil.

Just about a tablespoon of olive oil will do it for this because it's just a nice, quick saute.

But I wanna take a little more olive oil and put it in a bowl that I have one clove of garlic.

This is gonna serve as just a drizzle over the top of our gnudi.

Okay.

Now I've got my zucchini ready.

My oil is heating.

I'm gonna take the kernels off of one cob of corn.

Now let's get all that to the pan.

(oil sizzling) Okay.

So I'm just gonna give this a little stir, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

So we're gonna stir these until they just start to look a little bit translucent, but I don't want them done all the way, because I'm gonna add tomatoes at the very end.

And while that's happening, we're gonna cook our gnudi.

So my water is just at a simmer.

You never want to cook a gnocchi or a gnudi in boiling water.

You saw how delicate it was to put together.

If you've put it in boiling water, what's gonna happen is everything will just disintegrate and you'll end up with just a pot of mush.

So let's drop these in.

I like to drop half at a time because to me, if you drop too many at once, you end up with stuck gnudi.

Or you'll end up cooling the pan too much, and then the simmer isn't there to actually cook them.

(bright music) Now you'll see that they drop to the bottom of the pan.

They are little rocks when they start, but they're a little pillows when they finish, and they float to the top.

All right, I have a few turning just slightly translucent.

Now, I wanna add a little bit of garlic and some cherry tomatoes.

I put the garlic in a little later because I don't want it to burn.

That just really destroys the flavor of any dish.

And the tomatoes, I don't want to get overly cooked.

I'm just looking for those to start to plump to the point where they want to burst.

(pan sizzling) Now, as the gnudies start to float up to the top, what I'm going to do is let them rest there for just a few more seconds, just to make sure they're completely cooked.

And then I'll scoop them out.

So kind of keep track of when they come to the top.

And then I'm gonna use a little spider just to lift them and pull them out.

Now about midway through this process, you can drop the rest into the pan.

That won't hurt at all because you know which ones have been cooked and which ones still need time.

Remember when they're done, they'll rise to the occasion.

So I have some of these lovely gnudi on the plate, and then I wanna top with my vegetables first.

Mm, just look at all that color; it's so pretty.

(upbeat jazz music) All right, then we're going to finish with a little bit of our herbs.

So you can either use small leaves or you can chiffonade this.

I'm just gonna go ahead and drop a couple of leaves on there.

And then I wanna take some of that delicious oil that I made, just give it a good stir through, and then without getting a lot of the herbs or the garlic, let's just drizzle that, and then a little extra Parm.

Now let's try it with this wonderful wine.

Again, this leads with Petit Manseng.

It has a lovely flavor, (sniffing) incredible aroma.

I get (sniffing) pear, (sniffing) a little apple.

I can tell it's going to be acidic.

There's some citrus there, mm.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Let's try it with our little pillows of gnudi.

Mm, mm, melts in your mouth.

That is a wonderful combination, just love this with that little bit of that garlic oil, oh, so good.

So let's head across the mountain to visit my friends who made this incredible wine.

(smooth jazz music) Hi, Aileen.

>>Hi.

>>Thanks so much for having us.

>>Thanks for being here.

>>So tell me a little bit about Early Mountain, Aileen.

>>Yeah, so we're here in the tasting room.

And Early Mountain's in Madison, Virginia.

We're sitting right in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just a bit north of Charlottesville, about an hour and a half south of DC.

And we're very much a destination winery for our guests.

They're coming to of course enjoy the wonderful wines, but also we have a full service restaurant, an amazing chef, Tim Moore.

>>Yes.

>>And so people can come enjoy live music and just spend the day with us.

(smooth jazz music) We love to highlight other local Virginia producers.

So for example, in our restaurant, we're featuring local bison, local pork, >>Oh, wow.

>>so love highlighting the oysters coming from the coast.

It is magical, pretty amazing sunsets over the Blue Ridge.

>>Oh yeah, oh yeah.

>>So we just planted this this spring.

And it is Petit Manseng, which is a grape that is really important to us at Early Mountain and becoming more important to Virginia.

And the kind of funny thing is that what we had planted here before was Cabernet Sauvignon, a grape that everyone's heard of, and it's very easy to sell.

And so we did the thing where we pulled out the thing that everyone's heard of and put in the thing that no one's heard of.

(Tassie laughing) And that's just because it's the right grape to be there.

It is what these soils need, what our climate needs.

It's Cabernet Sauvignon wasn't right, so Petit Manseng was.

>>So Ben, tell me a little bit about how you got started here at Early Mountain.

>>I came here via California.

So I trained out in California, and it was kind of a circuitous way of getting here, trained as a playwright, moved to New York as you do, but got into wine there.

>>Yeah.

>>And then moved out to California to sell wine, and then moved up to Sonoma County to learn how to make it.

>>I love it.

>>Yeah, and then landed back here in 2012 with Michael Shaps at Wineworks, and then started with Early Mountain 2015.

>>Oh, that's awesome, awesome.

Well, we're gonna taste some of your delicious wines, so I particularly love this.

>>Cool.

>>Yes.

>>So this is our sparkling rose.

This is actually the brainchild of our associate winemaker, Maya Hood White.

So she's all things sparkling, pet-nats and champagne method.

So this is our first version of this.

>>I love that.

>>And it's been very popular.

>>Mm, gorgeous.

I love that sound (laughs).

>>Yeah, we grow all the grapes for this right here on the property.

>>That's great.

Oh, this is beautiful.

Look at those bubbles.

That's amazing.

Perfect.

>>A little bit more.

>>All right.

So you grew up in the Shenandoah Valley.

>>Yeah, I was born in Staunton at the hospital there, but grew up in Swoope west of Staunton.

And then my family has had a farm in Fort Defiance for a long time.

>>I love it.

>>So that was part of my upbringing, but then went away for 18 years to do all that stuff I was talking about.

>>Yeah, the creative part.

>>The creative part, yes.

>>(laughing) And now you're doing the really creative.

>>And now, yeah.

>>This is awesome.

Oh, thank you.

I love the minerality in this, and just that fruit, it's so nice.

Oh.

>>Yeah, a bit of herbaceousness from the Cab Franc.

>>Yeah!

>>Lets you know it's Cab Franc.

>>Yeah, it's just so nice, so nice.

So tell me a little bit about how you got yourself into the wine.

What was that aha moment that just drew you in?

>>The aha moment was in New York when I was working retail, and I had basically two different mentors that were really good about teaching me the world.

You know, the world of wine comes to New York.

And so we got to taste wines from everywhere, and they would take me to the trade tastings.

And by basically within a year of being immersed in that, I had fallen in love with wine and knew I wanted it to be a part of my life.

I wasn't aware at that point that it was gonna be the making of wine, but there was a point where my family wanted to look at planting grapevines on our property in the Shenandoah Valley, which turns out to be a very good spot for planting grapevines.

And at that point, my mind started to ease towards the idea of growing and making it.

(smooth jazz music) >>To me, there is nothing that compares with fried chicken and sparkling wine.

I love a nice sparkling wine that cleanses the palate of the fat from the fried chicken.

And this chicken is just so delicious.

I'm gonna make it into a sandwich today, but it can also always be an entree.

So in a pan here, I have four chicken breasts that I've marinated in a little bit of buttermilk.

And to that buttermilk, I added some garlic powder, onion powder, a little salt and pepper.

And I left it in there overnight so it would get nice and tender.

That acid from the buttermilk will break down those tough solids, and you'll get the most wonderful and tender chicken you've ever eaten.

So what I wanna do is to set up my three-dip station.

Now I like to do a three dip with this, even when I'm doing buttermilk, because you get that really nice coating.

So in one pan, I have a little flour.

In the other, I have an egg, and in this one, I have some cornflake crumbs.

So let's get that egg ready.

What we wanna do is make a wet mixture with our egg and our reserve buttermilk.

But first you wanna beat that egg.

That way, you know that it will incorporate into the buttermilk.

It will be all through your chicken.

So whip it up really, really well.

The next thing I wanna do is just drain some of that buttermilk.

Just drain it right in, mm, all those seasonings.

That's wonderful flavor going in there.

All right, now let's whip that around a little bit.

So three stages: dry, wet, dry.

That's gonna be the secret to this incredible crust.

So the first step is to just kind of drain off one of those breasts.

And again, I've done four because I'm making four sandwiches.

And then I wanna put it in my flour.

Now, the key to making sure that you stay kind of neat with this is one hand goes in the dry, and then your tongs or the other hand go in the liquid.

And I like to bring that flour up over top.

Really pat it out to make sure that every little nook and cranny is filled with some flour.

Because if you don't get this filled with flour, the crumbs don't quite adhere.

Now let's put this down into the wet mixture, and flip it over.

All right, and then we're gonna put it into the crumb.

Now, another secret is to let your chicken sit after it's been crumbed for about 10 to 15 minutes, so that that entire coating can really become one.

Now this, believe it or not, is an entire box of cornflakes.

So you wanna make sure that you have plenty of corn flakes for your entire batch.

And again, just press that in.

Make sure it really adheres.

And then I put it over on a piece of wax paper to just rest.

And while I clean this up, that will be resting, and then we'll drop it in the fryer.

Now, also while that chicken is resting, getting ready to go in that pan, I wanna make a little sauce for this.

Now, you can do all sorts of sauce for your chicken sandwiches, but this one particularly goes well with this wine.

So I have a little bit of mayo, and then I'm adding hoagie spread, that really spicy, wonderful pepper relish that you can get in the grocery store.

And it makes a really nice sauce.

But to that I also wanna add a little onion 'cause that's gonna give it a little depth of flavor.

I tried it with and without the onion.

I liked it with the onion better.

All right, now that will go on our buns.

Now let's head over to the stove, drop that chicken in the fryer, and you are gonna see some beautiful golden magic happen.

(fry oil bubbling) So let's plate this up.

Look at that gorgeous chicken.

Now, as soon as it came out, I sprinkled it with just a little bit of salt and pepper.

And of course I placed it on some paper towels to collect that extra fat.

Oh my goodness.

And then we just wanna top it.

And feel free to put a pick in it if you'd like.

This just makes a gorgeous, gorgeous plate.

So I have this chicken sandwich.

I've got a little bit of potato salad, a little dill pickle.

Oh my gosh, who wouldn't want that for lunch or dinner?

That is just incredible.

Now let's pour some of this gorgeous sparkling wine that goes perfectly with this.

Now, sparkling wine should have the opportunity to rest on the lees because it gives a little more depth of flavor.

This particular one, the reason that it rests on the lees for a short time is because they want to just shorten that bit of flavor while also capturing the fruit.

It's incredible, mm.

Wow.

And what does resting on the lees mean?

That simply means that those yeast cells that fell off during fermentation are left in the tank so it can give that richness to the wine.

This one is incredible and has an amazing balance of resting on the lees and the sparkling component and freshness of this fruit.

(bright piano music) The first time that I tried a Merlot and Petit Verdot blend, I was having some stuffed peppers.

I wanted to let you reminisce with me about that wonderful experience.

So I'm gonna make some stuffed peppers for you today.

And I have in my bowl two pounds of meatloaf mix.

Now I like to use meatloaf mix because it's a blend of beef, pork, and veal, just gives a really nice tender product.

And I'd rather use that than a lot of beef.

It's totally up to your preference.

You can use two pounds of ground beef if you prefer.

You can even use ground chicken in this.

And I've done that many times.

I added to that about a cup of cooked rice, so not a cup of rice cooked, a cup of cooked rice.

Now I wanna add some wonderful flavorings here.

So I've got some parsley, a little oregano and a little basil.

And I just wanna sprinkle that evenly.

I don't like to clump all of my herbs when I put them in the pan, because if I do that, they're going to end up in a clump in my meatball mixture.

And then I wanna add a little bit of garlic.

Now let's just kind of get in there with the fingers as well and spread that around.

Otherwise, you're gonna end up with a very garlicky stuffed pepper.

And then some Parmesan cheese and I like to use fresh grated for this.

Now the next thing is two eggs.

I make meatloaf, meatballs out of this, and I also do stuffed peppers.

The only difference is when I make meatloaf and I make meatballs, I don't use the rice.

Instead, I use a Panko crumb.

Now we have our two eggs, our wonderful meat and all of those great seasonings, and of course, our rice.

Now let's just get in there and really mix it up.

When you're making meatloaf or meatballs or stuffed peppers, you don't want to overmix the meat.

Don't mix and mix and mix until you feel like you've beaten it to death.

It's already gone.

I'm really sorry.

Just make sure that you blend it through.

I say on the recipe it's serving for six.

It's really kind of serving for six plus a little bit of leftover.

You wanna make sure that you stuff it really hard down inside so you don't have a lot of pockets.

If you have pockets and your meat is fatty, you'll end up with a huge pocket of fat that really has no way to escape out of your pepper.

Now, if ever I have a little extra, I either just pop it on the top of one of the peppers, or I'll make little meatballs and set them down inside my pan to roast right along with this.

In a nice hot pan, heat up some oil and add some onions to saute.

Add some tomato paste, then herbs and deglaze with wine.

Add a 28 ounce can of tomato puree and two cups of water.

Blend that sauce, add the peppers and pop it in a 350 degree oven for 1 1/2 hours with the lid on.

(bright piano music) These are so wonderful, and with this wine, just incredible.

Oh my goodness, gotta taste just a little piece of this.

Mm, let's pour out this wine, a little Merlot and Petit Verdot.

You can see that beautiful color of the Petit Verdot coming through, that intense purplishness in the color.

Oh and oh, the aroma's amazing.

Mm, get a little blackberry.

And you know, these flavors that you get out of wines aren't because they put them in wines.

They are simply what comes out of that grape once it's produced into wine.

It's just amazing.

Oh yeah, together, wow.

What a combination, just what I remembered.

So I hope you enjoyed taking a little trip down memory lane with me.

(smooth jazz music) Well, I hope you enjoyed our trip to Early Mountain Vineyards today, as well as these wonderful wines that we paired with food: so this delicious stuffed pepper, this amazing chicken sandwich, and this wonderful gnudi with a little bit of sauteed vegetables.

For these recipes and a whole lot more, visit me at vpm.org/unwined.

And until next time, go grab that glass.

It's always time to Un-wine'd.

>>Production funding for Un-wine'd was made possible in part by.

(bright music) >>The Virginia Wine Board, promoting the interests of vineyards and wineries in the Commonwealth through research, education and marketing.

There's a movement growing in Virginia's vineyards.

Discover more at virginiawine.org.

>>And by.

(smooth jazz music) (bright music)