(upbeat music) >>On today's "Un-Wine'd," it's Ecco Adesso where I'll have a great conversation about wine and back in the kitchen, I'm going to be making some delicious food, including a corn chowder, a Thai shrimp with rice and a Philly cheese steak stuffed baked potato.

So go grab your glass.

It's time to "Un-Wine'd."

>>Production funding for "Un-Wine'd."

was made possible in part by.

>>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.

(bright chilled music) >>I love a good soup.

I can eat soup in the heat of summer, I can eat it in the cold of winter and one of my favorite soups is a corn chowder.

I really love corn and that little bit of potato in it, it's just one of those comfort foods for me.

So today we're gonna make some corn chowder and then I'm gonna put it in a little sourdough bread bowl.

So in my pot, I have two tablespoons of butter just melting and it's now hot, starting to sizzle a little bit and to that, we're gonna add those great mirepoix ingredients, the celery, carrot and onion.

So I have about three to four ribs of celery here to that, half of a medium onion, about a cup of an onion.

It doesn't matter what size you chop these, as long as they're close to the same size as the corn kernels and of course the last of our mirepoix, the carrot, hmm, that's gonna give some oomph, some texture and a great flavor.

Now let's stir that around a little bit.

So what we're looking for is for all of our vegetables to get to a nice tender crisp.

Now the onion is starting to turn translucent, the carrots are still hard, but that's okay, they're going to simmer in the stock, so everything will be nice and soft and soupy.

Alright, I'm going to let this just kind of simmer down a little bit for about three or four minutes and then I'll be back to add some more ingredients.

(liquids sizzling) So you can see all these vegetables have started to soften.

The flavors are amazing.

Now I want to add my thickening ingredient, flour.

It absorbs all of the liquid that the vegetables have produced and it soaks up any of that butter that still resides in the pan, so I'm gonna sprinkle here.

Now, if you don't like to add the flour at the beginning, you can add a corn starch slurry at the end.

Either works great to make sure that you have a wonderfully thick and delicious soup.

So let's just stir that until the flour is cooked through and it absorbs the moisture and at that point, you'll start seeing that fond build up on the bottom of the pan, that little brownishness, oh, it smells great, so stir until you don't see any pieces of that white flour just floating through there.

Think I've got it all and as you can see on the bottom of my pan, I'm starting to get that fond, that little golden now that would turn brown if I let it sit there a little while, but what I'm gonna do right now is add some milk, two cups (milk sizzling) and some stock, I'm using chicken stock and I like to use about four cups.

Mm, wow, smells delicious.

There we go (glass clanging) and I'm going to add two chopped potatoes.

Now these are Yukon gold potatoes that I've cut about three quarter inch dice and the corn from eight ears of corn.

This is fresh.

So if you want to use frozen corn, you can.

In that case, just measure out about five cups.

Hmm, all right, now it's the soup's turn to do everything that needs to happen.

So we're going to let this simmer for about 25 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft and all the other vegetables have softened as well.

Doesn't that look amazing?

It's nice and thick.

So let's bowl this up.

So I have baked some sourdough bowls and to get that beautiful little spin on it, you actually proof it in one of these bowls.

It's a little Rutan bowl, you put some flour on the inside and then you put your dough in.

Once it's risen, you just pour it over onto your pan to bake, so easy to do and I think it's just beautiful.

So I cut that off and I've hollowed it out.

You can see just like that.

Now we take this beautiful chowder and we just ladle it in.

Oh, that looks so good.

I just love this chowder.

Now you can also put it in a bowl.

If you like it, you can garnish it with a little bit of chopped chive and sour cream.

Either way, this is an incredible meal and with a glass of Chardonnay, it's just spectacular.

I hope you'll enjoy.

(lively music) (chilled bright music) So Michael and Cierra, thanks so much for having us here at Ecco Adesso.

What led you here?

(Micheal chuckles) >>Covid, honestly.

>>Oh wow.

>>It's a crazy adventure.

We looked at the kids and we're like, "let's buy a farm."

>>So during Covid, that must have been a really great time to bring your family together to do a family project unlike any other.

>>Right.

>>Yeah, what was supposed to start up as a five acre piece of land turned into this, but we embraced it and we had the best time.

>>Yeah.

>>So, oh yeah.

>>So how big is the property?

>>It is almost 350 acres, so we've got orchards, meadows, hiking trails, waterfalls.

>>That is amazing.

So the extra 345 acres, some are now planted.

Were any planted before you moved?

>>So we inherited one acre of vines from Mr. Crockerd and Ms. Crockerd who we bought the house from and those vines are over 13 years-old.

So our first couple vintages of wine, we've made from that and then plus a little bit of leased fruit.

We've since planted 19 more acres in the last few years, all as family and friends, so it's been a pretty wild ride.

>>That's great, that's great.

So you have planted other varietals.

What did you start with and how are you expanding?

>>We have a Chardonnay and Cab Franc that we inherited.

So when everyone's like, why did you pick that?

'Cause that's what we inherited to start with our wines, if you come back next year, we'll have a lot of different varietals, but we've since planted a lot more.

We have Riesling, Cab Franc, Saperavi, Sauv Cretos, which I think we're the first in the state to plant that.

We've got Petit Verdot, Petit Manseng, Marlot, Shamita Singha, Vidal Blanc and we actually inherited Norton too, but only a couple rows and so we make a jam out of that.

>>Oh, that's great.

>>Which is a really, makes a good jam.

>>I love Norton Jam.

I love it.

So when you think about where you're going with this winery, are you just now in the experimental stage and then you'll discover that or you have specific plans?

>>Yeah, I mean, I think we're always in the discovery phase, no matter what project we're working on, but we obviously love this property and we also have a sister winery in the Hampton Roads area at Williamsburg.

So we're coordinating, collaborating with them on some projects here and there and so we're, everything's kind of on the table now for what it's gonna look like in the future, but right now we just love sharing the wines that we have.

(bright music) >>I love Thai food with Petit Manseng and today I am gonna make for you a Thai shrimp with rice.

In my pan, I have two tablespoons of coconut oil over a medium high heat.

I'm going to add to that, one to two carrots depending on the size, sort of sliced on a diagonal so they have a little more surface area for that center.

Let's put those in and then I'm also gonna add a poblano pepper.

This gives great color and it's just so delicious in this.

I want to add red pepper, this is one medium red pepper that I've just cut into a large dice and then I want to add one Thai chili pepper.

So I have one chopped right here.

Now you're not trying to cook your vegetables at this point, we just want to cover them with a little bit of that oil and then we'll add some garlic (liquids sizzling) and to that, two tablespoons of red Thai chili paste.

(liquids sizzling) So I wanna stir that around.

I'm just trying to coat with that chili paste, get those vegetables to start to cook, so now I want to add a cup of rice.

Now you can add either basmati or jasmine or just a plain white rice, whatever you like in this.

So let's stir it around, let that also become coated.

Now let's add some liquids.

We're going to add two and three quarters cups of chicken stock and one can of coconut milk and we'll just add that to the pot.

So let's just stir through and then I wanna put a lid on it.

Now I don't have a lid that particularly fits my pot, so I'm just gonna use one that I'm sure will rest above the liquid.

So right there, right above that liquid.

Now I'm gonna turn that up to medium high and let it simmer.

Now while we bring that to a simmer, I want to get some other aromatics, some amazing things that are so common in Asian foods.

First of all, some ginger root.

We're just gonna grate some ginger root and I'm looking for about a tablespoon in this recipe.

I'm getting close to a tablespoon now, this is a great little Asian ginger grater and I love it, I can get all sorts of juice out of it.

Great ginger flavor, there we go.

So I just want to put that in and then I also want to put in a piece of lemongrass.

So what you wanna do is cut off that top, that's really, really, that's pretty coarse and this is really just for flavor.

So I want to just kind of break it.

What I'm doing is bruising this so that all the flavor comes out.

So just bruise it, bruise it up really, really well and then let's just drop it right in and we're gonna cover it back over, let it simmer for about 20 minutes until the rice starts to become dry.

At this point, we're hearing that little sizzle at the bottom of the rice, so we know it's starting to get dry.

That's actually what you want.

Look here at this beautiful, beautiful dish.

Now let me just show you, at the bottom, you start to see that the rice is sticking.

That's what you want, because the rice is actually starting to gather on the bottom with that sugar that happens in the coconut milk and it starts to form almost a little crust on the bottom.

Now, to get rid of that, I'm gonna use a little bit of lime.

So first thing I wanna do is take about half a teaspoon of lime zest, which is going to be roughly half of this lime and just drop that right in the pan.

Now we're leaving this rice also over about a medium heat.

Now let's take our lime and we're just gonna cut it in two, and I'm going to use the juice from one lime.

Now remember, limes don't have seeds, so you don't have to catch anything.

So let's just give that a good squeeze.

(liquids sizzling) Ah, that freshness just pops, so perfect.

Now let's take a pound of just a nice small to medium shrimp and we're gonna drop those in there and stir.

Now what we're trying to do is get all that shrimp, sort of close to the bottom because they cook really quickly, like in about a minute.

We don't wanna overcook the shrimp.

Shrimp should just cook until they start to curl and they're nice and pink and then you know that they are ready to be eaten.

Now let's pop that lid on for just a second while I tell you a little bit about this wine.

Now Petit Manseng, (sniffs) petite, small, tiny grapes, very thick skin and wow, it's got an amazing bouquet.

(sniffs) It has an amazing flavor.

So with Petit Manseng, you're going to get some spice, you're also probably going to get some pineapple, possibly some nut in that flavor.

All of these flavors go so well with a Thai or Asian food and if you can just imagine that pineapple and coconut together.

Wow, it's incredible.

Now let's just lift up our lid, check our shrimp.

Ugh, this is fantastic and you can see that down in the bottom, all of that fond has now made way for just a nice sticky rice.

This is one of my favorite bowls for Asian food.

I just think it's so attractive.

It presents well.

There we go.

Let's garnish with that cilantro.

Just a few across the top.

If you want, you can serve it with a little bit of lime wedge, just squeeze right on, mmh.

Anyway, you slice it, it's incredible with this beautiful Petit Manseng.

(chilled music ends) (chilled bright music) So your two varietals that were here when you purchased, Chardonnay and Cab Franc, tell me a little bit about this Chardonnay.

>>Yeah, so this is what we call our New World Chardonnay and so this was actually our first submission into Gov Cup, which we got a gold medal for, so we were obviously very excited about that.

>>That's great.

>>It was, you know, fermented in stainless steel and then moved into neutral oak and we stopped the malolactic fermentation process pretty early.

So, you know, it's obviously young, but very fruit forward.

>>Very.

>>Yeah, we- >>Really nice.

>>We really enjoy this wine.

>>So this is beautiful, it has a really nice apple, but it's more of a golden apple, so I'm not getting so much malic acid, but it's really beautiful.

Now tell me a little bit about your Cab Franc.

>>It's a very beautiful wine.

We actually split the fruit up into, and the juice up into six different vintages from a barrel perspective.

So a little bit of new French oak, and then all the way down to kind of like different aged oak there.

>>Wow.

>>But a hundred percent in French oak, but yeah, it's a good wine, it's definitely gonna age well.

>>It has an amazing aroma.

(inhales) Mmh.

Mmh, that is beautiful Cab Franc.

>>Thank you.

>>Really, really nice.

So Cab Franc in Virginia has just become so popular.

Do you look to possibly harvest more Cab Franc, plant more Cab Franc as you go?

>>Yeah, we planted two plus more acres of Cab Franc.

It's doing really well on the vineyard.

We're excited about that.

The Petit Verdot obviously is the big kind of upcoming grape that everyone talking about, we planted that as well.

So, and we have Merlot, so we're really gonna be able to do some pretty cool Bordeaux blends that we're really excited about to see where the winemakers take it.

>>Oh yeah, now Cierra, as much as you love all of those Italian wines, are you looking at putting in some Italian varieties eventually?

>>We have a test block of Sangiovese.

>>Yeah, which we've, >>Ooh, that's fantastic.

>>And it's doing pretty well.

I mean, you know, obviously all depends on the weather and all the things, but yeah.

>>Yeah, we got that and the Lagrein.

>>Yep, and we have Lagrein, which is a Italian varietal.

>>Yes, yes.

>>And then Sauv Cretos, which I spoke about earlier also is an Italian varietal.

So here, and I think again, we are probably the first to plant it in the state and that actually is doing the best in the vineyard.

>>Wow, wow.

>>Yeah.

>>When do you look at harvesting those?

>>So, August, it's been a kind of a crazy year with the weather and not a lot of rain, so might push things up, we'll see, but you know, August for the whites and September, October for the reds.

>>Yeah, so this year, that's really, >>Yeah.

>>That's really exciting.

>>Yeah.

>>You know, if 2024 holds out, like we think it will, it's gonna be an amazing year for wine.

>>Yeah, I think >>We are looking forward to it.

>>The quality's >>Oh yeah.

>>Gonna be really exciting and we should get about 40 tons off the vineyard this year and eventually 70 to 80 total.

>>Wow.

>>So, we're really excited about that.

>>That is fantastic.

Well to both of you, here's to Ecco Adesso.

Here and now.

(glasses clanging) >>Thank you.

>>Cheers.

>>Cheers.

(bright music) So today I'm going to make you a simple cheese steak, but not in a bun.

We're gonna put it in a baked potato.

So we're gonna start right now with a nice hot griddle and to that, I've added about two tablespoons of olive oil and I'm just gonna hit it with some peppers, onions and garlic.

So I have one big green pepper, it was giganteus and I have about one large onion and I have a yellow pepper and I'm gonna try to get all those in first.

Let them go just for a couple minutes, then I'll add my garlic, 'cause I don't wanna burn that garlic, but I really wanna get that really good garlicy flavor.

So I'm going to let these sit for just a minute and then we're gonna chop up our meat to get that nice and ready.

So here I have about a pound of round steak and I've had it cut really, really thinly.

You just want some good round steak and I am actually cutting this rather than leaving it whole.

If I did a sandwich, I might leave it whole, but because I'm doing a baked potato, I want smaller chunks.

I wanna be able to eat it with the potato without having to cut through so much meat to get to that potato or the onions and peppers.

All right, so we've got about a pound of this meat and we are going to cut it in strips first and then just in little side pieces.

So I want about one inch cubes like this and it'll look like a cube as it goes down in the pan, but then it'll start to separate and that's what I noticed when I went to Philadelphia.

They like to use a lot of cut meat rather than large pieces of meat.

It seemed that in New York, the cheese steaks I got there were more like large slices of meat that were folded over and over again.

For me, this is just easier to eat.

All right, so I've got that ready, let's stir around our peppers and give them seasoned with some salt and pepper.

(liquids sizzling) You can see already they're starting to lose some of their body, so they're getting nice and soft, mmh and it helps to put a little salt and pepper on them at this stage, because if you put salt on them, that starts to dry out their moisture and then they start to cook so much faster.

Oh, it looks great.

Now you can use any peppers that you like.

I happen to have yellow peppers and green, so that's what I decided to use, but it's really beautiful if you've got some orange or red peppers, you can see how it's reduced in size for sure.

Now what we wanna do is just push that to the back of our griddle to finish up, while I put the meat right in its place and I really want the meat to gather those flavors of the onions and peppers.

That's why I also put the meat on the same pan as the onions and peppers.

There we go.

Pretty soon we'll actually drag it all together on the pan and it works great.

Now, let's take that meat and start dropping it on.

As it starts to cook, it will start to separate a little bit, but it doesn't hurt to help it along and of course it'll cook faster that way as well.

You know, you can get all kinds of frozen cheese steak products in your grocers freezer, but why not just make your own?

Then you know what you've got in it, you know the quality of the meat that you're eating and it's gonna taste so much more fresh and delicious.

All right, now let's sprinkle that with just a little bit of salt and pepper and then I wanna add the garlic to meat.

(liquid sizzling) Hmm, a little stray pepper or two, doesn't hurt a thing.

So I have two cloves of garlic here and that's usually enough for two pounds of the meat.

Then let's start pulling together.

We want to meld these flavors, incorporate them together.

Oh wow, there's nothing quite like it.

Now let's get that baked potato and load her up.

This one has been out of the oven for about a half an hour, so I'm just going to squeeze it from both ends, just like that and I want to scoop out just a little bit of this potato, so I don't have so much potato meat in there.

None of this will fit.

So let's move that potato over and I'm just scooping out, oh, a quarter cup on each side or so.

I like a big baked potato for this.

Remember, it's your vessel for your cheese steak.

Ah, perfect.

I'm going to lay a piece of cheese right in the bottom so it has the opportunity to bake in the bottom as well as on the top and I'll just break this one in two.

I'm using provolone for this, it's one of those classics.

Let's turn this off now, pull this all together.

I'm gonna put this on a cookie sheet with a little cheese on top, that wonderful provolone.

I'll be right back to show you that finished product.

Now look at that beautiful baked potato with Philly cheese steak filling.

It's so delicious.

It's all topped with provolone cheese and I melted it under the broiler.

It's really ready for this glass of Cab.

(chilled music) (bright chilled music) I hope you've enjoyed today's show as much as I have.

A very special thank you to Michael and Cierra from Ecco Adesso.

If you've liked these recipes, you can get them and a whole lot more at vpm.org/un-wined and until next time, I'm Tassie Pippert saying, go grab that glass.

It's always time to "Un-Wine'd."

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

>>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 (bright music) >>And by.

(bright music)