Gourmet Lunch Features North Carolina Wines

Combine a quartet of North Carolina wines with some culinary wizardry and the results are delicious.

Birth of An Idea

I was determined not to miss the North Carolina Wine Bloggers Summit this year. Last year I made a note of the date but somehow it slipped me by. Not this year.

The 2019 North Carolina Wine Bloggers Summit was held in Yadkinville at Hanover Park Vineyard. The event also included an optional tour with visits to Jones Von Drehle and McRitchie wineries. It was there that I became acquainted with Arthur Barham. I noticed that he was bringing wine into the hotel labeled Holly Springs, NC. That’s just a short hop from our hometown of Fuquay-Varina. We struck up a conversation and a friendship. Also taking part in the event were Michele Nidiffer of Wine, Women & Style and Natalie Hampton of Tarheel Taps & Corks.

In addition to being a budding winemaker, Arthur has experience in fine dining establishments and is a sensational chef. He conceived the idea of continuing the comradery of the wine summit with a wine get-together in the Raleigh area. Arthur is preparing to launch his blog Merlot2Muscadine, which will feature video profiles of North Carolina wineries.

Uncork The Bubbly!

The lunch, hosted by Arthur and wife Mary, was a celebration of great food and North Carolina wine. The party included the four social media influencers and our spouses: Natalie and husband Kyle, Michele and husband Jim, Arthur and Mary, wife Kathy (aka Green Dragon) and I rounded out the group. Every delicious bite was prepared by Chef Arthur.

The afternoon soirée started with Arthur uncorking a bottle of sparkling Brut from Biltmore Estate. Biltmore has more than 1 million visitors annually and is the most visited winery in the country. This traditional method bubbly was the perfect start while enjoying an outstanding selection of cheeses.

Gazpacho is the most well known soup served cold – but with near-summertime heat, Arthur instead prepared Chilled Peach and Apple Champagne Soup. Smooth and refreshing, our gourmet lunch was underway.

The Wine Is Slightly Askew

It was time for more North Carolina wine! The appetizer course was Grilled Marinated Shrimp in Fruit Salsa. The salsa was a mash-up of strawberries, kiwi, onion, cilantro, jalapeño and fresh peach. The wine served was Slightly Askew Penny for Your Thoughts white wine. Slightly Askew is located in Yadkin Valley, but is slightly different from other wineries in that it uses local juice as well as juice from wine regions around the world.

The Penny for Your Thoughts is made with Australian Chardonnay juice and is vinted at the Slightly Askew winery. It is a crisp Chardonnay with just the right kiss of oakiness. An outstanding match for the shrimp.

An amuse bouche is a “mouth amuser” designed as a single bite. It provides a glimpse into the chef’s style and – in our case – the light refreshment before plunging into the main course. Our amuse bouche was a mini Caprese salad consisting of a roasted tomato, burrata, fresh basil with a  balsamic drizzle.

A Jolt Of Jolotage

Arthur’s gastronomic skills went into overdrive for the next course: Bacon Wrapped Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Apple Chutney and Pepper Relish. Michele provided a bottle of wine from her favorite North Carolina winery: JOLO.

The 2018 JOLO Jolotage is a proprietary red blend. The grapes include Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and – what sets it apart from a regular Bordeaux-style blend – Chambourcin. The Chambourcin has vibrant raspberry notes and Jolotage has silky tannins. This was a delightful pick for our pork.

My task for the meal was to pick a North Carolina wine to go with the dessert. Arthur said he wanted to give me the most difficult assignment because he knew I could handle it. Hmmm.

The dessert was Lemon Custard with Whipped Cream and a Lemon Truffle. The original plan was to torch it tableside, but Mary didn’t want Arthur playing with fire (kidding!).

Make Mine Mead

For the wine I decided to bring a North Carolina mead – wine made from honey. I selected bottles from Starrlight Meadery in Pittsboro. Honeyed Peach is a traditional mead. This has nice lush flavors of fruit and honey. However, it isn’t thick and syrupy and wasn’t over-the-top sweet. (I also brought a bottle of Gallberry Honey Mead, but the bottle was off.)

The mead was definitely better when sampled before the dessert. The citrus and sweetness of the dessert negated some of the delicious notes of the mead, but a sip of water allowed the enjoyment of mead to continue. Starrlight has a new tasting room in the Pittsboro Beverage District, a great location to explore this unique artisan beverage. Mead – it’s not just for hobbits!

Great conversation, wizardry in the kitchen and outstanding North Carolina wine – that’s a recipe for an appetizing afternoon. Thanks to our wonderful hosts and guests.

Technorati Tags: wine,North Carolina wine,mead,sparkling wine,fine dining

Starrlight Mead: North Carolina Winery Visit

Mead, a honey-based wine, is experiencing explosive growth across the country. Would a trip to a North Carolina meadery be able to sweeten us up?

What Kind Of Wine Could This Bee?

A visit from family last week proved to be the perfect opportunity for some fun in the sun at Jordan Lake, not far from our digs in Fuquay-Varina, NC. After splashing in the water, overturning floats and enjoying a picnic lunch, we heard a crack of thunder.

The winds began to race gray clouds across the sky and a smattering of raindrops began to fall. We knew exactly what to do – we headed for the shelter of a nearby winery!

A short drive away from Jordan Lake is Pittsboro. Pittsboro is the county seat of Chatham County and the main street is lined with quaint shops and cool restaurants. There also is a music store where we picked up a second-hand banjo for a birthday gift.

Most importantly, Pittsboro has a nearby winery –a meadery to be more specific. Mead, wine made from honey, is quite possibly the oldest alcoholic beverage on earth. It’s typically made with just three ingredients, honey, yeast and water. The Greeks called it the nectar of the gods. One more bit of mead trivia – the origin of “honeymoon” goes back to the medieval tradition of drinking honey wine for a full moon cycle after marriage.

Seeing The Starrlight

The sky opened up and we made it to Starrlight Mead just in time. The meadery is owned by Ben and Becky Starr, who started as home mead makers. Their early batches got rave reviews from friends and in 2008 they entered a mead competition for fun. Their fun outing resulted in a “best of show” award as the best of 212 entries. In 2010 they opened their meadery in Pittsboro.

Becky hosted us during our visit – walking us through the various tasting options. There are 20 different meads on their tasting list. She noted that 80% of the people who visit Starrlight have never tried mead before. The number of meaderies in the state is small but growing – soon to be a half dozen.

The meads offered include traditional mead in the off-dry or semi-sweet versions, often with fruit juice added as part of the process. There are also some herb-infused meads as well as some fun seasonal meads, like the Rita mead, a mashup of mead and Mexican cocktail sweetened with Agave nectar. All Starrlight mead is made with North Carolina honey.

The Honey-Do List

With four tasters, we divided the tasting list and sampled most of the offerings. I started with the drier end of the spectrum, the off-dry Traditional Mead, Pear Mead and Blackberry Mead. Like wine, mead can be finished dry or sweet and anywhere in between, depending on when the fermentation process is halted. The more honey that is fermented into alcohol, the less sweet it is.

The off-dry Traditional Mead, to my palate, wasn’t as interesting as those with some fruit flavor added. The Pear Mead, using pear juice instead of water and barrel aged, was light and fruity. Becky termed the off-dry Blackberry Me
ad as their “fake red wine.” It was absolutely delicious and is oaked aged to boot. Rich in fruit flavors, the sweetness level is on par with a typical red wine.
Starrlight also has a semi-sweet Blackberry Mead and this is even better than the off-dry. It delivers a flavor explosion and is sure to create legions of mead lovers.

The flavor of the mead differs depending on the honey used. Starrlight has a Traditional Mead made with Sourwood honey from the North Carolina mountains. It has a curious sour note that leaves you wanting more.

For those with a sweet tooth, the Spiced Apple Mead, Starrlight’s best seller, is apple pie in a glass. This is a great mead to warm up on a chilly fall or winter night.

The Starrs love to experiment, and so they have no less than eight herb-infused meads. Our daughter loved the Lavender Mead. The Lemon Balm Mead tastes like herbal tea. I also tried the Ginger Mead, but my favorite of the herbals was the Nordic Blend Mead.

Nordic Blend is an improbable combination of mead, caraway, fennel and anise. This delivers a funky pumpernickel rye flavor – and I’m a big lover of pumpernickel.

Starrlight meads cost from $18 to $26 for a 750 ML bottle, a very appealing price. They also offer two reserve meads, Chocolate Orange Mead (aged for a year on coca nibs) and White Chocolate Raspberry Mead (sweetened with meadowfoam honey and aged on cocoa butter). The reserve meads are $45 for a half (375 ML) bottle.

Ben and Becky’s love of mead shines through in every bottle of Starrlight mead. Stop in for a sip and you’ll understand what the buzz is all about!

Oliver Winery Camelot Mead

Most of the reviews here focus on the “fruit of the vine.” For a change of pace, here’s our experience with an ancient beverage that is “fruit of the hive.”

Nothing New Under The Sun

Mrs. Alba, my sixth grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary school, was right. Her favorite saying was, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” If there was a news item capturing the nation’s attention, sorry. The Egyptians were dealing with it thousands of years ago. New inventions were simply variations of what the Greeks or Aztecs were tinkering around with during their epochs.

She’d be proud to know that mead, a trendy “new” beverage has actually been around since Biblical times.
Mead, a wine made from fermented honey, was the world’s most popular beverage throughout most of recorded history. It was enjoyed by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder – but nearly died out after the Middle Ages. Honey wine remains the most popular alcoholic beverage in Ethiopia, one of the planet’s oldest cultures.

Today It is the fastest growing segment of the American alcoholic beverage industry. In 2003 there were 30 mead producers in the US. Now there are more than 300.

Not Just For Hobbits Anymore

Mead has enjoyed a resurgence and growing mainstream popularity. Ohio has at least three meaderies and they can also be spotted in the popular Finger Lakes wine region.

To our west, Oliver Winery of Indiana, has been producing mead for 40 years. We recently uncorked their Camelot Mead. We expected a thick ice-wine-like dessert wine, but were pleased to discover a medium-light body.

The aroma is a bit of a surprise. Whenever a stick my nose in a glass of white wine, I expect aromas of fruit, perhaps vanilla or toast. Camelot Meade delivers – what else – the bouquet of a dollop of honey.

Camelot is made with source-specific orange blossom honey. On the palate it is crisper than expected and offers citrus flavors with delightful honeycomb taste from start to finish. It certainly has a splash of sweetness – but this is not a syrupy or sugary drink.

I was tasting it after a tennis match that was cut short by a rainstorm. We had it well chilled and is was nicely refreshing.

Camelot Mead by Oliver Winery retails for $10 and is available in 18 different states including Ohio and Michigan. It will be easy to spot on the shelves with its whimsical label featuring Jeremiah the Frog. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal!

Full disclosure: We received this wine as a marketing sample.

Caledonia Winery Honey-Elderberry Wine, Vermont

As they used to say on the Monty Python television show, “And now for something completely different…”

Our palates have changed quite a bit since we started truly enjoying wine with some of the sweeter German wines. Our tastes these days tend to dry reds and whites with minerality and a liberal dose of acidity.

The pendulum may have started to swing back the other way, because we have learned to savor ice wine, albeit in small sips and in the right state of mind. When our niece Carey sent us this bottle of Honey-Elderberry wine, we knew there was a job to do in the name of wine journalism.

When we have seen a meadery in the past, we have been known to make a U-turn to head in the other direction. But we found just the right occasion to try this honey-based wine from Caledonia. We were invited to dinner with our neighbors who enjoy sweet wines with the same passion we enjoy the dry.

As some nice steaks came off the grill, we sipped the Honey-Elderberry wine. My first major surprise was that this wine wasn’t cloyingly sweet. In fact, it could even be classified as off-dry. The next surprise was that this was a pretty enjoyable wine.

Frequently you’ll find a pricey Cab or Syrah that claim hints of elderberry. We’ll this was actually the fruit of elderberry and it was quite good.

Caledonia Spirits and Winery is located in Hardwick, Vermont (just off Log Yard Drive). Todd Hardie has been keeping bees since 1965 and in 2006 began experimenting with small lots of mead (honey wine). The winery makes their mead in 500-liter lots with raw honey that is never heated. It is allowed to age at least one year before bottling.

Three-quarters of a pound of elderberries are used in each bottle. Elderberries support the immune system, so you could say it is really “medicine,” but with a much better taste. The wine is fermented dry, aged in stainless steel for a year, and has a small touch of honey added just before bottling for roundness. The alcohol level is 12%.

In addition to the Honey-Elderberry mead, they make Honey-Black Currant and Honey-Blueberry wines and an Elderberry cordial. This is the first wine we’ve tasted from Vermont, and it is an enjoyable sipper.

Related articles

• Honey brew > Pass the flagon, it's time to try some mead. (newsreview.com)
• Make Your Own Elderberry Wine (thekitchn.com)
• Meadery celebrates its modern-medieval mix (newsobserver.com)