Chef Chuck returns to discuss his spring tasting menu that showcases the best local ingredients from North Carolina. With dishes like seared trout and lemon olive oil cake, he emphasizes the importance of pairing wines like Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc sourced from vineyards within 75 miles of Boone, NC. Chef Chuck's meticulous process of developing these flavors took over a year, making for an unforgettable dining experience.
Additionally, Chef Chuck introduces listeners to the fascinating world of orange wine, a unique varietal that's gaining popularity. He reveals how he discovered a perfect orange wine pairing for his long-stewed short ribs, highlighting a small producer from the Adkin Valley in North Carolina. Tune in to explore how Chef Chuck blends the rich flavors of his home state with exceptional wines to elevate your culinary experiences.
00:00
Welcome, welcome to the best five-minute wine podcast with Forrest Kelly.
00:18
We are very, very excited to be premiering some of this year's incredible wines from
00:24
several of the top vineyards in this area that are native to North Carolina.
00:29
In my location in Boone, North Carolina, the vineyards that I've chosen are actually
00:34
less than 60 to 75 miles from my location in North Carolina, which I think is the ultimate
00:40
farm-to-table experience.
00:42
You've got your courses.
00:43
You've got asparagus, lemon, seared trout, spring chicken, ancient grains, goat cheese,
00:49
lemon olive oil cake for dessert, and then you've got wines paired with them from Chardonnay
00:55
to Sauvignon Blanc to Linville Dry White.
00:59
Have you ever actually changed how you finished a dish because of the pairing that went back
01:05
You thought, oh, I'm going to-
01:07
This particular tasting menu that you're referring to, my spring tasting menu, and it's running
01:12
through, we're going to take it through at least the second week of June at this point
01:17
since it's been a little bit cooler on the East Coast.
01:20
It took me about a year to really develop the flavors for these menus.
01:24
And by the way, we switch over to the summer menu the second or third week in June, depending
01:30
And we have an entirely different menu.
01:32
I have to send it to you.
01:33
We have an entirely different tasting menu for that particular set, of course, is for
01:37
the summertime, which has all the heirloom tomatoes and more mountain berries and a tremendous
01:42
amount of ingredients from farms around North Carolina.
01:45
We have such a diverse state that it's really fantastic.
01:48
But it took me several weeks to kind of pull everything together.
01:53
I tasted probably a dozen or more different Chardonnays from around North Carolina.
01:59
I tasted about five or six Sauvignon Blancs from different parts of North Carolina, different
02:05
And I fell back on, and of course, Red's as well.
02:08
And as we start moving into the 250th anniversary of our country, we have a very special menu
02:15
for that, that we're going to be putting out right about 4th of July range.
02:19
Just the first week of July, we'll be putting that menu out.
02:22
And that will feature also a whole bunch of Red's as well.
02:25
We're going to do about seven or eight courses.
02:29
Every course comes with a pairing, a wine pairing, from less than 75 to 100 miles from
02:35
our location in Boone, North Carolina.
02:37
The wines that I have listed currently on the website and with this tasting menu, we've
02:41
been using now for the last four to six weeks.
02:45
I started actually really early because it got very warm very quickly here.
02:48
So I started in late February, early March, started the spring menu, and was able to secure
02:53
a lot of the spring ingredients that early from the farmer's markets.
02:56
I've never been more pleased.
02:57
I mean, this is one of the ones that it's taken me forever to get out there and really
03:02
get it pared down to having those four senses of taste, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami,
03:10
all mixed in along with the wines as well.
03:14
So you'll be able to taste all different aspects of flavors that this state, North
03:19
Carolina has to offer, my home state.
03:22
You cooked everything from Beef Vindaloo to Mahi Mahi.
03:25
Is there a dish where you just kind of like challenge the wine to keep up with it?
03:30
Yeah, I mean, that's a great, that's a great question.
03:33
You know, I have been trying to find the appropriate wine that is on the lighter side to go with
03:42
a really long, I'm talking about like probably five, six, seven hour stewed short rib.
03:50
And I think I finally found it.
03:52
It's actually, I get a ton of requests from my clients to find a lighter wine to go with
03:59
a short rib during the wintertime in particular.
04:02
What has recently been coming to shelves around the continental United States is orange wine.
04:08
And orange wine is slightly less aged than, it's aged longer than say your standard white
04:16
wines, but not aged as long as a red wine.
04:19
So you can take a grape like a Pinot Noir or any number of different red wines and the
04:25
crush has happened and you let it age a little bit, a little bit shorter time period than
04:30
you would a red, say six months to a year maybe.
04:35
And it creates this beautiful, almost a little less than rosé like color, a little less
04:41
than rosé like characteristics.
04:44
But when the grapes are grown in the right region, you can really taste that spice on
04:49
the back of your palate.
04:51
And that's what I was going for, was trying to find that orange wine that would pair well
04:55
with that short rib.
04:58
I found it at Hanover Park of all places in North Carolina.
05:02
It's a small producer in North Carolina that produces French varietals here in the Adkin
05:09
Valley and man, oh man, oh man, I can't wait to pour this for, for your listeners, for
05:15
I can't wait to pour this vintage for them.
05:18
They're going to really enjoy it.
05:19
They're one of the first producers of orange wine in North Carolina and it's fantastic.
05:24
Thank you for listening.
05:31
Tell your friends and pets.
05:34
Please like and follow.
05:37
Please like and follow.
05:40
Please like and follow.
No lines match your search.
