>>Today we're at Hazy Mountain in Afton, Virginia, where the wines are spectacular and the views are amazing.

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.

(mellow music) >>Hazy Mountain has some amazing fruit, mountaintop fruit, and unusual varietals for Virginia including Gruner Veltliner and Pinot Noir.

We'll pair up those varietals today with some delicious foods.

A lovely chicken dish with a truffle mashed potato and a salsa made of bacon, leeks and corn.

We'll also have some delicious crab-stuffed, bacon-wrapped shrimp, and an Asian bowl.

So the first thing we're gonna do today is a chicken dish, which I love.

And this is a fun dish that can be made either with chicken or with salmon.

So, let's get started with a little bit of oil in a pan.

(mellow music) I want about three tablespoons of oil because what I wanna do, is get my chicken going, and while this heats, I'll make up a little rub.

I love rubs on meats, as you know, but this one gives a little smokiness and great flavor to this chicken that I think is really important to the structure of the dish.

So, I have a little bit of garlic powder, about a teaspoon.

I'm gonna add a teaspoon of onion powder to that.

And two tablespoons,, a lot, of smoked paprika.

(mellow music) Then I'll add a little cayenne, about a quarter teaspoon.

I'm gonna make sure that all gets out of the dish.

I love my spice.

About a half teaspoon of salt, quarter teaspoon of pepper.

Now we'll mix all that up, and I'm gonna sprinkle it over my chicken.

Now, just to use the amount of rub that you need to cover each piece of your meat.

Make sure that you season on both sides.

And because I want to save this for my other three chicken breasts, I don't wanna dip that chicken hand right back in.

So let's go with the other hand.

There we go.

Give a good sprinkling.

So, let's put this chicken in a hot pan.

You wanna make sure it sizzles as it goes in so it sears a little bit.

If you put chicken into cold oil, you never get a nice brown on it.

(oil sizzling) So I'm actually pairing this dish up with a Pinot Noir.

I know it sounds crazy, chicken and red wine.

It also pairs really, really well with salmon.

So fish and red wine.

Who knew that you could put red wine with either a fish or a chicken?

I love these flavors, and the reason that it works is because all of the flavors in this dish go together to enhance the flavors of the Pinot Noir.

Pinot Noir is a very light-skinned grape.

It grows in cooler, nighttime climates, but it needs heat during the day.

For a thin-skinned grape like a Pinot Noir, if the intensity of the sun is hot during the day and the nighttime climates never lower, the grapes burst, because the skin can't hold in the juice.

So you want that dichotomy of heat and cool for Pinot Noir.

(oil sizzling) Now, I've got a little color on this chicken on both sides.

What I wanna do is just pop it out of pan, and put it on a cookie sheet to just finish baking in the oven for a few minutes.

And I'm gonna lower my heat a bit on the pan as I add the other ingredients.

So I have about six slices of bacon, that have just been chopped, and I wanna give that a good stir through.

The problem with adding vegetables when you add bacon to a pan, if you don't get the sear on the bacon that you want first, you never end up with a nice crispiness on that bacon, because all the moisture from the vegetables are going to just keep it from crisping.

So make sure that you crisp up that bacon first.

All right, my bacon is nice and crisp.

Now the other thing that you can do with this recipe, is to do the bacon first and then put the chicken in, and continue to cook it that way.

But, I really like to put it in the oven because I have more control over when the chicken is done.

All right, now, let's add some corn.

About two, two pieces of corn I've have just stripped and then two or three leeks, just some white part.

Make sure it's nice and clean.

(ingredients sizzling) (pan clanking) Now I just want to saute this until the leek is nice and soft.

(metal clanking) Oh, the flavors are amazing and the smells are incredible.

And your test will be if one of the harder pieces, right at the root of the leek is starting to soften, then everything's done.

Now, the last thing I want to do with the salsa, is to add some liquid smoke.

Now, liquid smoke comes in all sorts of brands and you can buy it in hickory, maplewood, and pecan.

I think even applewood.

But I love a little combination of hickory and pecan and I'm gonna put in about two tablespoons into this.

It's gonna give it an amazing smoky flavor, almost like I smoked it out on my smoker.

But this really reacts in such a way, that it works perfectly with the cranberry of the Pinot Noir.

If you can think turkey, Thanksgiving, the perfect Pinot Noir time.

Ah.

Oh my gosh, that smells amazing.

Now let's grab that chicken and plate it up.

Now let's check that chicken breast.

The best way to check chicken is not to go down through the center like that.

Actually pick it up, and then, aha.

174.

It's an overachiever.

All right, let's put it right here on the plate.

Now let's take some of our salsa, and we're just going to give a little drizzle right there.

Oh, beautiful.

And then I wanna take a little oil.

I like to add this to my plate because it gives a little extra flavor.

This is a little olive oil, a little jalapeno.

It's kind of a chimichurri oil.

It has some cilantro in there and some parsley.

So let's just give a little drizzle to the plate.

I just think it really sets off the plate.

Just like that.

And then, wow, let me grab that wine.

It's ready to eat.

So here is this beautiful Pinot Noir.

It has amazing flavors.

Pinot Noir, because of its light skin, has a lighter red fruit flavor to it.

Cranberry, strawberry.

That's the kind of red fruit that you get out of Pinot Noir.

Again, a thin skin, beautiful, succulent wine.

(mellow music) Oh yeah, that's really good.

Let's give it a little taste.

(mellow music) The chicken is so tender, and oh, with this truffle mashed potato, and that salsa, wow.

Mm.

It's so good.

(bright music) I'm here at Hazy Mountain on a crystal clear day, with a few clouds in the covering, and I'm joined by Luke Trainum.

And Luke is the winemaker here.

Luke, your wines are so amazing, and I'm excited to hear a little bit more about you, about the winery, and then taste some of your delicious wine.

>>Awesome.

Well, thank you very much, Tassie.

>>Absolutely.

>>Thank you for coming out- >>Yeah.

>>And yeah, we're not quite holding up to our namesake of a hazy mountain today, but it's kinda close.

You can almost see it.

>>Oh, it's gorgeous.

It's just gorgeous.

Yeah, and with that little bit of cloud cover, I pulled up and I must tell you, as I drove to Hazy Mountain, I thought, "It's going to be a hazy mountain and I'll see a big red barn or something."

This property is exquisite.

>>Thank you very much.

>>Now, you've been the winemaker all along, right?

>>Yes.

So this project started, you know, we're new to the public.

We first opened in 2021, around end of May, but the project first started in 2016 at our other vineyard in the Shenandoah Valley, so it's that Little North Mountain, which is kind of a sub-mountain range there.

But we're the last property before you go into the George Washington National Forest.

We're right up on the slopes, 1,700-foot elevation, just gorgeous views throughout the valley.

>>Oh, yeah.

>>But so we first planted there in 2016.

And I came on in 2017 to help with the second planting, and we've been rolling since.

So we finished planting that property in 2018.

And I've done some replants since then.

Then this property was acquired, and we started planting here in 2019.

And we've been planting, I think, every year since, and this last year was just a small fill-in planting, which was nice.

>>Oh, wow.

But you are using your own grapes.

I know a lot of folks drive up and they say, "Well, these grapes are young.

You must be acquiring them elsewhere."

But you, you're using your own.

>>Yeah, so we have, our production vineyard's 50 acres.

So it's 50 acres under vine, and so, we got our first harvest off of that in 2018, and so since then, we did that first vintage with King Family, at their facility, working with Matthieu, and then since then, at 2019, you can see the red roof building behind you, that's our winery.

We've been producing there since then.

>>Wow.

That is amazing.

>>So we've got quite a few vintages lined up for people to enjoy as they come out.

>>Yeah.

It's excellent.

Well, and you do a lot of events here as well, right?

>>Yeah.

Yeah, so we've got the full event space as well.

You know, we're opening that to weddings, larger group parties, events, charity functions, kind of anything.

We want it to be kind of a host point on the mountain, if you will.

>>So we have a little Riesling here.

Tell me about your Riesling.

>>Yes, this is our 2019 vintage Riesling.

So this is our Kabinett style.

So we do two styles of Riesling.

We have a dry, which is barrel fermented, barrel aged, malolactic block, super acidic and fresh, but with all the barrel character.

>>Yeah.

>>For the Kabinett style, we're going for more of the traditional, German Kabinett style.

So it's stainless steel fermented, stainless steel aged, picked for acidity, with a little bit of residual sugar in there, just to balance it out a little bit, to give it some flesh.

It's 1%, so it's by no means sweet, but just enough to give you almost the sweetness of like, a ripe apple.

(gentle twinkly music) >>Mm.

This is beautiful.

And I love, as you note, as you said, the Kabinett style, so in the Pradikat system, and a lot of people don't understand that Rieslings can be dry, and then they can be super duper sweet.

Well, and then, you're also producing a Pinot Noir, which is super rare in Virginia.

>>Yes.

>>There are very few folks producing Pinot Noir.

Now, what is your elevation for your Pinot Noir?

>>So, in that property, it sits between 1,700 and 1,650 foot.

>>Okay.

>>And so, our Swoope vineyard, it doesn't really take someone who's a geologist to figure out where the soil came from, 'cause the mountains just ride right down, and so it's just the erosion from the limestone mountains over time.

So, it's silt and loam that's coming from the limestone eroding.

And so, it's really a nice bounty of good draining soil that, you know this is our first vintage of pinot, so I don't wanna speak too confidently yet, but we think it's gonna show well.

>>I think it's gonna show well and it smells amazingly beautiful.

>>Thank you.

(gentle music) >>Mm hm.

That's nice.

This is beautiful.

Wow.

>>Thank you.

>>You do a great job there, Luke.

>>Well, I've got quite a team supporting us.

Between our seller team and our vineyard, it's 17 of us now.

>>Oh, wow.

>>Because it's 86 acres between both sites.

>>That's huge.

>>Yeah.

So it takes quite a crew.

So we've got two vineyard managers that do an awesome job so, I can only take so much credit.

>>I was gonna ask if you're also managing the vineyard, 'cause that's quite a job if you're doing both.

>>Yeah.

No, no, I like to sleep sometimes.

(Tassie laughs) >>You're a wise man.

>>Yeah.

(laughs) >>Well, these are just amazing wines.

>>Thank you.

>>And I can't wait to see where you go with your new plantings, with your Nebbiolo and your Albarino, and all of these new plantings that you've got behind me.

>>Yeah, it's exciting because, what we're tasting right now, of course, is from Swope where, it's cooler there, the diurnal temperature flux keeps acids high, it's more restrained, very, lighter fruit-forward wines.

Whereas, once this starts producing, on this rocky hillside with a big solar, basically, you know, side that's just taking in all the sun, we should have some nice, big, deep reds and really- >>Oh, yeah.

>>Run a span in the winery between delicate and fruit forward, and then kinda bringing the hammer down with some of these, hopefully.

>>Oh.

I can't wait to see where you go with it.

And cheers to you.

(glasses clinking) >>Thank you very much.

>>Thank you.

Mm.

(bright music) Chardonnay is an amazing white varietal.

It can't grow in everywhere in the state, Like Pinot Noir, it needs a little coolness.

It's a thin-skinned grape.

One of my favorite things with chardonnay is a seafood and I hope you'll enjoy this dish.

So, in my bowl, I have half a pound of picked crab.

And then what I wanna do is add a little bit of onion, about half of a green onion, finally minced.

And I'm using a little bit of the white and a little bit of the green.

I want that color, and that texture.

And of course, the flavor.

There we go.

And then I'm gonna add a little bit of red bell pepper, that's also minced.

So about a tablespoon, maybe two.

Not a lot.

You don't want a lot of filler in your crab, but you want enough in there that it gives it really great flavor.

And then I'm gonna add just a dash or so of hot sauce.

Now, you can add a little cayenne, if you prefer cayenne.

I like a hot sauce in here better than a cayenne, because it has a little more depth of flavor with the vinegar base that's used.

Then let's take a little dry mustard.

Half teaspoon or so.

Make sure you sprinkle that all the way through, so it doesn't clump up in your crab.

There we go.

Nice.

And about a half cup of panko crumbs.

I use a half cup of panko crumbs with a half pound of crab, and one egg per half pound.

So let's crack in a little egg.

Any time your recipe calls for an egg, it means a large egg, unless it says otherwise.

So let's just pop that in.

And mix it up.

Now, I want to get this nicely mixed.

Make sure that all of your flavors are well melded, and that you don't have huge clumps of egg anywhere.

You don't want hunks of yellow yolk, you don't want hunks of white.

So get that all blended in.

And the panko should help you do that.

You want shrimp, very large shrimp.

For this amount of crab you'll need about 12, but I'm just gonna do a few today so I can show you how they're done.

Go in and just slit the back after they've been peeled.

You don't want to cut them all the way through.

You just wanna butterfly the shrimp like this.

It's important that you butterfly them because you're actually going to stand them up like so.

Now, I've got a cookie sheet here, and I just wanna lay my shrimp out, as I do them, because that's where I'm going to bake the shrimp.

So again, not all the way through, but make sure they're butterflied well.

Now let's take some of our crab, just like this.

And if you want, you can tip your crab tail up, and then wrap the bacon around it.

But I'm gonna show you a simpler way.

If you want elegance, go for the tip up.

But sometimes it's just hard to do when you're not used to working with shrimp and bacon and wrapping all the things all at once.

So what we wanna do now, is take a piece of bacon, and just wrap all the way around that beautiful piece of shrimp.

And then we're just gonna lay it back on the pan.

(spoon clanks) And stuff another.

And let's wrap that again.

So I like to kind of stretch out my bacon so it's a little bit thinner.

So as I'm wrapping, I'm stretching.

Stretching and stretching.

And then I always try to finish so that a little tail of the bacon is down underneath, so you don't have that bacon popping up on the top and just making its way that way.

Now I'm gonna stuff the rest of these, and then I'm gonna put them in a 450-degree oven for about six minutes, so that that bacon crisps up, the shrimp cooks, and they will be amazing.

And then I'll be back in just a second to show you how to do this wonderful sauce.

As the shrimp are baking, it's perfect timing just to make a easy little sauce.

We're gonna make a mustard cream sauce.

It's sort of a modified beurre blanc, if you will.

I'm going to put in my pan, about four tablespoons of butter.

And we're just gonna let that come to a nice melt and heat.

And while that's warming up, I wanna chop about half a shallot.

This is a shallot.

It's in the red onion family.

I've cut off that stem end that comes up out of the ground.

So let's call that the North Pole.

This is the South Pole, the root end.

So we're going to take that shallot, remember North Pole, South Pole, and we're just gonna cut from the North Pole to the South Pole, just like that.

And I'm gonna use about half of this large shallot.

Now, peel off (shallot skin crackling) that brown skin, and just discard that.

And then let's give a nice little chop here to the shallot.

Now, it's important if you're going to leave the shallot in your sauce, and I am going to leave this in the sauce, that you cut it pretty small.

You don't want hunks of shallot in your sauce.

So you want it minced.

For a real beurre blanc, you would take that shallot out.

But this is a little rougher.

It's just a little more coarse, because we're using a seeded mustard.

So, I don't mind having that shallot in the sauce, and I like the extra flavor, the extra bite.

(shallot crunching) So let's just cut that, and see?

If you keep that South Pole, that root, together, you're not ending up with slices and pieces of the onion or the shallot going one direction and another going another direction.

You have it all intact, and then you're just ending up with that root ball.

Isn't that great?

Okay, so my onion product, my shallot, will now go into my butter, which is nicely melted.

(knife scraping) And then let's just give that a little stir.

(whisk scraping) So what I wanna do is bring this to the point where, it's just starting to get translucent and, just soft.

You don't want to brown or really overcook your shallot, because then you get a bitter taste in your sauce.

All right, our shallots are beautifully soft.

And now we're gonna add two tablespoons of flour.

This is going to give us our initial thickening.

(whisk scraping) After about a minute, that's all cooked through, and now what I wanna do is just reduce my heat to about a medium low.

You don't want it too hot, but you wanna add a little bit of white wine, about a quarter cup.

And I'm using chardonnay for this dish because I'm also going to be drinking this same chardonnay.

About a quarter cup.

(wine sizzling) Mm.

Oh, wow.

It smells so good.

And then, I want to add a cup of heavy cream.

(whisk scraping) I love the mustard flavor in this, so I'm going to add seeded mustard.

This is a Dijon mustard with mustard seeds, and so you're going to get a lot of mustard flavor from the Dijon, but also from the seeds.

However, if you're just gonna use a Dijon mustard, this is about three tablespoons.

You're only going to use about a teaspoon of regular Dijon mustard, because the flavor is so intense.

(whisk scraping) So we're ready to plate this up.

Now remember, anytime you do a sauce, you want to check it right before you serve it, for salt and pepper.

And if you need to add, just add a little pinch.

I added just a pinch of salt, because a lot of times when you just used Dijon, it's really salty.

But Dijon seeded is not as salty, so I had to add about an eighth of a teaspoon of salt for this particular sauce.

Now, let's plate it up.

Okay.

Now, let's give it a little drizzle of sauce.

I love shrimp, I love crab.

What's not to love about this?

And bacon?

Well, you had me at bacon.

Mm, this is so delicious.

(utensils clinking) (gentle music) Mm.

And with this chardonnay, it's just wonderful.

Mm.

Remember, chardonnay can have really tropical scents and aromas, and it can have really green fruit scents and aromas, depending on where it's grown, and then how it's treated after it's brought into the winery.

This is an amazing pairing, and I hope you'll really, really love it as much as I do.

(mellow music) These wines were such a pleasure to pair.

So this beautiful shrimp, wrapped with bacon and stuffed with crab, this Asian bowl, and this delightful chicken dish.

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

(mellow music) (note pings) (gentle music)