>>I'm here at Merrie Mill Farm and Vineyard in Albemarle County where art and wine go together to produce an amazing event.

So come, grab your glass, it's time to "Un-wined."

>>Production funding for "Un-wined" was made possible in part by... >>The Virginia Wine Board.

Promoting the interest 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... (upbeat jazz music) >>I had so much fun with Elizabeth and Guy as we talked about the history of this property, Merrie Mill in Albemarle County and all of the wonderful eclectic things that they've done here with their tasting room.

I had the chance to taste a vertical pairing of 17 and 18 Petit Verdot.

Both exquisite.

And I'm going to pair up Petit Verdot as well as a couple of other wines with some wonderful recipes in the kitchen, including a wonderful quesadilla and a delicious spatchcock chicken.

So grab your glass.

Let's head to my kitchen and make some great food.

It's time for us to really "Un-wined."

(upbeat music) I love a quesadilla.

To me, quesadillas are a lot like pizza.

You can do anything with them.

So today, we're gonna make a poblano and sweet potato quesadilla that's just wonderful.

First thing I'm gonna do is throw these poblanos on the grill so that they can char.

Now, what I'm looking for with those poblanos is a wonderful black charring all over and then I'll stick them in a Ziploc bag so they can sweat just a little bit.

And then I'll pull off that skin.

Now, while I'm doing that, I'm going to take three roasted sweet potatoes and I just roasted them in the oven.

You can do them on the grill.

Now, they'll get kind of soft, but you can underdo them a little bit, but not much.

You don't want your sweet potatoes to be crunchy, but they can be a little less mushy.

I kind of like mine a little mushy in this.

Now, the wine I'm gonna serve with this today is a rose and I love the way this rose works with this.

This recipe has a little bit of spice because of the poblanos, but if you've ever used poblanos, you know that sometimes they're spicy and sometimes they're not.

So, just go with the flow on this one.

It works great with spicy poblanos and it also works great with sweet bell peppers or green bell peppers.

You're just kind of going for some chunks, oh, 3/4 to an inch.

You can even chop them up finer if you want to make a thinner quesadilla, but I like a nice, thick quesadilla.

Okay, let's make a little sauce that's going to go in our sweet potatoes, black beans, and peppers.

So what I like to do is take a little bit of olive oil and it just depends on how much dryness you have in your sweet potatoes.

If you've got a nice wet sweet potato, you don't want to overdo it on the olive oil, so I'm gonna go with maybe two to three tablespoons in this.

If I was using the skins, I would throw in just a little more so that I'd get that nice moisture on the skin.

And then I'm gonna add to that some cumin and coriander.

I love these two flavors together.

They're just fantastic.

A little bit of dried oregano and some paprika.

Now, if you want, you can use a smoked paprika in this.

For me, I really prefer, on this particular one, to just do a regular paprika, but it's all a matter of what you're gonna serve with it and what flavors you enjoy.

Then I'm gonna take a can of black beans that I've rinsed really well and drained and I'm gonna put that into my sweet potatoes.

And now let's give this little sauce a stir.

So wonderful.

And I want to add just a little salt and pepper, just a little mix in this because I didn't salt any of the sweet potatoes or the peppers.

So just about, oh, 1/2 teaspoon mixed together, so 1/4 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.

All right, that's all ready.

Let's see where we are on our poblanos.

Now, remember, when you roast peppers, you don't have to have every little piece charred.

Sometimes that will actually burn the flesh.

But just get as much char on as you can.

So as I let these rest and cool just slightly, I'm gonna go ahead and finish up the rest of my filling.

Now, what I wanna do is take, oh, about 1/2 cup of cilantro.

And this is freshly chopped cilantro.

I'm just gonna put that in and I have just a little more than 1/2 cup here because I wanna use just a touch for my garnish.

I'm gonna save that back.

And then I wanna take an avocado.

Now, to look at an avocado and find out if it's ripe, you want to pull back that little piece that's in the top, the little stem.

If the avocado is brown underneath, it has already started to decay, so just kind of go bad.

If it's overly green, it's not quite ready.

And if it's just slightly green, it's really ready for you.

And you want to make sure that you have just a little bit of give in your avocado.

Now, I'm just gonna chop up half of an avocado for this right now because I wanna save that other half of the avocado as a garnish.

So let's put that in.

And then, let's pour all of our great sauce right overtop.

And I'm just gonna stir through a little bit because I still want to stir in my delicious poblanos.

Now, let's see where they are.

This is great.

So they've cooled just a little bit.

It doesn't take long.

And then, what we wanna do is peel back this skin as best we can.

Just kind of pull that off.

And I'm just gonna run my knife right up through so that I can chop this, take out all the seeds, and get off the rest of that skin.

My poblanos are now in my mixture.

I just wanna give that a nice stir and then I'm gonna add the last ingredient that really sets it off, some lime juice.

That little bit of acid really pulls all of our flavors together in the wine and in the quesadilla.

Make sure that you're getting all of your goodness in that.

So I've got some beans, I've got some avocado, sweet potatoes, poblanos.

And what you wanna do is just coat one side of your tortilla because, remember, with quesadillas, we're gonna fold those over so that they're filled semicircles.

And if your sweet potatoes are softer, this works even better because if your sweet potatoes are hard, they will be jumpers.

They'll come right out of your tortilla.

Now, let's add a little bit of a Mexican blended cheese.

And I like to just get a blend that has a little cheddar, a little bit of Monterey jack, maybe some queso in it.

We're gonna fold that over.

Now that's ready to go on the grill.

I'm just gonna rub it with a little bit of oil and pop it right on there.

Okay, it looks great and I think it's ready to plate.

Let's just move it to our board.

You see those beautiful crosshatch marks?

Gorgeous quesadilla.

Now, I just wanna get all my garnish ready.

So, I've just put a few little slice marks in my avocado so I can just pull out those slices and they will be perfectly ready to put on my quesadillas.

And I've got my onion ready, I've got a little lime that I just want to wedge.

There we go.

I've got some sour cream.

This is gonna be delicious.

So, let's give this a little cut.

So usually, when I do quesadillas, I cut them in fours.

But of course, you can do anything you'd like.

And you notice, I kind of try to keep it together just a little bit in those middle cuts so it doesn't completely fall apart.

Now let's put it on our plate.

Nice little hint of red in there, a little green onion, a wedge of lime, a touch of cilantro, and then let's lay in once piece of our avocado.

Oh, it looks beautiful.

Now we wanna give it a little taste with this delicious wine.

So, again, beautiful rose.

And when you're trying to pair something sweet, you wanna go for something that's fruity, juicy.

This definitely is.

Oh yeah.

Now let's try it with our quesadilla.

That is so good.

And you can see the crosshatch on the top and the bottom.

It's a beautiful quesadilla.

A wonderful pairing.

Now let's head over the Charlottesville where we're going to meet up with my new friends, Guy and Elizabeth Pelly.

Wonderful folks who have a beautiful winery that's extremely eclectic and so much of a fun visit.

(bright trumpet music) Tell us a little bit about this tasting room because it's very eclectic.

And when I walked in, I couldn't help but wonder if it comes from the English roots or if it's out of your head or your dreams.

>>That's all her.

>>I love it!

>>You can blame me from coming here, but it's all her and all this.

>>You can blame me for how it looks.

>>Exactly, how it looks.

>>It's out of my head.

So, the tasting room is really like an extension of our home.

I wanted it to architecturally feel like a house, I wanted it, interior design wise, to feel like a house.

I've seen a lot of really lovely converted barn-type tasting rooms around, and I said, I don't wanna do that.

I've got these beautiful, old farm buildings already, so I don't wanna put another barn up.

So I thought, what if we designed something that felt like a house, with soft furnishings, eclectic furnishings, a mix of modern, a mix of antique?

(bright trumpet music) >>How did you guys get here to this place and this amazing facility?

>>Yeah, that's my fault.

(group laughing) It all started with a wedding.

>>Not ours.

(women laughing) >>Yeah, exactly.

Not ours.

Came here for a friend's wedding, and really, I just was blown away how pretty it is and how beautiful it was here.

And we were here for a few days and I started seeing what the vineyards and the farms were doing around here and how people have planted out vineyards and then they'd built venues on the farms, you know, the tasting rooms.

So that's how they were selling their wine and it just kind of really spoke to me as a fun idea and a business to do.

And so that's how it all started, really.

>>That's cool.

Did you have any background in any of this?

>>The only background I had, I had a background, I ran known venues back in London, so from the hospitality side, I had that background.

So, from the wine tasting facility and the winery, that side of things, I have the background, but then from the grape growing, the wine making, you know, really very limited.

>>So Kevin, tell us a little bit about these two Petit Verdots and how they differ from year to year.

>>Certainly.

So, beginning with the 2017 Petit Verdot, this Petit Verdot is coming from a year that has significantly a lot less rainfall in comparison to the 2018.

In 2017, we got just under 40 inches of rain whereas in 2018, we got about 90 inches.

So, we're looking at a significant increase in water.

And as we get into harvest, those grapes are just going to soak up all that water and you're looking at a significantly lower concentration of sugars and tannins and everything that packs the flavor into the wine.

So, looking at the 2017, a little bit more age on it as well.

So we're getting into the tertiary flavors and delivered oxidation.

You're getting a little bit more mocha and coffee from that '17.

So that one's a little bit more bitter black currant whereas the 2018, we're sticking primarily in the fruit realm.

We're getting the black plum, black cherry.

It's still a little bit of black currant, but it's not quite that bitter, sour, under ripe black currant that you'll see in a better aged red.

>>I love it.

Well, let's give 'em a try.

>>Certainly.

I definitely recommend beginning with the 2017.

And we'll pour a couple here for you all.

So, the 2017 is going to have a significantly larger portion of Petit Verdot in the blend.

It is cut just with a touch of Merlot.

So, sitting about 95% Petit Verdot, 5% Merlot.

That Merlot is just going to lift the body up a little bit, give it a little bit more ability and oak to pull some flavors and concentrations from.

>>Really nice.

And I get that tertiary.

>>With the bottle age, the additional year sitting on the bottle, we're getting into a little bit more almost gamey, urbascious forest floor, mushrooms.

A couple more years and it'll develop into a very beautiful Petit Verdot.

>>It's gorgeous, it's gorgeous.

Yeah, I'm not getting those primary fruit so much as I'm getting that tertiary and that secondary.

Beautiful.

>>Certainly.

And in comparison, the 2018 here, that first note you're going to get is this big, bright black plum, black cherry.

So these primary fruits on these wines is going to be much more at the forefront than in the 2017.

>>And you can even smell it.

(Guy giggling) Wow.

(upbeat jazz music) I love a good roasted chicken and I really love a good roasted chicken on the grill, but today, I'm gonna make something a little bit different.

We're gonna brine a chicken, we're gonna spatchcock it, and then we are going to grill it under a brick.

So it's a brined, spatchcock chicken under brick.

That's a lot to say, but it's really, really good.

So just stay with me.

The first thing we're gonna do is wrap up a brick.

Now, you don't have to do this.

The brick simply lets the chicken cook a little bit faster.

And I like to use the bricks because it gives uniformity to the roasting of the chicken and I really like that.

So, we're gonna just wrap this in a little bit of aluminum foil and my goal here is to heat up this brick.

This is a fire brick that you can get at any Home Goods store.

There we go.

And I'm just gonna throw this on the grill, let it get nice and hot.

Brining a turkey or a chicken will really add to the flavors that you get out of it.

And I love to brine.

So, the first thing I'm gonna do is put a little bit of water in my container.

Now, make sure you have a container large enough to hold all your liquid and your chicken once you submerge.

So, to get those flavors going, we're gonna start with some kosher salt and some sugar.

I want to just stir those around really well to try to get them to just melt into this water.

You know that salt doesn't melt well, but sugar certainly does.

And as you go through the brining process, you're going to want to go through, flip that chicken occasionally, and make sure that you are stirring through well.

Now let's add some great flavor components, including some citrus juice.

And I love to use citrus in mine.

So, I'm going to use not just one citrus, but three.

So we'll use a little bit of orange, we'll use some lemon, and we'll use some lime.

And I'm gonna do two of each.

And it doesn't matter if you get the seeds from the lemons in here.

You're going to strain all of that out later, so don't worry about getting those seeds in.

Now, I wanna take my citrus and juice it in, but I'm also gonna use all the peels.

(upbeat jazz music) There we go.

Now, let's put in an onion.

And the onion really adds a lot of flavor to this.

And as you're building those flavors, you don't wanna miss out on anything, so put in that sugar, put in that salt, put in extra flavorings, lots of citrus juice.

And if you don't have fresh citrus, you can always use just the juice, but the fresh citrus with the peel will give it an even better flavor.

So let's just give that onion a chop.

And I like to just cut it into eighths.

It works pretty well.

And then let's take half a bottle of a dry white wine.

And I'm just using a Chardonnay here.

You can also use sparkling wine, which will add, the effervescence will add to that tenderness in your chicken.

Now I'm gonna take a couple bay leaves, and some peppercorns, and I wanna take a little bit of star anise.

Now, this is optional.

A lot of people don't like star anise.

I really love it in my brine, but if you don't like it or you can't find it, don't worry about it.

The other item that's optional is juniper berry.

So, I love to use juniper berries, but sometimes they are difficult to find.

And then some whole cloves.

Definitely use those.

And then I'm gonna take a couple of, well, actually, I'm gonna take four hot chili peppers.

Now, these will not add heat, but they will add to your flavor profile, so definitely use them.

I almost forgot something very important.

It was blending into my board.

Two cinnamon sticks.

I love cinnamon sticks in this.

And they really will enhance the flavor.

Now, I've got a chicken here.

This is about a five, six pound chicken.

And what I wanna do is take out the backbone.

Now, you can see that right here at the bottom of the breast, that's kind of thin, and what we wanna do is bring the legs up overtop of that part of the breast to protect it so that it all cooks evenly.

So, let's take that back out.

So what we're gonna do is go in with some scissors, some kitchen scissors, and just cut through those bones.

Now, there will be a couple of really hard spots there.

If you have trouble, just be ready with your cleaver, which works great.

Right in there.

Yeah.

It's a little bit tight, but sometimes you can get it with your knife or your scissors.

Now let's just go down the other side of the backbone.

Yeah.

And sometimes you just kind of have to pull that tissue away.

Let me get from the other side.

And this is what we call spatchcocking a chicken.

It's taking that backbone out and then splitting the breast bone so it lays flat.

Bam.

There we go.

Now, what we wanna do is lay this over.

So I'm gonna take my cleaver and I just wanna split this hard bone right here between the two breast pieces.

Just like this.

And then just kind of break it out.

Then I'll wanna take away any of this really, seriously excess skin.

I don't want to cut away skin that is protecting the meat, but I do wanna take out any of this bigger, chunky, residual stuff.

There we go.

Now, you can see, as we lay it over, those legs are just coming right in to that part of the breast.

Now, we're gonna drop this into our brine and let it sit overnight.

(upbeat jazz music) So I've brined this chicken overnight, and once in awhile, after you've brined it overnight, you'll find that some of the feathers still may be in there, some little pricks of feather, so you can actually find this.

The salt will bring that out of the bird.

So make sure that you get all of that out.

Just check your chicken really well.

And now, I want to just brush my chicken with a little bit of olive oil.

And I love to use a rosemary oil or a garlic oil, something that's going to give just a little extra flavor on the outside of my bird.

So here, I'm gonna use a little bit of rosemary oil and I only want about a tablespoon, tablespoon and a half.

You don't need much because we don't want serious flare-ups with this chicken.

We want to be able to just brush it lightly so that we can get some marks on it, but we don't want a lot of flare-up on this.

You already have a lot of skin that will cause flare-ups on a grill, so let's just give it a little light coat.

And we've already salted and peppered it, but if you want, if you're just one of those people who has to see salt and pepper on the outside of your bird, go ahead and do it.

Let's flip it over.

And just give it a light brush.

(light jazz music) And now I wanna rub down the grill and put this chicken right on.

So let's lay that bird right on the grill.

Make sure that the wings are tucked under and the legs are out in front of that breast bone.

And then I wanna take one of my bricks.

I have two wrapped here.

One is a little hotter than the other and I want to just put the hottest brick on that chicken.

Now, grill that chicken for about an hour, always keeping those bricks nice and hot as you put them back on the surface of the upper side and you will have an amazing chicken.

Once it comes off the grill, wrap it up in aluminum foil for about a half an hour so that it can kind of steam and really get those juices back where they all belong just like you do with a steak.

You're gonna love this chicken.

So let's see what we've got.

Look at this beautiful bird.

It is fall off the bone tender.

Look at that.

It's just amazing.

Oh my.

And it just separates out.

Just look at that.

It's beautiful.

Let me just grab a little piece of this.

This is so tender.

You can see how juicy it is.

It's just amazing.

I love chicken.

Now let's try it with this beautiful wine.

This is a Viognier and Viognier really lends itself well to seafood and chicken.

The state grape of Virginia, I love it.

So wonderful with this bird.

And I hope you'll enjoy it as well.

(upbeat jazz music) Well, I hope you've enjoyed all of the recipes from today's show, including this delicious vegetarian quesadilla, this wonderful spatchcock chicken, and this to die for shaved rib eye kebob.

With all of these recipes, all you have to do is go to vpm.org/unwined and you can make them yourself.

And until next time, go grab that glass.

It's always time to "Un-wined."

>>Production funding for "Un-wined" 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... (upbeat jazz music)