>>Hi, I'm Tassie Pippert, and today I'm at Muse Vineyards in Woodstock, Virginia, where we'll meet with owner Sally Cowal and have a great time tasting some delicious wines and some wonderful food.

So go grab your glass.

It's always time to unwind.

>>Production funding for Un-wine'd was made possible in part by... (upbeat music) (playful music) >>I'm here on the bank of the Shenandoah River at Muse Vineyards.

I'm standing right in front of the beautiful Cab Franc vines, and right here to my left, some brand new vines, some Sangiovese that they just planted in the spring.

I had the chance to walk through the cellar with Tim Rausse.

What a delightful man, what a wonderful wine maker.

(cork popping) We tasted a brand new bottle of a Chardonnay that's sparkling, still on the lees, with the cap still on, so much still has to happen, but boy, did it taste amazing.

So after a discussion with Sally about AVAs and the history of Virginia wine and her history here in Woodstock, Virginia, after tasting some delicious wines with her, I paired up some foods, including Kentucky Hot Browns, some delicious chicken wild mushroom pasta, and one of my favorites, French Cassoulet.

So let's head to my kitchen, see what I'm making, and we'll have a great time.

(upbeat music) The cerato is so delicious.

You know, you don't often see white wine blends.

You see a lot of reds, but not a lot of whites.

This one is beautiful with Chardonnay, Vidal Blanc, Muscat.

Oh, it's delicious.

So today we're going to make a wonderful recipe for a brunch or a lunch.

This is Kentucky Hot Browns, and I love these.

They are a Derby tradition, simple to do, easy for any time of day.

What I've got here are some croissants that I've split, and I just buttered them very, very lightly.

We're going to slice up a tomato so that we have a slice for each piece of our Hot Brown.

And generally what you do is the full croissant with one serving.

So I'm going to do four slices of tomato.

Now, you can do this as a sandwich.

It's wonderful on French bread, which is more traditional, but I love it on a croissant for brunch.

Then we're going to use some turkey breast or chicken breast.

Today, I'm using chicken because I roasted chicken for another recipe so I've got chicken.

And then we've got some great sauce.

So let's head over to the stove and cook up some delicious Mornay.

(upbeat music) So let's make a basic cream sauce.

And to do that, I've got some butter in the pan, and then I'm going to add some flour.

Now, anytime you do this, you want to make sure that you cook this until the flour is really cooked through.

Because if it's not, it gives you a very pasty flavor and it's just not very pleasant.

So let's just stir that through.

And what we're doing here is making a basic blonde roux.

Now, if you want a darker sauce for something, you would let your butter and flour cook a little bit longer, and that makes a darker roux.

(upbeat music) Now, once you know that's really well cooked, you're going to add some milk.

And I have about two and a half cups of milk here.

You can use a whole milk, frankly, you could use skim or even a half and a half, if you wanted.

Anything in between will work just fine.

You want to just kind of stir that through.

Let's make sure that all of that flour gets incorporated.

(whisk scraping) As your sauce starts to warm, make sure that you stir it frequently so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

And eventually, in only a few minutes, it will become nice and thick and very rich.

As the sauce thickens, I want to add a little bit of a flavor profile here.

So just a touch of freshly grated nutmeg.

(grater scraping) And then I'll add a little salt and pepper.

I don't mind putting pepper in to my sauces because I have that nutmeg in there.

And you can always add a white pepper if you have an aversion to that color, but I like it.

This recipe takes me back to the days of my husband's grandmother down in Marion, Virginia, making chip beefed gravy.

She loved to put a lot of pepper in the pan and it was always beautiful, and every time, absolutely delicious.

Now my sauce is starting to bubble on the side of the pan and you can see that it's really coating the whisk.

Once that thickness gets to the center it's completely done.

And that only takes a matter of seconds once that bubbling starts to occur.

There we go.

All right, at this point, we've got a nice cream sauce, but I want to make a cheese sauce.

That's called a Mornay.

So I'm going to add some delicious cheese to this.

This is a graded Gruyere.

And just enough cheese to really make a difference in this sauce.

It's going to be delicious.

I want to go ahead and turn that heat off so the cheese doesn't burn.

Now let's get back over and assemble these delicious Kentucky Hot Browns.

All right, so let's assemble these.

The first thing we're going to do is take some chicken and put on those beautifully buttered croissants.

Oh, it looks so delicious.

I just love this recipe and I like it for dinner, I like it for brunch, I like it for lunch, any time of day.

All right, now let's just sprinkle a little salt and pepper on that chicken.

(quiet jazzy music) Mmm.

And then I want to top it with some tomato slices.

So a nice, beautiful slice for each one.

There we go.

Now, I want to spread that with a little bit of my Mornay, and then I'm going to pop it in an oven at 400 degrees for about 10 to 12 minutes.

Just enough to get it nice and warm and to get that Mornay bubbling on top.

So this is what they look like all finished, and you can see that they have kind of crisped just slightly on the top.

It's just gorgeous.

Just gorgeous.

I love this flavor.

I love everything about it.

Now, usually when I'm serving these, I'll serve it with a little bit of a, an arugula salad on the side, just with a vinaigrette, something super simple.

And that also adds beautiful color, of course.

Now, what we're going to do here is just sprinkle a little bit of bacon and a little more of that wonderful Gruyere cheese.

And bacon as nice and crisp and delicious.

There we go.

And then I'm going to finish it off with a little bit of chopped, fresh chive.

I smell it.

It smells delicious.

I can't wait to get my teeth into these, and this, with this Aratas, oh my goodness, so perfect.

You know, with the Chardonnay it's rich, with the Vidal Blanc, and the Muscat, it just adds this depth of fruitiness.

It's so perfect.

And with this Aratas, it's absolutely delicious.

Now let's head up to Woodstock and visit with my friend, Sally, as she tells us a little bit about Muse Vineyards.

(upbeat music) Sally, thanks so much for having me here at Muse.

I could not wait to get back.

I love your wines.

And I really want to find out a little bit about you and how you got into this.

>>Well, thank you, Tassie.

It's a great pleasure to be with you, and thanks for visiting Muse Vineyards.

My husband and I started this project in 2003, really just on a, in some ways a whim.

Washington, DC residents, I'm a former diplomat, United States ambassador, he's an international lawyer, living in Georgetown, but with a very large dog.

And there's always a dog in the story.

And to look for a little place outside of town.

And my husband said, "Oh, why don't we have a little vineyard?"

And we had both traveled around the world and tasted wine around the world, but really, we didn't know anything about growing grapes.

And so by almost miraculous serendipitous circumstances, I saw a very tiny little ad in the Washington Post saying, "Vineyard for sale," an amateur hobby vineyard of about 600 vines planted by a Canadian diplomat some years before.

And so we jumped into it and that's where we began.

And a couple of years later, we bought this 40 acre Mennonite farm with the 1792 farmhouse on it.

And that was a corn and soybean field.

And so we ripped up the corn and soybeans and ordered vines from a nursery in California, which were delivered the following spring.

And we began to plant, again, serendipitously, I think, in 2014, for the 2015 Virginia Governor's Cup, we entered the first wine we had made that we called Clio.

It was a blend of 25% Cabernet Sauvignon 25% Cabernet Franc, 25% Petit Verdot, and 25% Merlot.

And we got to that blend accidentally.

It was all we had by then.

They were new vines.

We had made one barrel of each of these wines.

We put them together.

My husband said, "Oh, don't enter the Governor's Cup.

No one knows us."

You know, all good spouses, I changed the question, and I said, "Which wine should I enter in the Virginia Governor's Cup?"

He said, "Oh, enter the Clio 2009."

Hundreds of wines in this closet.

And I thought, well, he's absolutely right.

No one knows us.

So I put my wine down and scampered away.

And a few months later, in early February, we learned we had not only won a gold medal for our first wine, but we had in fact won the Governor's Cup.

>>That is just amazing.

And that was 2015, so then that propelled us.

by then, we already had 25, 30 acres planted.

We had continued to plant both those first varietals, but then branching out into grapes that are, their origin is the Rhone Valley of France, and then some Italian grapes as well.

So we were already well into the viticulture, selling fruit to other vineyards around the state.

But winning the Governor's Cup gave us the idea that we really had a wonderful product and we should go forward with it.

And so that's when we began the plans for this tasting room, which opened at the end of 2016.

>>Well, let's taste some of your delicious wine.

>>All right, let's do that.

So this is a new wine for us called Pichet.

I think you had a chance to taste it the other day when you were preparing some recipes to go with it, but it's very, light-bodied.

It's different than most anything else that we have produced before.

It's mainly Cabernet Franc, but we've deliberately made it rather fanciful.

So a Pichet is the French word for pitcher, and you see, it has a little picture on the label here.

>>Oh yes, that's great.

>>And so that's what, in the United States, we would typically call a carafe.

So this is a carafe wine.

It's not a very expensive wine.

It's not meant to be complex.

It doesn't have very many tannins.

It's just a nice, it's got a lovely fruity nose that just jumps out of the bottle at you.

They're young vines, and this is wine from 2019.

So typically, our red wines we age in oak, in all French oak, and we age them for, well, somewhere between 24 and 40 months.

So of course, they get on a whole different complexity.

(upbeat music) >>This Pichet is delicious.

It's primarily Cab Franc, but it's super light, and wow, great with this particular recipe.

Now, just like the last one that I did, this one is made with a cream sauce, but this has made a little differently.

So what I have in my pan is a little butter.

We're gonna start with that.

And then I'm going to add a little bit of bacon to that.

Now for this recipe, you can do the bacon at the beginning, or what you can do is fry the bacon and crumble it at the end.

Either way, it's just delicious.

And I'm going to add that to my pan and just let it fry a little bit while I get my other ingredients ready.

This is a fast recipe.

It can be ready for you in as little as 15 or 20 minutes for dinner.

All you have to do is have a little bit of roasted chicken on hand, a little bit of the rest of ingredient, and you are ready to go.

And the wonderful thing about a recipe like this is that you can experiment with the things you like in a cream sauce.

So maybe you don't like a simple tomato, but you like a sun dried tomato.

Maybe you don't like tomato at all.

Maybe you like a little bit of spinach in this.

Maybe you like it with the bacon, maybe without, so you can experiment, have fun with the recipe.

Now, while this is getting fried up a little bit, I want to chop some fresh mushrooms.

Now, this is an exotic mushroom blend.

It's about six ounces.

And usually in your grocery store, you can find a nice blend.

It has a little Shiitake, maybe a little oyster mushroom, some portobello, and sometimes button mushrooms.

So just a little bit of a blend.

You don't need a blend if you don't like all of those flavors, but I like this one with a blend.

I really love a wild mushroom flavor with this Cab Franc.

It just sets it off.

It's the perfect blend and makes for a delicious easy meal.

I don't want to mince them.

I want a lot of texture in this recipe.

And so I'm just going to give them a little light chopping.

And now I want to chop up a little bit of chicken breast.

Now, this is the chicken breast that was left when I made my Kentucky Hot Browns, how perfect.

So I've got two delicious meals in one chicken breast.

The skin on a chicken breast like this, for this particular recipe, can be a little bit cumbersome.

It's hard to eat.

And even if you love the chicken skin, it's just not delicious in this recipe.

Now, if you start to get fond on the bottom of the pan, now that's that brown protein that's building up right down there on the pan, at that point, go ahead and put in your vegetables that you want.

Your bacon will continue to crisp up a little bit more and it will be fine.

So for me, I'm going to add some shallot.

And this is just one chopped shallot.

And about half of a red bell pepper.

Now, I like to use fresh red bell pepper, if I have it.

If I don't, and I have roasted red bell peppers that I've canned or that are in a can, or even frozen peppers, that I've stuck in my freezer after a great harvest, use that.

Now the bacon continues to crisp, and the mushrooms, I really just want those slightly cooked.

I want a nice texture on those mushrooms, so I don't want them so wilted that you can't tell there are mushrooms in the pan.

And at this point, I'm going to add the thickener.

So that's going to be a little bit of flour, just like we did with our Kentucky Hot Browns, but we use just flour and butter.

With this, I want to go ahead and put the flour into the vegetables and stir that around.

Now, if you have mushrooms that are really dry, they might soak up all the butter.

Have a little butter extra on hand, just in case.

If you don't have the fat in the pan, the flour doesn't cook.

So you want to make sure you have enough flour and butter together to really make its own roux right in that mushroom mixture.

It's ready.

I'm going to pour in some milk.

Now, as that milk hits the pan, make sure you're stirring well.

Now for this particular recipe, heavy cream or half and half works really, really well because you want a nice, thick, very rich sauce for this particular pasta.

But if you're really watching your fats, you can cut down on the butter, use a little bit of defatted chicken stock in place.

And, of course, you can use a skim milk or even an evaporated skim milk works fine.

And I see it starting to bubble on the edge.

And remember, once it starts to bubble on the edge, that thickening will start to occur very, very quickly.

All right, before it starts to thicken too much, I want to add my chicken.

We'll stir that through and get it warmed.

And then it'll thicken a little bit more and we're going to add some spinach to that right at the end.

So the spinach just begins to wilt.

You could add basil, but the basil doesn't necessarily go tremendously well with that Cab Franc flavor.

So if you're going to add something green, I'd go for spinach or kale.

And then at the very last minute, we're going to toss in some pasta.

Okay, I have about a pound of pasta here, but I'm only going to use about a half pound, I think, in this recipe.

Maybe three quarters.

I like to sort of look at it, eyeball it, and also, it depends on what kind of pasta you're using.

If it's something that's going to soak up sauce, use a little bit less.

All right, I've got about 2/3 pound of pasta, right there.

And I want this to be saucy.

So I don't want so much pasta that I don't enjoy the sauce.

The smell is amazing.

The taste is perfect.

And we are going to have an amazing meal.

So let's pour a bit of this Pichet.

This is an incredible wine, light, airy, perfect with this light and airy chicken dish with pasta.

Oh, it's incredible.

So I hope you'll enjoy this one.

(quiet music) French Cassoulet is a tradition in France, whether you're in northern, southern, or central France, everyone makes it a little bit different, based on what they have.

Now, Cassoulet is a dish that normally takes eight to 10 hours, cooked all day long, with amazing meats like duck confit, pork, chicken, bacon.

Oh, it's so wonderful.

But today I'm going to make it in one hour or less using canned beans.

Don't kill me, those of you who are traditionalists.

I know this is a shortcut.

I know it's not going to be as perfect as Cassoulet, but it's a Shortcut Cassoulet.

And if you don't have all the time to spend, I hope you'll enjoy this one.

There is nothing like a French Cassoulet.

Nothing like a real French Cassoulet.

Well, today, we're going to do a Shortcut Cassoulet and I'm going to get as close to the flavors as I possibly can.

So I've got some bacon here.

I have some Italian sausages.

If you can get a garlic sausage, do it.

That is really the best to use for this.

So what I'm going to do is just chop up some smoked ham.

So I have smoked bacon.

I have smoked ham.

You know, what is great about Cassoulet, just like with a lot of French cooking, they use what they have.

Now, what I want to do with these Italian sausages, these come with a little bit of a casing.

So I'm just going to squeeze that out.

You don't have to cut those.

Just kind of give it a little squeeze and that will just come right out of the casing, just like that.

So then you have the sausage and you don't end up with that casing in your teeth.

So I have four sausages here.

You can use two, three, four, whatever you have.

And it, of course, also depends on how meaty you want your Cassoulet to be.

So as I cook this, I want to just start breaking down all of that sausage, just so I can get nice, small pieces.

So I'm going to let this cook for about 10 minutes.

So I'm going to add a little bit of classic mirepoix, onion, or shallot in this case, a little bit of carrot and some celery.

Then I want some rough chopped parsley and maybe a little bit of garlic in that to give all of that flavor blend so that as you eat this, you're going to get intense flavors from every different angle.

Now I'll let this cook for about 10 minutes until all the meat is cooked through and those vegetables start to soften.

So here's our beautiful Cassoulet.

Now, the last thing I'm going to do is something totally traditionally French.

And that is to put a little bit of butter, right in the end of my Cassoulet.

Now, a lot of people serve Cassoulet with a crumb top.

Traditionally, Cassoulet was not served with a crumb top, but now you see it served that way a lot.

I'm not serving it that way, just because I'm going a little more with tradition for at least one thing on this recipe.

But oh, that, mmm, that delicious butter finish.

Whew, perfect.

So let's just ladle that up.

And you can see it has stock, it's meaty.

It has that beautiful green.

Mmm.

Served with a beautiful crusty bread, this is a French tradition and it is worth every moment of it, whether you have an hour to give it or the traditional eight to 10.

So I hope you'll enjoy this with this beautiful Clio.

Now, this is a delightful Bordeaux blend wine from Muse.

It has Malbec and Merlot, Cab Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Whether you have eight hours to spend on it, or if you do this shortcut one hour, I hope you'll enjoy this delicious dish.

(upbeat music) So this beautiful Pichet, Aratas, and this delightful Clio.

I hope you've enjoyed all of the recipes that I've made on today's show, from this delicious pasta dish with chicken and wild mushrooms to this Shortcut Cassoulet, and of course, the Kentucky Hot Browns.

Until next time, I'm Tassie Pippert.

Don't forget to grab that glass.

It's always time to unwind.

To check out the vineyards and wineries I've visited, go to our website, vpm.org/unwind.

The website features unique vineyards and wine makers from previous episodes of the show.

And if you want to try your hand at cooking, all the recipes are available, from light fare to succulent desserts and everything in between.

And of course, the wines are paired with each dish.

So sit back, relax, grab that glass.

It's time to unwind.

>>Production funding for Un-wine'd was made possible in part by... (upbeat music)