>>Hi, I'm Tassie Pippard, and on today's "Un-wine'd," I'll talk to a wonderful guest about her ventures in winemaking, 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- (smooth music) (smooth music) >>I had so much fun today talking with Theresa Robertson at her winery, where she not only is the winemaker, but she's also an accountant, two full-time jobs that keep her extremely busy.

She had amazing stories to tell me, including the time when she came to the United States from England at the age of 19.

She never wanted to leave.

This is a woman who loves this country, loves what she does, and has a passion for her community.

Back in the kitchen, I had the opportunity to pair up some of Theresa's amazing wine with some wonderful food, including Mexican tamales, a portobello roasted red bell pepper French dip sandwich, and some delicious ham pasta.

So I hope you'll head with me to the kitchen, and we'll pair up these delicious wines with some wonderful food.

Grab that glass and let's "Un-wine'd."

(smooth music) So I love this wonderful blend of Viognier, Chardonnay, and a little Traminette, which gives it just this little sweetness.

This is a great recipe with it.

It's ham, fresh peas, a little pasta, some wonderful cream sauce, and I think you're gonna love it.

So the first thing I'm gonna do is take a seven-ounce steak, this is a ham steak, and I just want to cube it about, oh, 1/4" to 1/2" in a nice julienne strip, and then I'll just cube that up.

I want to have all of my ingredients ready.

Anytime you're cooking, you want to have that mise en place ready so that everything moves really smoothly.

So the last thing that I'm doing to get ready for this recipe is to cut up my ham.

Okay, it's all cut in nice little cubes.

Now let's move over to the cooktop, where we're going to cook up this recipe.

Takes no time at all.

I have in my pan about a stick of butter that I'm just melting down to be ready to saute this ham and a little bit of garlic.

Let's put it about on a medium heat.

So again, seven ounces of ham.

Now if you don't find a ham steak, you can also use a deli ham in this and just shred it up.

It works great.

And I wanna take about four to five cloves of garlic, this is gonna be really, really filled with flavor, and one package of fresh peas.

Now these usually come about 4.5 to five ounces, or you can use frozen peas, but don't put those in 'til the end if you don't have fresh.

All right, now let's just saute that around a little bit.

I just wanna bring these peas to slightly cooked, so that nice al dente feel on those, and I want to get just a little bit of fry on that ham.

And if you need to, turn it up.

Now you don't have to use a wok for this.

I just happen to be using a wok because I like using the wok for this recipe.

I like knowing that I have all of my ingredients down low, and then I can push them back if I need to, but a fry pan works great and so does a big stock pot.

Okay, at this point, I want to add just a little bit of flour because I want to thicken my sauce slightly, but not a lot, so about a tablespoon and 1/2 of flour will do the trick.

I'm going to be adding some other ingredients that will make it thick, and then I always hold a little bit of my pasta water, just in case it's too thick so that I can thin it down.

And here's the ingredient that makes this cream sauce.

I'm using a small tub of whipped cream cheese.

Now you can add a plain tub of whipped cream cheese or you can add one that has some chive and onion in it, which I really love in this recipe.

Now let's add in a nice flavor profile here, and I love parsley and I love basil, so let's add some basil and some parsley.

I have some fresh basil here that I just chopped.

It just smells wonderful, and it's so good with a ham, and with this combination in the white wine, it's just perfect.

The smokiness, also, of the ham really, really works well with this combination of the Viognier, the Chardonnay, the Traminette.

Add some fresh parsley.

(exclaims) It also gives it great color.

And then I'm going to add a little bit of half and half or heavy cream.

And you can see the sauce is not thin.

It's not a super thick sauce.

It's not like a gravy.

You really want a nice, thin sauce when you're doing a pasta with a cream sauce, or else it's not creamy and it soaks into the pasta so quickly that you never get a chance to enjoy it on all the pasta.

That is just lovely.

And I'm gonna add just a speck, maybe, oh, a tablespoon or so, of my pasta water because what I want it to do, when it comes up on the side, you don't want it to be so thick that it looks like it's thick and burning.

You just want it to adhere to the sides of the pan.

Ah, this is perfect.

All right, now let's just turn off that heat and add our pasta.

Now anytime I do a cream sauce, I really love to do a pasta that will absorb that cream sauce, so something like a penne farfalle.

This is a lovely Italian pasta someone gave me as a gift, so I thought I'd use it.

And because this was an Italian pasta, it's not necessarily packaged as a pound.

So I went ahead and cooked it all, but it was more like 18.5, 19 ounces.

And I don't want to overdo the pasta in this sauce, so we wanna keep it creamy.

So I'm not gonna use all of it.

Oh, but isn't that gorgeous?

Now let's plate it up and see what it tastes like.

I love this pasta.

Oh, it's so good.

(exclaims) And with the ham?

Delicious.

(exclaims) So let's pour a little of this wine, again, a Viognier, Chardonnay, and a little Traminette.

The blend is beautiful, (exclaims) and it's perfect with this dish.

So let's head up to visit my friend, Theresa, at Two Twisted Posts.

This woman is absolutely amazing, an accountant, a wife, a winemaker, and oh, yeah, Superwoman, so let's chat with her for a little while now.

(upbeat music) The whole name Piebald, where did that come from?

>>The name Piebald came from, when we first bought the property, in the back by the woods was a beautiful white stag, and he had his brown antlers and his brown ears.

It was almost like a mask over his eyes.

And he had three brown spots on his chest, and, oh, he was so beautiful.

And I said, "One day, I'm gonna name a wine after you."

>>Yes.

>>And so my first experiment with my very first white blend was Piebald white, well, but this was my very first white blend.

>>Yes.

>>Which is a blend of Viognier, predominantly, a little bit of Traminette, and then 10% Chardonnay, and maybe I'm crazy, but I feel like 10% Chardonnay just smooths out any white wine.

>>It does.

Well, I would love to taste some of that.

Tell me, where did you come up with Two Twisted Posts?

>>Oh, I did a contest with fellow workers and friends and family to come up with the name, and a friend came up with Black Glass.

And Black Glass is the name of an antique wine bottle.

>>Yes.

>>And so we really liked it and we did a patent search on it, and unfortunately, that name was taken by a California winery, but in the meantime, I bought a book that was an antique wine book.

I'm flipping through the book.

I come upon the picture of this antique wine bottle that was found, dating back to 1715, from Two Twisted Posts Tavern in Colchester, England, which is where my mother was born and raised and where I was born, (Tassie laughs) and I'm like, and the seal on the bottle.

The seal has the tavern owner's name, Thomas Great.

The seal on the bottle was found in Virginia.

So somebody brought- >>Oh.

(laughs) >>Grain over in it, I'm assuming- >>Yes.

>>Maybe wine, but I'm assuming grain.

>>Yeah.

>>And I said, "That's it, that's the name."

>>I love the nose on this.

>>And I think a lot of the nose, even though it's a small percent of Traminette, Viognier has a nice nose, but Traminette has a lovely nose.

>>Yes.

>>And I think that's what gives it the extra fruit flavor, fruit aroma.

>>Right, oh, it's really, really nice.

(Tassie exclaims) Now what are some of your favorite foods to have with this wine?

>>I like spicy food a lot with the wine, also, maybe this isn't where you're going with the question.

I think there's nothing like a movie and popcorn with a nice white wine.

(laughing) >>Love that, yeah.

(laughs) >>Butter popcorn.

>>This- >>And cheeses.

>>Yes.

>>Some particular cheeses.

You wouldn't want a cheese that's too strong, say like a Gorgonzola or something that would overpower it.

>>Right.

>>You'd be better off with a mild, medium cheese, cheddar or- >>Havarti, yes.

>>A light Havarti, exactly.

>>Sure, well, and I can imagine this would hold up against something a little smoky, like ham.

>>Oh.

>>Yeah.

Yeah.

>>Oh, that would be perfect- >>Yeah.

>>With ham.

>>I think it'd be great.

>>Yeah.

>>So tell me a little bit about you and how you got here to the States.

>>I was 19 years old and I had an opportunity to come to the States for a job.

It was a two-year job, and so I came for two years and I never left.

(Tassie laughs) I just totally fell in love with the country, the people.

It's such a vast country.

It has everything.

>>Yes.

>>There's nothing anywhere that you can't find here, very open to pursuing anything people wanted to.

There's no roadblocks.

It's not, "You can't pursue this."

I thought I'd go home one day, and I'm still here, (Tassie and Theresa laughing) so that isn't gonna happen now.

>>Yeah.

>>And I go home.

I'd go a couple times a year when my parents were alive, and one time I'm walking down my hometown street, and someone taps me on the shoulder and says, "Where are you from in the United States?"

(laughs) >>Oh, I love that.

>>So I'm like, "Oh."

So the accent's gone, (Tassie laughs) or whatever it's (laughs) called, and I thought that was great fun.

And I'm like, "This is my hometown."

>>Well, you've planted yourself here, so to speak.

(laughs) >>Yes, exactly, I have planted myself here.

>>Yeah, oh, goodness.

This is amazing, cheers.

>>Cheers.

(upbeat music) >>I love Vidal Blanc, and I particularly love it with pork.

I tried a lot of different recipes with this Vidal Blanc, and I settled on one that I hope you're really going to enjoy.

It's a pork tamale and it's really easy to make.

So you're gonna start off with about three pounds of pork.

Now you can use a pork loin, a pork tenderloin, you can use a shoulder roast, anything that you have, and it is gonna turn out great, no matter what it is, and I just wanna sprinkle this with salt and pepper.

Let's get that into that hot oil.

Now once this is seared all over, I'm going to add some flavor components.

This is an ancho chili.

You can find these in a lot of supermarkets.

They're dried, they're mild, but they add great flavor, and these are New Mexico chilies, also mild, but add great flavor.

So when you're looking for a chili to use, you can use hotter ones, but what I'm going for here is not hot, but instead, I'm going for flavor.

And then I'm gonna use about six or seven cloves of garlic, just thrown in, for great measure.

Okay, and I've got just a speck of color on the bottom, so I'm going to top this with two cups of chicken stock.

Now as soon as that comes to a boil, let's pop it in a 350-degree oven for about 2.5 hours.

So I'm gonna pull that out, and then I wanna slice it from the wet side.

It just slices a little bit better.

Now what you're gonna find is, if this is done right, it's going to shred just like that, just like you're seeing here.

Instead of slicing so much, it just falls apart.

Now I wanna take those peppers out, and what I'm looking to do is to get all of the inside of the pepper into my dish.

So just separate that pepper, and the skin is gonna be really tough, so what you wanna do is just scrape gently with the backside of your knife, with the blade of your knife, and just get that meat of the pepper out.

There won't be a lot.

These are very thin peppers, very paper-ish, but get out everything that you can.

Now it's a little bit different with the ancho.

It's just slightly thicker, so you can usually get just a little more meat from that, and let's put that in our mixture.

And I'm gonna take all of those garlic cloves and just give them a little chop.

Now let's build that flavor profile just a little bit more.

I'm going to add some fresh garlic that I've minced, and then I've minced up a bunch of cilantro.

So when you're mincing cilantro, you just wanna make sure that you run your knife through really well, pulling those leaves together, and never mince up the stems.

They can be just really harsh in a recipe, so you want leaves only.

So let's just stir that through a little bit.

So it's still just a little bit dry.

You don't want these too wet, but you definitely don't want them so dry that they don't have flavor.

So in my bowl, I have some masa, and then I just add some warm water.

Now you want to add enough water so that, when you're pulling this together, it can be soft, but you don't want it to be runny.

Now I have some corn husks soaking here in some warm water, and you just wanna make sure that the corn husks are nice and soft.

So let's take one and another.

All right, now let's take about a golf ball-size glob, and we just wanna smooth that out, just smooth it.

Okay, now let's take a little bit of that pork.

(exclaims) This is so beautiful, and you can see I've got a little juice there in that one.

Not a problem.

And then for this style, I just want to roll it.

So I'm gonna roll and pinch back to make sure I have everything together, and then I want to take the ends and just wrap them with a string and tie it off.

Then these are ready to go in our steamer, and then we'll plate them up.

These look amazing, I love a good tamale.

So what you're gonna do is just untie it and then unwrap, simple as that.

(gasps) This looks wonderful.

(exclaims) It smells so good.

Just look at that tamale, this beautiful tamale with this delicious masa.

What you want to do is to have your guests just unwrap those.

Have some sauces available, in case they want some sort of salsa on this, but it's just delicious, oh, my goodness.

Let's just give it a try.

(exclaims) So good.

Let's try it with this Vidal Blanc.

This is fresh and really light.

The great thing about this is the sweetness of the Vidal Blanc works really, really well with the flavor components, the garlic, the little bit of pepper.

(exclaims) Oh, yeah, it's beautiful.

First of all, pork with Vidal Blanc is just a natural, but with these particular flavors and this particular acidity and sweetness, it's just an amazing combination and I hope you'll love it.

(upbeat music) Merlot is such a wonderful grape.

It's a medium acid, medium tannin.

It's just medium all over the place, medium body.

It goes so well with vegetarian dishes, and I really love it with this sandwich, so I'm gonna make for you a roasted vegetable French dip, and it's just so tasty, so hopefully, you'll enjoy it.

I have here about four or five portobello mushrooms, and I like to slice those about 1/2" thick.

And then what I wanna do is get a couple of peppers ready to go into the oven.

So for these, I'm just going to cut them in strips, and I like to just cut the pepper right off like this and plop it on our cookie sheet.

Now what I wanna do, generally, when I roast vegetables is put down a little parchment paper, because the vegetables have a lot of sugar in them, and if they're releasing that liquid and that sugar, sometimes, they can burn against your pan, and I really just prefer to have that flavor not all over the place.

Okay, now let's just drizzle a little olive oil, and then I'll add a little salt and pepper.

Now I want to put these in a 450-degree oven for about seven minutes to just roast them nicely and lightly.

So let's slice up some onions, and I could roast these onions, but I want that onion flavor in my sauce that I'm going to do.

So French dip, you've gotta have a French dip sauce, right?

So I want to have that great onion flavor in the sauce, and what I want to do is not caramelize them, but I'm just going to fry them a little bit and get just a touch of moisture out of them before I add some more moisture into them.

Okay, now I have about three tablespoons of butter that I just wanna put down in my pan.

It's nice and hot, so it will melt really quickly.

Now I wanna take just a pinch of salt to put over top, maybe, oh, about 1/4 of a teaspoon.

If you put a little salt on your onions, it will start to draw that moisture out just naturally.

That looks delicious.

These onions are starting to turn slightly translucent, which is what I want.

Okay, these onions are soft now.

They're not so soft that they're mushy, but they're just soft enough that they still have a little bit of body and they'll have just a touch of bite to them.

Now I wanna add a little bit of white wine, a little bit of soy sauce, this is gonna be our salt component in this, I have just a touch of chili pepper flakes, so just about a pinch, not even 1/8 of a teaspoon, and a little steak sauce.

(exclaims) At this point, you can add a mushroom stock or a vegetable stock.

I particularly like beef stock in this, so that's what I'm gonna use.

Now let that simmer for about two or three minutes to get all of the flavor all together, and then we'll take our vegetables out of the oven and build that sandwich.

So let's make a little sauce to go down on our bread, and when I think of French dip, I think of horseradish because, generally, I'm thinking about beef.

So I've got some mayo in here, and I want to add some horseradish to that and then a little bit of garlic.

Then let's sprinkle in a little salt and pepper.

Give it a good stir.

Now I wanna take some bread that I've just broiled lightly, and I'm just gonna spread this on, and I like to use a more coarse bread because, if you use a softer bread, the bread just really gets wet from the vegetables.

Now let's start building this up.

You can see how the moisture's started to come out of the mushrooms and out of the peppers.

These just look great.

I love portobello mushrooms, anyway, and on this sandwich, they're just delicious.

And now some peppers.

(exclaims) You want to work quickly on this just so that the mushrooms don't cool off too much, but we're gonna stick it under the broiler for just a second so they do have a chance to heat up a little bit more.

All right, now let's get those onions on there.

Now I just strained the onions through a nice sieve so I could catch the onions in the sieve and catch that beautiful au jus in a cup.

Don't worry, you can just pile this back on after you get it out of the oven.

And then we wanna top it with some provolone cheese.

All right, let's stick that under the broiler for just about 45 seconds and it'll be ready.

Doesn't this look amazing?

That's what it looks like when it comes out from the broiler.

Now I just put a little bit of my sauce on the top, and there we go.

Look at this amazing sandwich.

(exclaims) This is just so good.

You will not know that you don't have beef in it.

It is just so delicious, just amazing.

(exclaims) And that with this beautiful Merlot?

(exhales) (smooth music) So good.

Oh, perfect, I can't wait to sink my teeth into this.

It's just so good, so good.

Hope you enjoy.

Well, I hope you enjoyed today's recipes and these great wine pairings.

So for these recipes and a whole lot more, go to vpm.org/unwined.

Thanks so much to my special guest, Theresa at Two Twisted Posts.

We had so much fun that day and got to taste some great wine.

So until next time, go grab that 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- (smooth music) (gentle music)