Autumn 2007
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Contents Page 1 |
Contents Page 2 |
Other Issues: | Winter 2008 | Spring 2008 | Summer 2008 | Autumn 2008 | Winter 2009 | Spring 2009 | Summer 2009 | Autumn 2009 | Winter 2010 | Spring 2010 | Summer 2010 |
Articles from this issue:
Virginia's Original Grape Puts Local Vineyards on the Map
D
ennis Horton, owner of Horton Vineyards in Gordonsville, chuckles dismissively and says “no” when asked if he was originally drawn to the Norton grape because of the distinctive marketing opportunity created by the rhyme of winery and wine.“Can I get some of that Horton Norton, please?” He insists that it had more to do with the fact that the grape “makes a nice bottle of red wine,” it’s easy to grow, and it’s a Virginia native. “A lot of people think I named it, but I had nothing to do with it,” he says. Nearly 20 years ago, however, he did reintroduce Norton to the Old Dominion after a seven-decade absence.And it’s fitting that an avowed tinkerer like Horton—by last count, his pioneering operation is selling wines crafted from more than 20 different varietals—was the man to do it.After all, it was an experimental horticulturist, Richmond’s own Daniel Norborne Norton, who discovered the grape in the 1820s. Norton is often referred to as “Virginia’s grape” or even “America’s grape.” And its story reads like a redemptive screenplay, of which the final act is only now being written. Read more... |
Fencing: Form, Function, & Fashion Statement
I
t’s hard to imagine a Piedmont without fences.They corral animals, keep riff-raff out, and provide context to the region’s bucolic spaces.Fences run alongside just about every highway and back road of the region.But not just any fence will do in the Piedmont, where so much of what forms the region’s identity is a tireless devotion to aesthetics.Unlike industrial chain-link fences of office parks and opaque privacy fences of suburban subdivisions, Piedmont fences serve a markedly different way of life.Here, such enclosures are built not to obscure views; rather, they invite one to gaze out at verdant fields and centuries-old estates. Read more... |
From Farm to Fork: The Old Way of Doing Things is New Again
W
ith a slew of new food-minded books hitting the shelves (Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Alisa Smith and J.B.MacKinnon’s Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally), the world’s gaze has shifted to the idea that eating local is good for us—for reasons affecting the environment, the local economy, and our personal health.But in Virginia’s northern Piedmont, eating local is far from new.Nothing demonstrates this more fundamentally than the culinary trail from farm to fork in the region’s superb restaurants.Quite possibly, The Inn at Little Washington started it all.Almost 30 years ago Patrick O’Connell and then partner Reinhardt Lynch turned their catering business into what is now the world famous Inn at Little Washington in Rappahannock County. Read more... |