Two words: Terroir and Style.

But first, some background.

Grüner Veltliner is indigenous to Austria and is the most widely planted grapevine there, most grown on soil comprising slate, schist and other decomposing rock. The grapes are typically fermented at cool temperatures in stainless steel tanks, resulting in lean, laser-like wines with notes of grapefruit or white pepper, some bottled so young they fizz when opened. Most are like this, but not all (and that includes ours), which is where terroir and house-style come in.

By terroir we mean the unique combination of soil, climate, slope, aspect and farming methods in a specific vineyard that cause wines grown there to be different – perhaps even superior – than those made from the same grape grown elsewhere. You can read more about terroir here.

Our estate vineyard sits at 700 feet above sea level, straddling the border of maritime and continental climates, with a meaningful slope, southwest aspect and 3,000 growing degree days. Our soil is deep silt/clay/loam, well-drained and studded with glacial gravel. We dry farm, adding nothing to the 40+ inches of rain we get each year (we don’t even have irrigation lines). Yes, there may be other places like this, but none exactly like this.

So, where our Grüner grows has a big impact on why it’s so good, which makes the winemaker look brilliant even though this reflects one decision he made long ago. But to be fair, he does a few other things each year that are reflected in our house style.

By style we mean the steps taken with each vintage, from uncrushed grapes through the pour into your glass, resulting in a consistent and even recognizable wine. But it is really only influence, as winemakers don’t make the wine as much as guide Mother Nature, much like a midwife does (some winemakers vigorously disagree, and that shows up in one’s house style, too).

And so, if we combine Mount Salem’s terroir and style, our Grüner Veltliner can be reduced to this haiku:

Austrian grapes
Grown in Hunterdon
Vinified as if in Burgundy
In American oak

This results not in a schizophrenic wine, but rather an elegant and cosmopolitan one with nearly pitch-perfect sense of place. Indeed, if forced to choose only one grape to grow here, it would be Grüner. And that’s not an April Fool’s Joke, either.

The farmhouse kitchen is dark, due not to sunset but snow-covered windows, kindness of the Blizzard of ’16.

In the oven a turkey gently roasts Northern Italian style, while the sound of a crackling wood fire and tumblers of white and red wine, considered essential ingredients in serious cooking like this, warm us.

The turkey is an extra from November that waited patiently in deepfreeze for a day when time is abundant. And to this farmer’s eye, the week-ago weather forecast revealed a fait accompli: roast turkey on Saturday, with derivatives hence like cacciatore with polenta, pot pies, and of course turkey soup. How else does a civilized society endure January in the Northern Hemisphere?

Today’s dinner would not be a Thanksgiving redux, but rather a high mass honoring the gift of time that comes from being snowbound, forcing us to downshift to a more comfortable life speed.

To my 12 year old I gently taught the finer points of kitchen craft, prompting her to announce that she now owns making mashed potatoes Bolognese style. This is but one example in a day that feels like slow-cruising the mountain roads of Trentino near the Austrian border, where food and wine are taken seriously, and both conversations and culture are a tapestry of Italian and German (Austrian, actually), all with a stunning view.

Thus a turkey, slowly roasting under latticed-barding of wood smoked bacon, mashed potatoes infused with steamed garlic and gobs of fresh butter, offset by a comparatively healthy sauté of carrots, zucchini and olives, farmhouse style. We started with fresh mushrooms, breaded and fried. Cabernet Franc, aged in Hungarian oak, and Blaufränkisch, both vintage 2012, completed the meal.

Not bad for a snowy day in West Jersey.

We, like you perhaps, find ourselves chronically short of time, beyond the ever-increasing pace that comes with age. We are constantly moving, and never fast enough.  Yes, my road warrior days are likely behind me (unlike my wife, who returned from Europe just before the weather turned sour). And yes, we live among vine rows, rolling hills and fine Hunterdon folk. But winegrowing has its own rhythm that is harder than it looks. Not rising at 4 AM today would have been enough, but this relaxed day with a fine meal was the real gift.

I hope you found yours, too.

– Peter Leitner

There’s a fresh sense of possibility in the air, exemplified best by the new Hunterdon Wine Trail whose kick-off event is this weekend. All four of the county’s wineries are participating (Unionville, Old York, Beneduce and Mount Salem); other regionally-specific wine trails in New Jersey have recently become active, too. This is all good, for one reason: better wine for you.

For such a small state, New Jersey has three (if not four) distinct growing regions, each capable of producing world-class wine. But that’s where the similarities end: differences in climate, soil and elevation make each region best-suited for certain grape varieties, and wise growers eschew all the rest. Indeed, it doesn’t matter what you want to grow; you plant only what your site allows.

This matters a lot because the ability to ripen grapes consistently every year, survive the occasional brutal winter, and express local characteristics in flavor, aroma and appearance (“terroir”, as the French would say) are essential for distinctive if not great wine. Varietal focus is also necessary for a region to create consumer awareness, given that wine drinkers (and cognoscenti) associate a region with just a few grape varieties, just as the Finger Lakes and Burgundy, for example, equate to Riesling and Chardonnay/Pinot Noir, respectively.

Such focus also results in better wines, because a winemaker benchmarks his wines against his neighbors’, but this applies only if those wines are made from the same varieties and are grown in the same growing conditions in a given year. Anything else is comparing an apple to an orange.

How does the Hunterdon Wine Trail, and this weekend’s inaugural event, fit into all of this?

1. It encourages consumers to view Hunterdon as a distinct place capable of making fine wines, one with varietal focus and recognizable terroir.

2. It encourages consumers, journalists, bloggers and professional wine critics to discover the common threads among the wineries that point toward quality wines.

3. The wine trail will (and this is already occurring) encourage others to establish new vineyards and wineries in the region (our founder and winemaker is fond of saying Pittstown finally has two wineries, but it needs another twenty).

4. Finally, it encourages wineries to collaborate while also making the very best wines they can for an increasingly sophisticated clientele.

We encourage you to travel the new wine trail this weekend, and see for yourself.

I’ve hesitated to proclaim it “spring”, even though it officially began seven weeks ago.

Maybe it’s the deep winter that just wouldn’t end, after several that just wouldn’t start.  Or perhaps it’s the creep of pessimism that dampens middle age if one doesn’t consciously avoid it.  Or, just maybe, this spring is normal.

Our vines began their rise from dormancy about a month ago, and broke buds just this week, after very early starts in recent years.  They popped several weeks early last year and in 2010 they were more than a month ahead.  This spring they’re right on schedule.  Hallelujah.

I, for one, am ready for normal, by which I mean familiar or even predictable.  That’s not to say I eschew excitement or that I’m happiest on a hamster wheel, but I’d like a break from the volatility that’s taken the weather, global economy and dare I say politics to extremes.  Permanent whitewater, as the once popular metaphor goes, gets old after a while.

The familiar offers comfort, be it the face of an old friend or, on this weekend especially, one’s mother.  It can be a sacred place from childhood, hopefully unchanged, or old music that bends time and space, taking one back to a younger and perhaps vastly different life.  We all need those comforts, anywhere and anytime we can find them.

Just this early morning I stood in the cool damp fog and told my daughter – who turns eleven tomorrow – that she was born on a morning just like this one.  And when she looked up at me and smiled as only a daddy’s girl can do, I never imagined I could love a misty morning in May greater than this.

Then a few moments later I found our cellar master sitting in his car, engine off but radio on and volume up.  Way up.  And there in our parking lot still thick with fog stood his colleague, Agnes, yelling over the music in her endearing patois of Polish/English/Bayonne, NJ, “Eh, John, you comin’ to work today or what?”

It was then I could see from his smile that his mind was elsewhere, back around 1979.  I knew the music well, and for a moment my mind wandered somewhere else, too.  Thumbs-up I signaled, “louder”.  And so he did.  Happy Spring.

The Core
Eric Clapton, Marcy Levy
Slowhand

Every morning when I wake, a feeling soon begins to overtake me.
Ringing in my ears resounds through my brain; it finally surrounds me.
There is fire, there is life, there is passion, fever and fury.
There is love and there is hate, there is longing, anger and worry.

Oh, I have a flame; feel it touch my heart.
And down at my core is the hottest part.
I can burn without fuel.

If it should become too cold, I know I can endure the frostbite.
Oh, a blanket then I’ll wrap around me; I keep myself so close to my side.
No one then can cause me harm, just as the river runs into the sea.
‘Cause every day, your fire alarm is deafening the silence all around me.

Oh, I have a flame; feel it touch my heart.
And down at my core is the hottest part.
I can burn without fuel.

It is burning.
It is burning.

You can trust me; we can laugh. Together we can share our sorrow.
I will give you secrets too, an attitude that you may borrow.
Gypsy woman said to me, “One thing you must bear in your mind:
You are young and you are free, but damned if you’re deceased in your own lifetime.”

Oh, you have a flame; feel it in your heart.
And down at the core is the hottest part.
We can burn without fuel.

It is burning.
It is burning.