While it is true the rain is desperately needed & supplying us with oodles of chantrelles, we can’t wait for spring. In anticipation, we sent out a brief questionnaire asking our farmers about their plans for the upcoming season. We’ll post what they report when we hear back from them. Here’s what we asked:
1.What are you planting?
2.What are you excited about that is new this year?
There are few winemakers who are as well respected as Giovanni Manetti from Fontodi in Panzano, the heart of the Chianti Classico region. He is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of wine as well as for his warmth and charm. While we’ve tended to present more traditionally made wines (Fontodi is considered somewhat modern in style), Fontodi wines are exceptionally well made, from one of Chianti’s oldest and finest wine valleys.
We’ll arrange tables so that we’ll be able to chat, dine and taste with Giovanni Manetti. The standard of “modern wine style” has evolved in recent years, and we’ll have a chance to hear about how he sees this changing profile.
We will be tasting the following Fontodi wines:
2005 Chianti Classico DOCG
2003 Syrah
1998 Flaccianello della Pieve
1999 Vigna del Sorbo
Chef Canales will offer a special prix fixe menu:
Bitter greens and Tuscan-style pigeon liver crostino
_______
Polenta with rabbit ragù
_______
Charcoal-grilled wild fennel, olive, and pork belly sausage braised with chestnut honey
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Vin santo and biscotti for dessert
$120
prix fixe, with wine flight
For reservations please call 510-547-5356 or reserve online
Terra Sonoma is a distributor selling Sonoma County grown produce to restaurants and markets in the Bay Area. The business began in the early 1980s. Stover and Sadoti have run it since 1994.
Seasons
March through January.
Challenges
Getting all the produce gathered and shipped to many different locations in a timely manner.
Principles
Terra Sonoma is in business to help connect customers with farms that are too small to distribute on their own. They are all within a half-hour distance and reflect Sonoma County’s many famous micro-climates.
Practices
All produce is harvested to order and delivered the next day. Nothing is warehoused. They strive to be a good example of local, sustainable, and seasonal distribution.
Length of relationship with Oliveto
15 years
Location
Sebastopol, CA
Crops
Many different products from 15 small, local farms including their own.
The farm started 20 years ago growing intensely planted specialty vegetable crops on three acres. They switched to fruit trees (350) in 2002 to try a different agricultural path. Susan says, “it’s nice to work with the Oliveto staff because they are appreciative of what we do.”
Seasons
March – September
Principles
Putting to use the cleared acres where they live full time. It is a good area for growing fruit and deserves to be utilized.
Challenges
Water in West Sonoma County can be scarce. There is also a strong ocean influence, and the fog it produces limits the varieties that are able to grow in the area.
Technology
Some high weed mowing, discing
Length of relationship with Oliveto
20 years
Location
9 acres in Sebastopol, CA
Crops
Fruit trees: plums, pears, pluots, prunes
Secondary crops: herbs, mixed perennials
Distribution
Sell through Terra Sonoma, the distribution company they run which helps small Sonoma County farmers connect with customers (see profile).
Future Plans
To continue nurturing the fruit trees and perhaps plant some more.
We’ve been friends with Malcolm for a while now. He started bringing us locally foraged chanterelles ten years ago while he was in law school. He’s graduated from law school & become a lawyer…but he still brings us sensational chanterelles!
When Malcolm shows up, we usually buy everything he’s got. He’s developed & patented a device that cleans & extracts excess water from chanterelles so not only are they exceptionally fresh, they are clean & vibrant.
After the recent heavy rains ended, Malcolm managed to net 20 pounds of chanterelles from a nearby, undisclosed location (we suspect somewhere in the Mt. Diablo area). We bought all 20 pounds.
Chef Canales plans to have them on the menu starting tonight in an antipasti plate of chanterelle conserva, whatever fresh vegetable is the most complementary, and smoked mozzarella di bufala. He’s also planning a pasta dish, perhaps a chanterelle cannelloni.
Given all the recent rain, Malcolm said he thinks we could be in for a “chanterelle bonanza”. We’re crossing our fingers.
After spending time in the UC Santa Cruz Agroecology program, apprenticing at Fairview Gardens in Santa Barbara, and on a kibbutz in Israel, David Retsky found his own plot to tend in Marin County. The original farm property sat on the line between Marin & Sonoma Counties after which the farm is named. County Line Harvest has been growing vegetables since 2000.
Chef Canales says that County Line produces “some of the most sincere chicories”.
Tuesday – SF Ferry Building
Wednesday – Peteluma
Thursday – Civic Center/San Rafael
Saturday – Grand Lake/Oakland, Berkeley/Downtown, Petaluma
Sunday – Civic Center/San Rafael
Lillian Dickson
Lillian inherited the ranch from her mother. The land had once belonged to Lillian’s grandfather, Manuel Candido Almado. He had purchased the property in the 1940s after his own dairy ranch had to be sold for the building of the Napa County Airport.
Practices
All of the olive trees are Ligurian. A friend recommended they grow the Taggiasca olive because of its superior oil and because few other olive ranches in California were growing the variety. Taggiasca produces oil containing an unusually low acidity. All olives are harvested by hand and delivered to a local mill within hours of picking.
Length of Relationship with Oliveto
4 years
Main Products
Regina Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Taggiasca (90%), Maurino (5%), and Pendolino (5%) olives. Secondary crops: Cabernet and Merlot grapes
Organizations/Certification
California Olive Oil Council
Awards
In 2009, Regina Extra Virgin Olive Oil won the prestigious ALMA Trophy in the third International Olive Oil Competition, “ARMONIA” held in Spoleto, Italy. Olive oil growers and producers from olive growing regions around the world competed in this contest to determine which extra virgin oils offer the highest quality. Two trophies were awarded for each of three categories of fruitiness: light, medium, and intense. Regina Extra Virgin Olive Oil placed second in the medium category of the final rankings – the first time a California company has won this award.
Distribution
Numerous Bay Area restaurants. Retail: Napa General Store, Corti Bros., and Oakville Grocery
We’ve just learned that this Tuesday evening, February 17th, Giovanni Pasquero-Elia of Sori Paitin in Barbaresco will be coming to Oliveto. We’re big fans of his wines (and have been able to acquire a good number of bottles of his great 1990 vintage), so we thought we’d let you know of the visit. Giovanni, with his father and his brother, runs the estate that their ancestor, Benedetto Elia, purchased in the 18th century. The Barbaresco estate, situated entirely in Serraboella south and east of Neive, has been selling wine labeled Barbaresco since 1893.
We’ll be tasting a range of Sori Paitin wines and offering them all by the glass, half glass, and in flights, including a 1990 Barbaresco, 2004 Barbaresco, 2007 Arneis, 2007 Barbera, and 2007 Dolcetto.
Giovanni will be making the rounds through the dining room to share his wines and to talk and taste with interested diners. (With such short notice we were unable to organize a lecture/dinner-at-the-table-of-the-winemaker event.) We’re looking forward to experiencing some excellent wines and engaging in some enlightening conversations. Please join us.
After learning this past week of the sale of Niman Ranch, I called Paul Willis our Iowa hog farmer and co-founder of Niman Ranch Pork Company, to make sure he was OK. We were just beginning a week of Whole Hog dinners. The Niman Ranch name and the network of several hundred hog farmers who share animal treatment, feed and handling standards remain, but the company has not made it through this economy. Read Pork Magazine story here.
Back in 2001 Maggie and I visited Paul and his family, here’s a film from that visit:
We’ve been very close to Paul Willis, Bill Niman and former CEO Mike McConnell, almost from the beginning of the hog company, and we’ve seen how extraordinarily difficult it has been for them. The meat business is truly nasty. In the early days of this restaurant, periodically there would be someone who’d come by with some great meat—a new source. They’d get our order, deliver some wonderful meat, but be out of business by the following week. Niman Ranch had been the only meat supplier to last, and develop into something true and substantial. They have been so important to us, and I would think to many quality restaurants and consumers, and to hundreds of old-style hog farmers who’ve been kept alive by Niman Ranch.
It turns out, Paul’s fine. I hadn’t realize this, but he’s the co-founder of Food Democracy Now, a group that has become successful advocates of a more sensible agriculture policy to our new administration. http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/ .
And, Paul promises to continue sending us a whole hog every week.
We got word a few months ago that Riverdog Farm has started raising pigs. Well now it turns out those pigs have their own blog that you can visit here.
Not to be out done, the chickens at Riverdog have also been getting their cyber-savvy on; you can check in with them at the coop scoop.
Chef Canales with Malcolm’s chanterelles
After the recent heavy rains ended, Malcolm managed to net 20 pounds of chanterelles from a nearby, undisclosed location (we suspect somewhere in the Mt. Diablo area). We bought all 20 pounds.
