As the leaves begin to turn, fall, and crunch beneath my feet, I find that there is nothing as reminiscent of growing up in Virginia as getting up early on a Saturday morning and taking a daytrip to the Blue Ridge. Gaze out at the expansive views, take a hike through the woods, and spend some quality family time together over a delicious picnic lunch. Flavor’s daytrip for the fall begins en route to Front Royal, the gateway to Skyline Drive.

Just outside of Front Royal, stop in at Hartland Orchard for jug of freshly pressed cider and a few delicious Stayman apples. From there, head to downtown Front Royal, where you may want to browse the shelves of a Front Royal mainstay, Stokes General Store. This World War II army surplus store oozes history and nostalgia through its worn wooden floorboards and welcoming staff. If you need it, they’ve got it. Should you forget your picnic blanket or boots for the hike, this is the place to go!

From there, Washington National Forest, and its premiere picnic spot, Passage Creek, will be calling your name. Secluded, filled with wonder and discovery, and above all the most peaceful, relaxing spot this side of the District, you could not pick a better spot for a weekend picnic (and a chilly swim, should you be so brave!). If outdoor hiking is more your cup of tea, a jaunt up the beautiful Compton Peak Trail should definitely be on your itinerary. This moderate 2.5-mile hike climbs 835 feet following the Appalachian Trail. While rocky in certain spots, it affords expansive and spectacular views of Virginia’s colorful fall landscape from the rock ledge at the top.

After a refreshing venture into the wilderness, Glen Manor Vineyards will serve as a welcome return to civilization’s bounty. Nestled in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Glen Manor is a state-certified Century Farm which has, in the past decade, transitioned from traditional wheat and corn production to growing grapes and making wine. Enjoy a glass of their robust, earthy Cabernet Franc from their tasting room’s patio, which overlooks Glen Manor’s breathtaking vineyard and farmland.

If your stomach is starting to grumble for dinner at this point, Front Royal is home to a couple of gastronomic gems we would recommend (in the same building no less). Both Element and Apartment 2g offer great local cuisine, much of which comes from the restaurants’ own garden. Element offers casual dining in the downstairs bistro, while just upstairs Apartment 2g offers you a table in the chef’s own apartment. Here, you’ll have the opportunity to either join the chef in the kitchen or watch preparation of your meal via closed-circuit cameras throughout the restaurant. Just be sure to reserve your space at Apartment 2g early (reservations are required for their five-course Saturday dinner menu).

Photo © Molly McDonald Peterson

On the other hand, if you spent too much time at Glen Manor enjoying wine and feel the need to drive home before dinner, we implore you to stop by one of the town’s fantastic butcher shops on the way out to pick up something for dinner. Blue Ridge Meats processes beef, lamb, pork and goat directly from local farms, dry ages beef in their own special dry-aging room, makes delicious varieties of sausage in house, and smoke their own bacon and hams. Check out the list of farmers they work with. You just have to give them a try!

We at Flavor hope that you will consider eating local and supporting independent businesses when when you’re traveling to see fall color this year with some of the tips and recommendations mapped out in this article. Enjoy your trip!
____________________________________________________________________________

Hartland Orchard (open daily 8am-6pm)
apples, pumpkins, cider, honey
3064 Hartland Lane, Markham, VA
(540) 364-2316  www.hartlandorchard.com

Stokes General Store (open Mon-Sat, 8:30am-6pm)
a little bit of everything for everyone
533 E Main St, Front Royal, VA
(540) 635-4437

Passage Creek Picnic Spot Fort Valley Road, Fort Valley VA)
GPS location: 38.9306N, 78.3244W

Compton Peak Trail
The trail is located off Skyline Drive at mile marker 10.4. Parking available.

Glen Manor Vineyards (open Wed-Sat, 11am-5pm and Sundays 12pm-5pm)
100+-year-old family farm turned vineyard producing wine favorites such as Sauvignon Blanc and Hodder Hill Meritage
2244 Browntown Road – Front Royal, Virginia
(540) 635-6324  www.glenmanorvineyards.com

Element (open Tues-Sat 11am-3pm and 5pm-close)
Apartment 2g (tapas Thursdays 6:30-close, 5-course prixe fixe Saturdays 6:30-close)
two restaurants under the same roof  (reservations for Apartment 2g required)
206 South Royal Avenue, Front Royal, VA
(540) 636-9293 www.jsgourmet.com

Blue Ridge Meats (open Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sunday 9am-3pm)
local beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and goat; housemade sausages, bacon and hams
2391 Guard Hill Road, Middletown, VA
(540) 636-6050  www.blueridgemeats.com

With heritage apples from the family orchard and small-batch production, Albemarle CiderWorks is putting the sigh back in cider.

By Jennifer Conrad Seidel • Photographs by Laura Merricks

Virginia’s wine industry gets a lot of attention. But winemaking, a centuries-old tradition, has only taken root here in the last few decades. Cidermaking, however, was ubiquitous in this region until about a century ago, when people began leaving their rural homes for the cities and orchards were left untended.

In the colonies (and later, the states), most families had at least a clutch of apple trees if not a respectable orchard. Cider had multiple household uses because fermenting preserved vital nutrients and retarded bacterial spoilage; cider vinegar was used in pickling and as an antiseptic. That apple seeds were essential to homesteading is evident in the stories of Johnny Appleseed—who took seeds from cider mills.

Photo by Laura Merricks

Might artisanal cider stage a comeback, recognized by slow food advocates as a drink distinctive to this region? The family behind Albemarle CiderWorks is convinced that it shall.

Inheriting the Windfall

When Bud Shelton retired from Virginia’s Department of Forestry and moved to a piece of land just south of Charlottesville, one of the first things he did was plant an orchard. He did not anticipate then that the fruit of this orchard would include a string of family businesses: a nursery that includes some 200 rare, heritage apple varieties; a farm, Rural Ridge Orchard, that sells heritage apples to nearby consumers; and most recently, a successful cidery.

Bud’s son, Chuck, an environmental scientist, became the family cidermaker long before they conceived of a commercial cidery. “He has been making cider at home for years,” says his sister, Charlotte. “I’d buy interesting [cider apple] trees for him now and then. I called it ‘putting in infrastructure for the future,’ thinking then that this would be a great retirement project. But the future has galloped down on us before we were ready for it!”

Once the idea of a commercial cidery took hold among Charlotte, Chuck, and their brother Bill, things happened quickly. “I knew I could make cider ferment,” laughs Chuck, “but I also knew from stories I’d heard that you could get some awful-tasting cider if you weren’t careful.”

They attended some seminars and considered hiring a consultant. “Chuck had done cider on his own but not on this scale,” says Charlotte, “and we didn’t want any mistakes out of the block.” Chuck studied with British cidermaker Peter Mitchell and later decided to hire Charlottesville winemaker Michael Shaps, whom he’d heard speak at a Wineries Unlimited trade show in Richmond, as a consultant.

A Thirsty Customer Base

In the first year, 2009, the Sheltons produced 860 cases of their three ciders: Jupiter’s Legacy, which takes its name from Thomas Jefferson’s cidermaker, is made primarily from traditional cider apples and can be served, as you might expect, with traditional American foods. Ragged Mountain blends regional favorites—Albemarle Pippin, Winesap, Black Twig, Grimes Golden, and Stayman apples—into a semi-dry cider suggested as a complement to spicy foods and sharp cheeses. Royal Pippin is a dry, champagne-like varietal made entirely from Albemarle Pippins that stands well on its own.

Apparently consumers were eager for a locally made hard cider. “Jupiter’s Legacy was sold out by Thanksgiving. Royal Pippin sold out just before Christmas,” said Charlotte. “Then we only had the one, so I stopped charging the tasting room fee.”

Pressing for the 2010 ciders began last fall, with the addition of a second varietal, Old Virginia Winesap. Production for 2010 has more than doubled to 2,000 cases.

Not Beer, Not Wine

The Sheltons’ success is notable, especially considering how different their craft ciders are from commercial ciders found on supermarket shelves, which are made from concentrate and are very sweet. “I resisted making ours sweeter,” Chuck says.

Helping customers find a reference point for cider vis à vis wine and beer is part of the Sheltons’ mission. Charlotte paraphrases cidermaker Terry Maloney, who is often credited with artisanal cider’s newfound popularity: “To the uninitiated, quite often cider tastes thinner because people are comparing it with wine, which has a higher alcohol content and higher sugar and often more tannins. Compared to water, though, it’s quite heavy. That was the frame of reference. People drank cider as an alternative to water.”

Because once-commonplace cider is now rare, the Sheltons educate tasting room visitors, chefs and restaurant staff, and retailers about the history of cider and how to pair it with food. Charlottesville-area retailers including Feast, Market Street Wineshops, Greenwood Gourmet, and Beer Run are selling the ciders; restaurants such as L’etoile, Horse and Hound, and Hamiltons’ have added to it their menus. Other restaurants have asked about getting cider on tap, a request the Sheltons hope to accommodate in the future.

Happy Accidents

Even as they look to the past for inspiration, the Sheltons are planning for steady growth. The next Albemarle CiderWorks varietal may well be Hewe’s Crab (also known as Virginia Crab), and some of that fruit may come from the orchard at Jefferson’s Monticello. “We picked a bunch of Hewe’s Crab there this year, which was a windfall for us, because that’s probably the largest planting of Hewe’s Crab in the world,” says Chuck.

Just as their father did not plant his trees with plans for a stable of family businesses, the Sheltons did not develop their orchard with cidermaking in mind. But now they are planting trees for cider and for their farm market, knowing that what doesn’t sell at market can still be used for cider.

Customers are not just buying cider, though. Many are also buying trees at the nursery with plans to start their own cider orchards—just as Johnny Appleseed and Thomas Jefferson would have expected them to do.   

Albemarle CiderWorks
2545 Rural Ridge Lane, North Garden, VA
(434) 297-2326
www.albemarleciderworks.com

Jennifer Conrad Seidel is the editor of Flavor and had Albemarle CiderWorks ciders delivered to a restaurant for her birthday party last January during a fortunate break in Snowpocalypse.

Daniel Neumeister (right) with Dean Gruenberg at the Monticello Wine Cup on June 14, 2010. (Photo by Molly McDonald Peterson for Flavor Magazine)

Sugarleaf Vineyard’s winemaker reflects on the challenges and thrills of making wine in Virginia.

By Daniel Neumeister
With Mary Ann Dancisin and Vanessa Leech

Winemaker Daniel Neumeister practices his craft at two Albemarle County vineyards: Sugarleaf Vineyards, which produces about 1,500 cases annually, and White Hall Vineyards (where he is an assistant winemaker), which produces about 10,000 cases each year. He has also worked at Nelson County’s Afton Mountain Vineyards and spent a brief harvest at King Family Vineyards in Crozet, which introduced him into the Virginia wine community. Flavor persuaded him to share his thoughts on winemaking in the commonwealth.

Virginia vineyards are distinctive in their diversity, and the key to growing here successfully is understanding microclimates. The weather in the Monticello area is very different than what you find in Northern Virginia’s wine region. You have red clay versus no red clay, more mild conditions versus cooler windy conditions. The Monticello region has an advantage because of its position at the base of the mountains, so the airflow comes down and cools and dries the vines. It’s amazing, the different numbers that a variety of grape will pull in around the state: pH, acidity level, and amount of sugar can vary widely depending on where it was grown.

What I like most about working in the commonwealth is the camaraderie among winemakers. They get together to make wine—to make fine wine. Winemakers genuinely want to hear honest feedback in order to make adjustments and produce a better-quality product. To that end, we have several roundtables at different times and at different wineries where we sample the vintages and taste what’s changing in our wines. Our goal is to figure out what we can do with the wine in the cellar, before it hits the bottle, to make it better. You can’t make wine with the same techniques year to year. You have to determine how to cater to the vintage in order to improve your wine.

It is also incredible how much education—how to grow wine, not just grapes—is available in Virginia. The services offered through Virginia Tech have introduced technology and innovation to winemaking here and have greatly helped the industry expand in the last five years. Thanks to professors Bruce Zoecklein and Tony Wolf, the knowledge we need to produce world-class wines is much more accessible. In particular, Tech’s Extension lab in Winchester is an invaluable resource. Although you can base a lot of your winemaking on your own taste and your own blending skills, it is wonderful that everyone has access to a lab where you can confirm your impressions and take corrective measures.

The biggest challenges facing winemakers in Virginia are humidity and moisture. If the vineyard is too wet, the plants can develop mildew, and many diseases can arise from the heavy rains and moisture. It’s a constant battle to keep the amount of moisture in check. We are adapting different systems, such as using the vertical shoot-positioned method [in which growing shoots are trained vertically with adjustable wires, facilitating closer row planting, more sun exposure, and uniform ripening] as well as positioning the vines so they are dried by the sun. Viognier, Petit Verdot, and Petit Manseng all keep their acidity very well in the humidity and moisture.

For the sake of having cheese with our wine, Flavor asked Neumeister the question, “ I f you were a varietal or a wine, what would you be?” His response was, “Well, that ’s easy. I have German heritage, so I have to go with Gewürztraminer. Maybe one day I’ll even have a wine named Neumeistraminer.”

The growing season here is always challenging, too. We get some nice whites, but it’s hard to ripen the reds. Both 2006 and 2007 have been fantastic vintages, though, unlike 2003 and 2004, which were rainy, with excessive heat and humidity. A lot of people pick early in order to avoid mold and mildew. Unfortunately, this makes for some herbal, thin wines.

Because of the moisture, we are fanatical about leaf canopy management. We try to make sure the most sunlight possible hits the fruit. We thin the leaves on our thousands of vines at least twice per growing season: the first time is early in the cycle, and then we do so again at veraison, when the grapes go from hard green berries to their full white or red hue. You need to see light through the canopy. This will help you avoid the mold and mildew endemic to this climate.

We also practice a procedure called cluster-dropping. In effect, we sacrifice a percentage of the crop in order to boost the quality of the remaining fruit. Vines in Virginia are vigorous—they get vegetative and leafy—which actually inhibits fruit growth. When you’ve got too much leaf on the vine, you get that flavor in the finished wine. You get too much green bell pepper and the vegetative, herbal notes. But you can avoid that with good vineyard practices. The winemaker has to be in the vineyard all the time.

If I were to mentor a winemaker, I would say, “Get your shadow out in the vineyard. Walk your rows. Feel the soil. Really know your vines. Quality comes from the vineyard. What you can do in the cellar is secondary. What sets one wine apart from another is the marriage of viticulture and enology, vineyard and winery.”

Personally, I am very interested in issues of sustainability. One of the best books I’ve read on this topic is Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, which explores the relationship between industry and environment. Jim Law of Linden Vineyards in Warren County is a real innovator of the sustainable vineyard.

Vineyards find it difficult to go organic in Virginia because of the moisture and the pests that come along with it. But we are looking at recent technological advancements and hoping to move toward using alternative energies. For instance, at Sugarleaf we built a gravity-flow system to move juice to barrels and tanks gently and without electricity. Other innovations include cover cropping. By planting crimson clover and mustard among the vines to help break up the soil, we avoid excessive tilling, mowing, and herbicide spraying. We want to take care of our soil, and I believe that Virginia truly has a lot of leaders at the helm who will help to steer us all toward sustainability.

In the future, I believe Virginia wines will compete with offerings from New York—the Finger Lakes region for instance— especially the white wines. We are becoming players in the world market as well. The Virginia Wine Experience in London in 2007 put us on the world stage. And with the great profusion of new vineyards and new wineries here, we are going to have to compete on the global level.

With all the excellent information that is now available, and with the help of consultants like Gabrielle Rausse, Chris Hill, and others, there is no reason to think that the quality of wine in Virginia will not continue to improve. It’s not like 20 years ago, when people just bought land and planted whatever varietals appealed to them. Winemakers statewide know which varietals will excel in our micro climates, and most importantly, we have the desire to produce a high-quality product.

With the support of the local community, Bethesda Green is working to promote green businesses, jobs, programs, and lifestyles.

By Wendy W. Simmons • Photos by Molly McDonald Peterson •

The suburbs of a major American city may seem like an unlikely place for a significant green initiative to take root, but that is exactly what has happened over the past five years through the work of Bethesda Green, a nonprofit organization that promotes sustainable living in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Bethesda Green was conceived, in part, by Dave Feldman, who currently sits on the board of the organization as a founding director. The organization has a wide range of focus areas, including food, energy, transportation, recycling, education, and business. It provides a framework for volunteers to participate in the flourishing of green initiatives, resources to educate residents and businesses about green options, and a business incubator for entrepreneurs who strive to build companies that promote healthy living.

Photo of Dave Feldman by Molly McDonald Peterson for Flavor Magazine

Dave Feldman’s career took him to Britain, where he led the economic development team at the U.S. embassy. His job was to assist American companies setting up shop in Britain and British companies exporting to the U.S. While working abroad, he was able to observe firsthand how smart, green design was unfolding across much of England, Scotland, and Wales.

Feldman brought this experience back home to the Bethesda area and co-founded The Livability Project, a small consulting firm that helps communities become more environmentally friendly and sustainable. One of its first major projects was to make the Bethesda area an exemplary green locale. From there, Feldman partnered with George Leventhal, a local city councilman, and Seth Goldman, the CEO of Honest Tea and a Bethesda native, to launch Bethesda Green. A $25,000 grant was provided by the city to get the initiative off the ground.

Bethesda Green works with all community stakeholders, including local governments, residents, and business owners. The wide variety of people participating in its initiatives has allowed the organization to accomplish an array of goals, including installing recycling bins in downtown Bethesda (no small feat at $400 per bin), organizing local farm tours, matching young workers with green internships, and teaching citizens how to shrink their energy bills.

Healthy Vending

One focus of Bethesda Green is promoting green business and helping to create green jobs. It currently supports 11 “incubator” companies, all of which share a vision of building healthier communities through their products and services. One of these businesses is B Kind Vending, a company started by entrepreneur Jason Schwartz, a local father of two.

It is no secret that snacking has become a national pastime for America’s youth, and families everywhere seem addicted to convenience foods, often found in vending machines. B Kind promotes healthy living by replacing traditional vending machines—which usually hold mainly candy and highly processed baked goods (visualize cellophane-wrapped, cream-filled, frosted cupcakes)—with machines that dispense more nutritious snack options. B Kind has the following strict criteria for the snacks it offers: they cannot have artificial flavors or colors, preservatives, or high fructose corn syrup. It also chooses products from companies with socially responsible business practices. Ideally, kids will have better vending options (such as Honest Tea or Pirate’s Booty) if the local schools or community centers partner with Bkkind Vending.

The Green Team

Schwartz says the best part of being among Bethesda Green’s team of companies is not so much the tangible resources—such as shared office space, copiers, and the like—but rather the ability to “toil with other companies, sharing ideas, skill sets, and a common vision for the social good.”

Barry Chenkin, the founder of Aquabarrel, a company that makes rain barrels and is also in the Bethesda Green incubator group, agrees wholeheartedly with Schwartz’s sentiments. The incubator provides tangibles such office equipment and even a mailing address, but the relationships among likeminded business owners may be even more valuable than the free wi-fi.

“We have a common theme that binds us,” explains Chenkin. “We are all in this for the greater good—to help the world be a better place starting with ourselves and the ideas we would like to bring to market. We offer each other support, contacts, pep talks. We act as sounding boards for each other. Our meetings can be lively, intense, and enlightening because we are not afraid to share our thoughts or bare our feelings with each other.”

It is the hope of Feldman and his colleagues that Bethesda Green can leverage its resources and those of the community to create successful businesses focused on sustainable living.

In her previous life, Wendy W. Simmons was a staff writer for the Gallup Poll News Service and an associate editor of the Gallup Management Journal. In her current life, she manages a Bethesda household overrun by small children.

Worms are the way to make compost relatively quickly. You can even compost indoors!

By Katie McCaskey

Compost is considered “black gold,” and any gardener will attest that happy soil makes for happy, healthy, beautiful plants.

The ultimate “black gold” compost is made with the help with humble, wriggly worms. The vermicomposting process starts in your kitchen and comes back full-circle to your kitchen when you enjoy the bounty of your vegetable garden.

Composting with worms brings many benefits. First, you’ll reduce landfill waste by redirecting food scraps. Second, you’ll enhance your soil’s fertility, which may have suffered from years of pesticides and mismanagement. Third, with your thriving garden, you’ll enjoy more flavorful, homegrown food, too.

Photo courtesy of Stephen Ticehurst

Easy Steps

Here are the steps to start creating this “black gold” right in your kitchen. Don’t worry: it won’t smell, and the worms won’t make a great escape! You can certainly keep your worm bin in another part of the house, especially if you anticipate needing a large bin, but the kitchen is convenient.

(1) Select a Bin and Location

You can purchase a pre-made worm bin, or you can make your own using a plastic storage bin with a lid that fits under your kitchen sink. Worms like cool, dark environments, which makes an under-sink location ideal. Other places could be a basement or a closet, but never near a heat source.

(2) Collect Newspaper

To start the worm bin, you’ll need several inches of black and white newsprint. (Avoid paper with color inks or adhesives.) Rip the paper into shreds approximately 2 to 3 inches wide and enough to fill two-thirds of your container. Once wet, the newspaper is a simple starter for worms to break down. You can also use leaves and paper towels.

(3) Drill Holes
Your worms need air to breathe. Air circulation also ensures that your worm bin smells like fresh soil instead of garbage. Drill or puncture several holes near the top of the container and on the lid. The worms will not crawl out.

(4) Order Worms
You can order worms online from a variety of sources. (A local source is Worm Crusader in Barboursville: (434) 466-9638, www.wormcrusader.com.) Any worm species will work, but red wigglers (a.k.a. red worms or Eisenia fetida) are the best for processing large amounts of organic matter quickly.

(5) Prepare the Bin

Once the worms arrive, you’ll need to wet the newspaper in your bin before you put the worms inside. The paper should be damp, so wet it down in the sink, wring it out, and transfer it to the bin; or wet the paper with a spray bottle. Don’t allow standing water inside the bin.

(6) Add the Worms

Now that the bedding is ready, introduce the worms to your bin. Place them inside the bin and leave the lid off. Leave a light on over the bin for 48 hours to encourage the worms to dig down deeper into the box bedding. Once they’re all tucked inside, close the lid.

(7) Feed and Care for Your Worms

Wait a week and let your little friends get accustomed to their new space before feeding them. Start by adding some leaves and food scraps. Most food scraps will do with just a few exceptions: no meat, dairy, oils, or fats. The worms won’t eat these foods, and they will stink up your kitchen.

Megan Heatwole, coordinator of Camp Staunton, a parks and recreation program in Staunton, Virginia, runs a program teaching children ages 5 to 12 how to do vermicomposting.

“Worms are strictly vegetarian. They don’t like acidic vegetables, such as citrus and tomatoes, but beyond that they eat quite a lot. We even fed them pizza crusts,” she said. “However, we learned that there weren’t enough worms to eat the crusts before it became moldy. We had to take that out. So I’d recommend starting with small amounts of food and building up to see how fast the worms eat the scraps.”

Heatwole pointed out a reason worm composting can be fun for families. “The kids absolutely love learning about worms—especially the younger children, who aren’t conditioned to think they are ‘dirty.’”

Simply add more food scraps when the worms finish the first batch. It is not necessary to add extra moisture after you make the initial bedding, since there will be moisture in the food scraps you feed the worms.

(8) Harvest Your Compost

The New York Times reports that worms can eat about half of their body weight in food every day. This means you’ll have dark, rich compost in just a few weeks or months. Here’s how to harvest the “black gold” when you’re ready to add it to your garden bed.

Don’t feed your worms for about two weeks. Then fill a mesh bag (such as onion or apples bags from the grocery) with food scraps. Bury this bag inside the bin. After a few days, all your hungry worms will move into the bag. Remove the bag, move the bin’s contents to another container, and refill the bin with fresh paper and materials as before. Move your worms back into the freshly lined bin and transfer the compost into the garden.

Enjoying Your Pot of Black Gold

Many gardeners swear that composting with worms is the most natural and effective compost method. Your healthy vegetable garden will thank you—as will your family and friends as you share your tasty, healthful vegetables.

“For a while, I was keeping last year’s worm farm in my living room,” adds Heatwole. “The worms did better in the basement where it was cool. I’ve started to cherish them like little pets.”

Katie McCaskey is co-owner of George Bowers Grocery, an independently owned specialty grocery featuring local foods in Staunton, Virginia (www.georgebowersgrocery.com).

Photo of worms courtesy of Hon Walker.

By Jennifer Conrad Seidel • Photos by Molly McDonald Peterson

© Molly McDonald Peterson

The magazine in your hands is part of a national movement seeking to establish regional food systems that are sustainable environmentally as well as economically, where new ways of making food flourish alongside new ways of making money. In short, this movement wants to create a vibrant alternative to the industrial food system.

For this movement to grow, it needs local-food advocates and financial advisors to devise alternatives to the typical financing structures that promote quick growth and a fast buck.

Rumors of Change

As editor of Flavor, I’ve talked with those who have owned foodrelated businesses for decades and others who have great ideas for businesses they’re trying to launch. One of their common frustrations is that most options for raising capital, such as smallbusiness loans and venture capital, aren’t the right fit for local food systems, whose goals are often modest and very long-term. They have to be very creative in raising capital, or they have to go without.

For example, the nonprofit Local Food Hub near Charlottesville, Virginia, initially sought some capital from Albemarle County’s economic development fund, since the local economy stood to gain from increased agricultural production and sales. Its request was rejected: County supervisors felt the hub was really a high-risk venture capital project. At the eleventh hour the hub found other financing—a combination of government funds (from the Nelson County Economic Development Authority), grants (from the Blue Moon Fund and the Bama Works Fund), and private donations from individuals including author John Grisham and Dave Matthews Band manager Coran Capshaw.

This quandary is increasingly common as the demand for local food grows and entrepreneurs try to meet it. We at Flavor have faced this issue ourselves, since we are a for-profit publication with a social mission and are unwilling to compromise our principles to maximize earnings. So when we heard about a new organization conceived specifically to address the financing needs of the local food movement, I picked up the phone and called the man leading the charge, Woody Tasch.

Slowing Down

Taking a cue from the international Slow Food movement, which seeks to reclaim the simple pleasures of cooking and eating that are being lost in our fast-food culture, Tasch coined the term Slow Money. In 2009, he published a book entitled Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing As If Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered.

Tasch is as experienced with financing sustainable agriculture as one can be in this relatively young movement. For more than 30 years, he has been involved with organizations and companies that manage capital for socially oriented projects and businesses. Until recently, he was CEO of Investors’ Circle, which has facilitated the investment of $130 million of so-called patient capital in over 200 “entrepreneurial companies that enhance bioregional, cultural and economic health and diversity” since 1992.

He has also worked for, chaired, and consulted with dozens of companies, organizations, and NGOs. Notably, he was treasurer of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, which made a substantial investment in Stonyfield Farm, now the largest producer of organic yogurt. In 2008, he founded the Slow Money Alliance, a 501(c)(3) of which he is chairman and president.

Facilitating a National Discussion

Unlike his other ventures, the Slow Money Alliance is not raisingcapital or distributing grants. Instead, it is facilitating a national discussion that Tasch hopes will lead to the creation of new investment models. The alliance is an advocate, a catalyst.

“It’s about creating social capital,” explained Tasch. “It’s about making investors and individuals aware that it’s important for them to put some of their money to work in local food systems.”

The alliance’s goal is to see a million investors investing 1 percent of their assets in local food systems in the next decade.

Slow Money groups are springing up across the country. The alliance is still in its early stages, so these are brainstorming sessions. Localities are looking to address their own needs, not solve national problems. Yet it is clear that the same issues are being faced nationwide: Everybody needs local processing and distribution. Everyone is struggling with land preservation. Restaurants looking to buy ingredients locally are opening everywhere.

“That’s why having some national infrastructure in place can be catalytic,” said Tasch.

A Food-First Profit Model

The alliance sees itself as part of a grassroots movement in which the needs of the food system determine the investment structures being proposed, not the other way around.

“We’re starting where the energy is, rather than where the big money is. People who are ready to do this already recognize the importance of it. They are willing to spend some time and energy on the invention process.” Once the investment models are in place, Tasch expects that the money will be there, saying, “There’s a lot of pent-up demand.”

Tasch distinguishes two ways of investing. On the one hand, we can allow financial practices to determine our agricultural practices. This is the profit-first model, which usually promotes unsustainable farming practices that depend on fossil fuels and agribusiness technology to squeeze more yield and more money out of the land. On the other hand, we can allow our agricultural principles to influence our financial practices. Call this the food-first model, which puts money toward a sustainable growth that acknowledges limits and seeks to benefit not just a few distant investors but the many people working and living in a local foodshed. At present, almost all of our investments in agriculture follow the former model, not the latter. So far, local food innovation has outpaced local finance innovation.

Building New Models

Traditional financing instruments are not always applicable to developing food systems. As Tasch explained, it is difficult to invest in small food enterprises: “They’re for-profit, so they’re not good candidates for philanthropy, and they’re way too small for venture capital or traditional small-business thinking. You have to approach it with an integrated mindset that recognizes these are for-profit businesses and that also understands the centrality of local food systems and small food enterprises in preserving soil fertility and creating healthy food.”

Tasch stressed the importance of the local food network as much as the individual businesses in that network. But the prevailing financial models—for stand-alone small businesses, for nonprofit organizations, for promising high-yield companies—offer no clear way to invest in such a network or to even recognize it as something worth investing in.

One structure proposed has been dubbed “slow munis”— municipal bonds that deploy funds to a portfolio of small food enterprises in a local food system. Bonds would be available starting at small denominations, perhaps $1,000, and bondholders would be able to see their money at work in their communities, much like bonds sold to build schools. The slow muni model still needs to be designed and tested in a municipality: Funds will have to be raised and invested, and it isn’t clear yet how long it would take to determine whether the experiment had succeeded in one place and could be reproduced elsewhere.

Another approach looks to create a national pool of capital to supplement what is raised on a local level. According to Tasch, this modest fund, which may start at $5 to $10 million, would be capitalized by a limited number of very large investors—either foundations or very high net worth individuals. It would be used to co-invest with members of the Slow Money Alliance who want to buy farms in their region, thus preserving farmland and getting the next generation of sustainable farmers started. “Right now I would say we’re in exploratory discussion phase,” said Tasch, “looking at how we could deploy a small fund like this in a very high impact way and capitalize the flow from hundreds or thousands of small investors around the country to scores or hundreds of organic farms.”

A New Neighborliness

Most business owners face the challenge of raising capital and providing a return to investors without compromising their independence or, in this case, their focus on a progressive, local mission. Rooted in the community and focused on issues like humane treatment of animals, they may fear losing control of the company.

Investors involved with Slow Money understand these values and are not out to make a killing, assured Tasch. “We want to prioritize social and environmental impact and allow financial return to arise organically out of that process. We don’t want to force enterprises to change because of the way that the capital was provided or because of the expectations of the provider of capital. We want to be organized around the needs and the independence and the mission of the enterprise.”

Local Versus National?

Although he is a champion of small, hyperlocal enterprises, Tasch welcomes to the table sustainable businesses that function nationally. “Even though the aspiration is local—meaning we’re trying to get more money focused locally—we all recognize there’s no such thing as 100 percent local. There is always a balance between local and non-local. Non-local can be regional, it can be national, or it can be fair-trade.”

He points to Organic Valley, a national company that happens to be a co-op, so its profits benefit many small communities. “It’s a $500 or $600 million business owned by 1,300 or 1,400 organic farmers. It’s bringing product to millions of consumers. So is that national or local? It’s both. And it’s a very important connector.”

Bigger Than a Bread Box

The global economy demands larger, faster, more. Tasch’s mantra is slow, small, and local. “You don’t have to say everything in the world has to be slow, small, and local in order to invest in slow, small, and local. You just have to believe that we need more balance,” counseled Tasch. “It’s incontrovertible that we’re severely imbalanced and are heading toward an even greater imbalance, at our peril, in both the food system and the financial markets as a whole. We need to get to a place where it’s not either-or.”

For Tasch, the concept of regional solves the dilemma. But how big is a region? “It’s bigger than a bread box and smaller than a multinational,” he answered. There’s plenty of room within a region for enterprises of all sizes that reduce food miles and have more transparency for the investor.

Weighing the Risks

In a recent interview, Tasch was asked about the risks involved in what he’s proposing. “Someone asked me, ‘How are you going to get investors to do this? It’s awfully risky.’ I said, ‘Don’t you think it’s scary or risky to have your money in China?’”

The Slow Money Alliance may seem poised to take advantage of wary, post-financial-collapse investors, those newly suspicious of companies conflating size and financial security. But Tasch does not guarantee the success or sustainability of enterprises just because they’re small and local. “Most small businesses fail. Most start-ups fail. That’s just the nature of the beast. It’s very hard to start a business. It’s hard to be a farmer. It’s hard to start a local processing facility. It’s hard to grow a CSA.” Investments are risky, but risk is not unique to small, food-related businesses.

He points again to Organic Valley, which may be the biggest, longest-running illustration that taking risks on local food can pay off. According to Tasch, the investors who have been lending money to Organic Valley have been earning 6 percent for 15 or 20 years. “When the co-op started, every traditional investor said, ‘That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s all the risks of a small business and none of the upside.’ But think about how cool 6 percent a year looks on money that’s supporting a network of growers working together to create a national organic brand for what they produce.”

Not Hard to See

The way Americans view their food is changing, slowly. Despite bestselling books, celebrity chefs, and White House residents touting the value of knowing your farmer, local food still accounts for an almost negligible percent of food consumed nationally. Tasch is not looking for a food-system apocalypse. Instead, he is organizing for slow, steady change.

“I would call it a rebalancing rather than a collapse and rebuilding,” he said. “You don’t have to believe the whole industrial food system is going to collapse in order to believe that it’s worthwhile to invest in its rebalancing.”

It is our hope that our foodshed, with the nation’s capital at its center, can play a prominent role in this rebalancing.

Slow Money Alliance
www.slowmoneyalliance.org
No Slow Money groups have been started in the
Capital Foodshed—yet.

Jennifer Conrad Seidel is the editor of Flavor.

By Jennifer Conrad Seidel • Photos by Molly McDonald Peterson

The wine industry in Virginia is growing. Even in 2009, when we were spending our grocery and entertainment dollars more carefully, the sales of Virginia wine rose more than 7 percent—to almost 400,000 cases.

That is great news, indeed. But as new wineries open and existing ones grow, the industry faces a new challenge: finding a qualified workforce.

Virginia Is for Winemakers

In 2004, administrators from the Workforce Services Program at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville collaborated with winemakers and vineyard owners in and around the Monticello Wine Trail to develop plans for what is now two complementary certificate programs: one in viticulture (vineyard management) and one in enology (winemaking). By February 2006, the program had graduated its first class of 15.

The program is built on one-day seminars, usually held on Saturdays so that those with full-time jobs can enroll. Taught by winemakers, vineyard managers, winery owners, and business consultants, classes are held at local vineyards. The training is hands-on, not book-based, and topics include everything from blending to marketing, grafting to pruning, tasting to harvesting.

Seminars are offered year-round, and the 10 classes required for each certificate are offered each calendar year, so someone could get through the program quickly. Students are not obligated to complete a certificate, however. Among the approximately 400 students who came through the program in 2009 were hobbyists taking a single class, curious connoisseurs taking tasting classes, and career-focused students determined to complete the whole certificate program.

Recess All the Time

Classes are held in the field as the seasons allow. In fact, many classes could not be held anywhere else. A class on blending and another on winery design and equipment are held in winter, when fieldwork is slow. Soil prep and planting are taught in the spring, as is dormant pruning. Summer brings classes on canopy management and pest control. Come fall, students lean about harvesting and bottling.

A few classes stretch over both semesters. The custom crush class starts in the fall just before harvest and concludes with bottling in the early summer. What is the literal fruit of such “studying”? Each student brings home four cases of wine. In another two-semester class—vineyard management—students “adopt a row of vines” for a year at DuCard Vineyard in Madison County, where owner Scott Elliff trains them in pruning, thinning, dropping fruit, and overall decision making.

A few restaurants have also participated in the program. The sommelier at C&O, on Charlottesville’s pedestrian mall, taught a three-session class on pairing wine and food. Siips, a few blocks away, was the venue for a series of weeknight tasting classes focusing on different wine regions across the globe. The Lafayette Inn in Stanardsville hosted a class on home winemaking.

Meet Your Classmates

On a sunny Saturday in March, a dozen people gathered at First Colony Winery for a wine marketing seminar taught by Neil Williamson of The Trellis Group. The class included a panel discussion with Martha Soden, general manager of First Colony; Sarah Gorman, business manager of Cardinal Point Vineyard and Winery; and Jim Turpin, founder of Democracy Vineyards and a graduate of the PVCC program.

The students present were at different points in their careers—some more likely to own a vineyard than work for one. Recent Virginia Tech graduate Maya Hood White studied theoretical math and physics, but now she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the chemistry of winemaking. Carole Keathley already has a career in marketing, but she is looking to make a lateral move into marketing for Virginia wineries, marrying her training and her love of local wine. After retiring from an international Fortune 100 company, Chas Lawrence is ready to pursue his dream of growing and making wine.

The Dream

It’s hard to believe that a young graduate with a degree in math and physics would turn down a job offer from Northrop Grumman in this economy to pursue a career in winemaking. “I was always interested in wine but thought it was unapproachable. I wondered, ‘Who makes wine?’ And then I realized, ‘I can do that!’ When I was offered that job, I realized that I would never return to this path if I took a nice little cubicle job,” said Maya Hood White.

“I’ve been taking winemaking classes through U.C. Davis’s distance learning program. The Davis program is focused on California and South America, though, which are very different from Virginia. It’s great as a foundation, but I like the idea of staying and making wine here,” she explained. White, who is interning at Afton Mountain Vineyards, hopes to study enology at Virginia Tech. So in addition to taking about 10 seminars, she is taking chemistry classes at PVCC as well.

“I have a real interest in the chemical aspect of making wine—the polymerization of phenols—because no one really knows how that happens. I love that side of it. But I also enjoy making wine. It’s so hands on, and it’s technical but artistic as well.”

The Lateral Move

“I know marketing, and I know Virginia wine as a consumer,” said Carole Keathley, a marketing expert and consultant, “but I took this class because I wanted to hear what these people had to say. I want to help the smaller wineries, which don’t have big budgets but are passionate about wine.” She has already worked with Gabrielle Rausse and is organizing an Earth Day service event, with trail clearing and tree planting, at DelFosse Vineyards and Winery.

In addition to learning more about marketing in this industry, Keathley hopes to strengthen her understanding of wine through the other classes, too. “I learn the most when I do a vertical tasting or a comparative tasting by varietal,” she explained. “I’ve taken a few tasting classes in the program—beginning tasting, advanced reds, and advanced whites. I am now able to appreciate the different varietals, terroirs, and approaches to winemaking found around the world.
“I have a black thumb,” she laughed. “I’m never going to grow grapes. But I can parlay all this knowledge to advance my career.”

The Second Career

When Chas Lawrence retired just over two years ago, he asked himself what he wanted to do with the second half of his life. The answer, it turns out, is plant a vineyard and make wine. He worked through the viticulture certificate in just over a year, and is now working on the enology certificate.

But unlike most of his classmates, who live in Virginia, Lawrence drives up from Raleigh to participate in the PVCC program. “I’m taking some sustainable agriculture classes closer to home,” he explained, “but there is nothing like this program near me. The one-day format works perfectly.”

Lawrence and his wife bought 11 acres of land in the North Carolina mountains in 2002. A small vineyard had already been started on the property, but the previous owner had walked away from it; by the time the Lawrences bought it, it was overrun. But a lot of the hard work had been done: the site had been selected and the infrastructure, including a blacktop road, was in place. They sat on it until he started taking classes at PVCC.

“I started these classes and started learning about pruning and spray programs. There’s a wealth of information about grapes here, and it’s more transferable to North Carolina than anything I’d have gotten at U.C. Davis,” he said gratefully. “And it’s more accessible.”

He just planted a group of heirloom apples and hopes to make cider as well as wine. “My wife is putting hives in,” he added, “so we may try making mead, too.”

Full Speed Ahead

When Greg Rosko graduated from the program, he had no idea that he’d soon end up as its director. Rosko is an educator by training—he still works for the Charlottesville City Schools—and his experience as a student is quite valuable to him in his current position. He expressed his appreciation for the support the program gets from area vineyards. “The wineries around Charlottesville are wonderful and very generous. We wouldn’t be where we are without them.”

Asked about how the program is affecting the industry, Rosko pointed out that several graduates, like Democracy’s Turpin, have started their own vineyards. “Out in Free Union,” he added, “Michelle and Jeff Sanders are building a winery.” Other student-owners include Skip and Cindy Causey of Potomac Point Winery and Steven “Kim” Moreno of Neala Vineyards. Rosko also ticked off a list of other students employed in the industry at present, naming assistant winemakers, assistant vineyard managers, tasting room managers, interns, and retail wine associates.

DuCard’s Elliff said that participating in the program has helped his business grow. “Based in part on the great word of mouth about the adopt-a-row class and the wines that come out of it, DuCard is expanding production and opening an on-site tasting room for the public.”

Rosko hopes to grow the program by adding a chemistry lab course. “It would be great for students to at least be familiar with the chemistry,” he said. “It would provide a good foundation for those who want to enter the industry, no matter what their job title.” He’d also like to offer more classes on the business end of things, like accounting.

“Vineyards are farms,” he noted, “and farms have different tax forms than other businesses.”

The program recently added a two-year credited apprenticeship in partnership with the state’s department of labor and industry. Two full-time winery employees are currently apprenticing, one in winemaking and the other in vineyard management.

PVCC had started to offer classes like those taken by sommeliers-in-training, but enrollment in these seminars wasn’t high enough, most likely due to the recession. (Consuming all that wine gets expensive.) Rosko is hopeful that this decision will be revisited as interest grows and the economy rebounds.

Piedmont Virginia Community College
Charlottesville, VA
(434) 961-5354
www.pvcc.edu/workforceservices

Jennifer Conrad Seidel is the editor of Flavor and would probably sign up for a cidermaking class if it were offered.

or made locally (but sold online).

• Photos by Sarah Cramer Shields

Links to the websites shown in the gift guide can be found below.

Fred Fred Tattoo Sparrow leather collar $24.99

The Big Bad Woof, Takoma Park, MD

www.thebigbadwoof.com (202) 291-2404

Bamboo compost pail $37.95

Cleverbean, Staunton, VA

www.cleverbean.com (888) 994-9091

Eco-Kids Eco-Paint & Eco-Dough $24/5-pc. tube

Green Nest, Culpeper, VA

greennest@verizon.net (540) 829-6378

Bootlegger’s Blend BBQ sauce $5.99/pt., $9.99/qt.

Golden Blends BBQ, Front Royal, VA

www.goldenblendsbbq.com (540) 671-1373

District Suds soap $6.95

Greater Goods, Washington, D.C.

www.greatergoods.com (202) 449-6070

Wasmund’s barrel kit $99.90

Copper Fox Distillery, Sperryville, VA

www.copperfox.biz (540) 987-8554

Virginia Feast in a Box $60 (not including wine)

Feast, Charlottesville, VA

www.feastvirginia.com (434) 244-7800

Food, Inc., DVD $25.00

Splintered Light Bookstore, Charlottesville, VA

www.splinteredlightbooks.com (434) 817-1050

Artisanal vinegars $9.95 ea.

Virginia Vinegar Works, Nelson County, VA

www.virginiavinegarworks.com (434) 953-6232

Fleurir chocolates from $8.00/4 pc. to $92.00/50 pc.

Fleurir Handgrown Chocolates, Hartfield, VA

www.fleurirchocolates.com (804) 577-3819

Hand-thrown pottery  from $50.00 to $300.00

Sara Schneidman Gallery, Culpeper, VA

www.saraschneidman.com (540) 825-0034

Todd’s Dirt Seasoning from $5.00 to $18.50

Todd’s Dirt, Severna Park, MD

www.toddsdirt.com (410) 919-3873

Elderberry syrups $8.00 ea.

Village Winery & Vineyards, Waterford, VA

www.villagewineryandvineyards.com (540) 822-3780