For those who are interested in gaining a little more insight as to how we keep Marietta Cellars running, we’ve devised our Top Ten. This is basically a list of our inspirations, passions, favorite lunches, recommended experiences, and anything else, that gets us and has gotten us through the Marietta gauntlet.
1. Alaska
Each year before harvest, dad (and sometimes a few of us) sneak up to Alaska for a couple of weeks to fly fish. Alaska is an extremely special place for us. In this day and age, there aren’t too many places you can go and see fish jumping, bears along the shore, and bald eagles flying overhead. The red salmon we fish for is as good as both fishing and eating gets. Mornings spent fishing, afternoons hiking or reading a book, and evenings spent eating seafood hours sometimes minutes out of the water…it doesn’t get much better! The natural beauty and solitude that Alaskan summers exhibit have become a necessary “pre-harvest ritual”. A favorite recipe for the other fish (halibut) we catch most often is below:
-Saute, bake, or poach halibut, allow it to cool
-Coarsely chop and blend two ripe mangoes, two avocados, one bunch of cilantro, one red onion, one or two Serrano chilies (be
careful they can be hot) and squeeze two limes on top
-Break the cold fish up into bite size pieces and mix into the salsa
-Wrap in corn or flour tortillas or eat as a cold fish salad
-Do not serve with Marietta wines! Cold Sauvignon Blanc goes wonderfully however.
2. Homemade Italian Sausage
A favorite staple food and now family tradition is our homemade Italian sausage. Naturally, we don’t make a dozen or two…no we make 50 to 100 pounds at a time! Then we hang them all over the winery to air dry for a day, which is quite a sight. In the summer, the sausage are great off the grill with grilled onions on a crunchy baguette, and in the winter they are a key ingredient to Marietta’s Minestrone Soup (see below).
3. Marietta’s Minestrone Soup
-4 Italian sausages
-6-8 cloves garlic
-2 yellow onions
-1 can tomatoes
-5 carrots
-5 celery stalks
-4 medium potatoes
-4 cans chicken broth
-2 cans kidney beans
-2 bunches swiss chard
Crumble and brown sausages until ½ cooked. Add 6-8 cloves of minced garlic and 2 chopped onions, cook until transparent. Add 1 can of tomatoes, cook for 5 minutes. Add carrots, celery, and potatoes all cut in bite size pieces. Cover with chicken broth, Cook until celery is ¾ cooked. Add 1 can of crushed kidney beans (I just use my hands to squish them) and one can of kidney beans whole plus the juice. Cook for five minutes. Add swiss chard, bring to a boil, turn heat off and let soup sit for 20 minutes.
Unlike the mango salsa, this recipe does go great with Marietta wines.
4. Abalone diving
Dad just about had us swimming in the Pacific before we were walking in our living room. Through the years, diving for abalone has remained a tradition that dad and us brothers look forward to with great anticipation. The cold water and the gray, sea washed rocks are the exact opposite of the wide array of colors and sea life that lives just below. Diving early and eating fresh abalone just a couple hours old for a mid morning snack is an experience that spoiled us at an early age and one we still look forward to today.
5. Mushroom “hunting”
For a few short weeks after the first rains come in late fall, everything gets put on hold. With the brothers here, dad can take as much time as he wants to walk the hills and look through the underbrush for wild mushrooms, not that he didn’t stop everything prior to us being here. In the past, dad would hike the hills with the old Italians, and now he does the same with his sons. We have a few secret spots in which we find Porcini and a few other mushrooms that we eat fresh and dry for making great meals through out the year. Whether it is wild mushroom risotto or a roast wild pork loin with wild mushrooms, it is something we always look forward to eating. Calling it “hunting” may be a bit of an overstatement, but that is what dad has always called it.
6. The Blues
We are all big fans of music, and from an early age, we listened to blues with dad as that is his favorite. Weather it is Stevie Ray Vaughn, John Lee Hooker, or Willie Dixon, dad usually just can’t get enough. When describing dad’s vintages, it is almost more appropriate for dad to say…”The ‘05 Zin has a little more Keb Mo’ in it than usual and the Petite Sirah shows definite undertones of BB King with Clapton’s finesse.” I don’t think dad could make the wines he does without music. You’ve not seen dad until you’ve seen him with a harmonica at his mouth, a glass of wine on the table, eyes shut tight, playing with Charlie Musselwhite on the CD player.
7. Yorkville
One of the pleasures of making wine is that you need to have some land to grow the grapes. In the late 1990’s dad decided that we needed to purchase some land to help keep the business growing. On a remote stretch in Southern Mendocino County is a town of about 25 people called Yorkville. Dad found an untouched old sheep ranch that seemed to be the perfect place. We’ve planted some grapes and built a small lake to supply water to the vines. The lake’s main function is irrigation, but it is also great for cooling off and the horseshoe pit beside it is the perfect addition.
8. The Garden
Dad always had a garden going in the summers when we were kids. Eating fresh tomatoes off the vine or grilling crookneck squash is a great way to eat through out the summer. We still have a garden going in the same spot at the winery where we’ve always had one, and it has become a bit of a communal garden for the whole crew… though everyone knows not to touch the first ripe tomato unless they want to ruin dad’s day. A real favorite is dad’s tomato sauce which we make through the late summer and early fall. It freezers great, and the sauce over pasta with some good Parmesan is a perfect treat in the winter.
9. Skiing
We grew up with the mountains and the snow being a special place. We usually got up to the snow about once a year for a weekend, but that was about it. When Scot was studying at UC Davis, which is just about 2 hours from some great skiing in Tahoe, the importance of getting to the mountains grew. Scot and Jake started spending their winters waking up early for a drive to the mountains. Within a few years, it had become a tradition for all of us, though with Scot and Jake still leading the way. We all love being on skis, but Scot definitely is the highlight here. Scot’s true colors start to show when he is going through the narrowest and steepest chute he can find… usually with his brothers and dad trying to keep up.
10. Montana
Every year after harvest, dad goes hunting in Montana for 1-2 weeks. The weather is cool, the air is clean and crisp, and the colors are magnificent. Hunting pheasant along creeks and through fields is a great way to wind down after the pressures of the crush. It is also a chance to catch up with old friends who he only sees once or twice a year. They eat good food, drink good wine, and spend much appreciated time together in some of the most beautiful wild country around.
In Closing, We’d Love To Hear From You
As we’ve said, we are not a large winery, and we are not equipped to handle the public via tasting rooms, etc. However, the most rewarding feedback we get is not from wine writers or critics, but from the people who actually drink the wine. So let us know via email, what you think, special occasions, funny stories, etc. We absolutely love to hear them, and as we update our Top Ten, we’ll include any good stories we hear.