The Food and Wine Renaissance

When I first arrived in Davis, California, some 25 years ago, to study Sustainable Agriculture, I discovered a whole new world of food that I had never before experienced – the world of freshly harvested fruits and vegetables.

I remember tasting a peach from a tree at the Student Farm at UC Davis. It was the best thing I had ever tasted in my life up until then. Then there were the heirloom tomatoes, the freshly dug potatoes, the enormous variety of melons, including yellow and Moon&Stars watermelons, and it went on from there.

I had been a very picky eater most of my life, but that chapter of my life was over once I discovered the explosion of flavors from food that hadn't spent too much time on the produce shelf or had been overly processed. Though it was several years before the term "foodie" was coined, that's what I became after that first summer in Davis.

Annie Main from Good Humus Produce
 at the Davis Farmers' Market

I was a regular at the amazing Davis Farmers Market, with long-time dedicated organic farmers like Jeff and Annie Main from Good Humus and the two Pauls from Terra Firma providing most of my daily sustenance. My life had changed drastically for the better – I found the religion of fresh food – and I wanted to preach the gospel.

A younger Steve harvesting basil,
destined for pesto, from our
garden in Davis. 

After finishing graduate school, I became an active promoter of Sustainable Agriculture through my many years working for a non-profit organization and successfully getting mainstream farmers to farm more sustainably.

When I met Steve, he had been an avid gardener and had a community garden plot

while he was a bicycle messenger in San Francisco. After we started dating, in Davis, our garden grew larger each year, and we began to have such an abundance that we started canning and freezing everything we couldn't eat.

Neither of us grew up with any exposure to wine beyond box and jug wines, but Steve got to experience some great wines during visits to a friend's family home while in college. Steve was excited to explore new wines and quickly got me hooked. We visited wineries and started making wine ourselves in our backyard. I always joked that we were co-dependant foodies, always trying to one-up each other's crazy ideas about food preservation.

We came to expect easy access to fresh, locally grown food, but when we moved to Napa, in 2002, we were surprised at how little there was to offer. We didn't have space for a very big garden, so we were starved for the fresh veggies and fruits that were abundant in Davis. Since many of our organic farmer friends were selling their produce in the San Francisco Bay Area, we thought that the organic farming "movement" was bigger than it turned out to be. Those of us insisting on good quality food were still in a very small minority...Steve and I were just too involved to have perspective.

Matthiasson Family at the Napa Farmers' Market

Always sharing the dream of farming, we had the opportunity to plant a fruit orchard on a friends property in Napa in 2004. Since it was rare to find locally grown fruit in Napa, we thought it would be easy to find a market for our peaches, plums, nectarines, etc. But we were mistaken. Only a couple of Napa restaurants/chefs – Zuzu and Chef Peter Pahk – were interested in what we had to offer. We struggled to sell everything that we could produce, so once again we started to can, freeze, and make lots of jam.

But I am happy to say that over the last five years or so, we've seen a big change. Restaurants in Napa like Oenotri, Norman Rose, Azzurro Pizzeria, and ABC Bakery have become regular peach buying customers and our sales at the Napa Farmers' Market are brisk. Several Napa Valley restaurants have their own gardens, and interest in local food seems to have taken hold. 

I'm also very encouraged as I travel around the country selling wine. In mid-sized cities, such as Denver, Charleston, and Salt Lake City, where only five years ago there were a handful of high-end restaurants, mostly steak houses, there is now a profusion of great restaurants focusing on local food.

The Menu from a dinner featuring
Matthiasson Wines at Linger Restaurant
in Denver

We have seen the same change in the interest in our wine. New York Times wine critic, Eric Asimov, said about us "their wines bear an agricultural stamp, as fresh, lively and alive as the best produce from a farmers’ market."  Our wines go with the food we grow; they aren't typical steakhouse Napa Cabs. With the proliferation of restaurants and consumers insisting on locally grown food and wines that match, I feel that we are part of a burgeoning food and wine renaissance. 

After promoting local food for so many years, it's very gratifying to witness this change. Because of my background, several young people just out of college contact and visit us looking for advise on how to get on the path of farming and winemaking that we are on. 

We have been able to stay on this path because of folks like you. I am excited about the direction things are going in the food and wine worlds. 

Thanks and keep it up!

Jill

RIP George Vare

Our dear friend, George Vare, recently passed away.  Many stories (see The Wine Spectator; The Napa Register;  The Terroirist) have eloquently told the story of the life of George Vare; a story that includes his many achievements, and they were truly remarkable.

So we just want to add a bit about the impact George has had on our lives, how much he meant to us, and how much we already miss him.

Steve met George when he was first getting started as a viticultural consultant in Napa. George was running things at Luna Vineyards, and Luna hired Steve to help with their vineyards. Then George hired Steve to help him with his own vineyard, and that is where we were introduced to George, his wife Elsa, and Ribolla gialla. George was incredibly passionate about this odd variety, and Steve had never seen any other grape grow with such a crazy growth habit. So after a couple of years, George and Elsa took Steve and George's winemaker at the time, Abe Schoener, to Friuli, Italy to learn how to grow this ancient grape variety and make the wine.

This was in 2005, and on that trip, Steve had an epiphany about what is possible with white wine, and the wines of Friuli have been an inspiration for our own wines ever since. When Steve returned from Italy we were lucky enough to get some Ribolla gialla from the Vare Vineyard for our MATTHIASSON White Wine; and this is wine that really put us on the map.

Steve racking the 2005 Red Wine at the "winery"
we shared with George in a warehouse in Napa

George took Steve under his wing, continued to mentor us about the business, and let us make our 2005-2007 vintages in his warehouse/garage of a bonded winery in exchange for Steve helping him in the vineyard. These were lean times for MATTHIASSON; we didn't have a lot of wine to sell and we were expanding, and the only reason we were able to stay in business was because of this arrangement.

Over the years, George and Elsa have become good friends. Every time people have the chance to taste the MATTHIASSON White Wine with us, we tell the story about George and the Ribolla gialla. The day that we found out that George was nearing the end of his life, we both had tastings with wine buyers. That day, it was very hard for both of us to tell that story; we both got chocked up and almost cried. Steve was fortunate enough to be able to say goodbye to him.

L to R: Nathan Roberts, Abe Schoener, George Vare, Dan Petroski,
Steve Matthiasson, Duncan Meyer: just a few of the younger
generation that George influenced

He passed away that same evening and since then we've told the story about George and the Ribolla gialla a number of times. It's a bit surreal. We talk about him as if he were still alive. We haven't figured out how to adjust the story that we've told so many times. In time that will come. But in the meantime, please bear with us, as we pause and our voices crack, and we continue the legend of our dear friend.

George, we will miss most the twinkle in your eye and the lift in your step.

RIP

Thank you Pablo Abuliak for allowing the use of these photos.

A picture is worth....

by Harry Matthiasson

Now We're REALLY Farmers

......a tale that is not for the faint of heart

After years of dreaming of farming, we planted our first fruit orchard (on leased land) in 2004 and harvested our first crop in 2007. We sold the fruit at the Napa Farmers' Market and to local restaurants. In the same year, we moved to our current home vineyard/farm and bought a tractor and some other farming equipment. It was at that moment we started to think we were farmers....until this week....

one day old chicks

Last summer we acquired a few new chickens from some friends who had too many. One of the chickens kept getting out of the fence and then one day we didn't see her anymore, so we assumed the coyotes got her. About three weeks later we were sitting in our yard and here comes the missing chicken with ten newly hatched chicks in tow! We knew the babies wouldn't survive the coyotes for very long, so we brought them into the garage and put them under lights to raise them. 

the proud Papa

When they were old enough, we put them outside to roam around and at night they would go inside an old dog crate that we set up inside the garden fence. They seemed very safe until one morning when a raccoon (we think) got into the garden and stuck it's nose through the dog crate and killed five of the chickens. In was an awful sight to see.

After that we couldn't get the remaining young chickens to go into the crate at night. They would hide and we couldn't find them. We lost two more that way. We were left with three chickens when they were big enough to put with the rest of the flock - two hens and a rooster.

the lone surviving rooster

Since we already had a rooster, we knew we would have to "get rid of" the new rooster at some point. When the baby rooster started going through puberty, the Papa rooster started pushing the new guy out; their little world wasn't big enough for both of them and it was clear that one of them would have to go.

So finally, one morning, we slaughtered the now almost full-sized rooster and cooked him for dinner. Chicken and dumplings to be precise.

When we ate the rooster that was the progeny of our own chickens, the rooster that we had raised, the rooster whose whole life had been lived on our farm, that's when we REALLY felt like farmers. It was very different than eating vegetables from our garden or fruit from our trees or drinking wine from our vineyard (although that is always pretty cool); this animal had been alive and walking around our yard.

So we say Thank You to the spirit of that rooster and all animals that we eat.

The Ol' Barn Roof

Now that the holidays are over, and we've eaten many wonderful meals and drunk many amazing wines, it's time to get back to everyday life.

The winter means focussing on a lot of projects that we don't have time for once the growing season gets started; at least for now the wines are all put to bed and the grapes are dormant.

When we bought our property, it came with a 100+ year old barn filled with "stuff." Some of that stuff is very cool and some is just junk. Over the years, we've bought some farm equipment (a few tractors, implements for tilling the soil and mowing, etc), adding to the mix of stuff and junk. We actually use some of the stuff that we "inherited" from the barn, like the old manure spreader that Steve unseized with two cans of WD-40. We use it to plant the cover crop every fall.

The barn is about three stories tall. At one time it had a hay loft where all of the hay for the year would have been stored. The story is that the loft was removed to put in the prune dehydrator. Before grapes, two of the main crops in the Napa Valley were walnuts interplanted with prunes. Another thing that we inherited were the fruit boxes that neighbors brought their prunes in which were destined for the dehydrator.

Well after 100+ years the barn roof is now full of holes and all of the valuable vineyard equipment that we've invested in is being exposed to the elements, so we bit the bullet and finally decided to replace the roof....we might have to put off our kids' college just to pay it!

Happy New Year!

All the best,

Steve, Jill and the boys

some old fruit boxes

holes in the old roof

tearing off the old roof

putting on the new one