May 2024 Wine Club
Placemaking, Solidarity and Belonging as Process
Welcome back, friends!
Many of you know that we’ve been working with our friends at Eleanor’s and Hampton Roads Reproductive Justice League to put together a wine fair we’ve named Depth. The theme of the wine fair is solidarity, which is a word I’ve been hearing more often recently. Our intention with Depth is not only to educate about what solidarity looks like in the wine world, but to show how we’re putting these principles into practice. Consider this wine club blog to be a preview of the world we’re trying to create.
In our previous issues we’ve talked about a sense of place and the power of shared desires. In this issue we’ll explore how those ideas combine in practice to build solidarity.
In our place issue, we discussed how nature observation and environmental awareness embeds itself in our senses over time to communicate a holistic sense of place. Building on that, we discussed the role of commons — common resources, life ways, and desires — in protecting, preserving, and developing not only place, but ways of being. Sitting with these concepts for a while, you’ll find that they’re porous. When does a collection of practice become a way of life? What does it really mean for something to be from a place? I believe solidarity holds the key to understanding these transformations.
The dictionary definition of solidarity runs something along the lines of “awareness of common interest.” Indeed, we can find a lot of practices calling themselves solidarity that begin and end there. However, I’d like to take our understanding much deeper, examining how building solidarity underlies many of the transformations — liberatory and destructive — that we see in our world.
Building on the work of Murray Bookchin, Rebecca Solnit, and Bill Plotkin, I’d advance a definition of solidarity that describes practices and grounds them in an ethic of care. For a working definition, let’s define solidarity as the choices we make to extend care for what we have in common. This gives us a way to recognize when solidarity is deployed harmfully, as an excuse to enclose or even destroy our common good — think of book bans and the removal of park benches — as well as a clear alternative to these destructive actions taken in fear. Solidarity gives us a “yes, and” response that points us in the direction of liberatory change.
I’d like to unpack some mythology around farmer’s markets as an example. Far more elaborate work has been done on this topic by Sarah Mock, Sarah Taber, and Chris Newman. This is also the result of years of my personal inquiry into the foundational differences between East Coast and West Coast farmer’s markets.
Farmer’s markets market themselves foremost as a way to vote with your dollar in solidarity with your local food system. But geography is only one form of solidarity, and in the American South, it’s not always the best one. Especially when “buy local” is equated to “buy sustainable” or even “buy ethical”, it greenwashes many of the harsh realities of the local food system. Because the solidarity of the farmers’ markets in this area is primarily geographic and does not cross racial or class lines, they are poorly attended. Because they function primarily as marketing events for businesses with other lines of income, their hours are limited. Competition between vendors is similarly limited, leading to an illusion of choice without improvements in quality. Consequently, there’s high turnover and low yield for market participants, with market growth primarily driven by national trends, despite the localism that these markets profess.
Contrast this with farmer’s markets on the West Coast (or pretty much anywhere else in the world). Those of you following my travels know that I study market architecture because it communicates how the community views commerce as a contribution. Whereas markets here are unstable, with no long term contracts for participants, shared marketing, or permanent architecture, markets on the West Coast and in Europe (England, Spain, Italy, and Turkey in my experience) engage in what can be called placemaking. They develop permanent infrastructure and become part of social life. Most importantly, they are spaces where class divisions can dissolve. The very power of markets lies in their ability to make connections between people. Economists would have you believe that this is motivated by a rational pursuit of profit, but everyone (including economists) knows that’s not true at all. Although restricting access to markets is a powerful historical tool of oppression, well developed markets are highly resistant to this kind of interference — which brings us back to solidarity.
Returning repeatedly to a place makes it part of you, but caring for a place makes you part of it. We find this in the wilderness ethic of “leave no trace”, or the golden rule of the commune — “leave it better than you found it”. And this is where solidarity takes center stage. How do we improve a place? How do we leave things better?
An ethos of care makes this question impossible to answer alone. When you care for someone, you become accountable to their well-being — which is not something that you can decide. You attend to their needs, request consent for actions you might take on their behalf, and consider the results of your actions with their needs and desires at the forefront. An ethos of care empowers us to extend our well-being beyond ourselves, to enlarge our world. Like the bad mother in Rapunzel’s story, enclosure makes false claims to care, masking narcissistic vicariousness while appropriating a caretaker’s aesthetic. It is by entering into solidarity with the subaltern, the quiet voices and invisible workers, that we liberate ourselves by liberating others.
To bring it back to Depth and the community work that we’re doing, the subtitle of the event becomes my working definition for natural wine — “wine in solidarity.” Natural wine has never been about a static collection of practices for me, but a conversation that we have in solidarity with growers, winemakers, harvesters, the land, the birds and bugs in the vineyards — and you. And the more we share, the more we have. So come share some wine with our friends at Depth, because they have a lot to share with you.
With this in mind, we’ve chosen a lineup of wines almost entirely from Virginia. These are all producers on the forefront of the natural wine movement here, exploring ways of taking better care of this place and the people in it. Let’s meet em.
Midland 2021 Riesling
In 2015, Tim and Ben Jordan inherited a farm from their uncle above the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia — a farm now called Mount Airy Vineyards. At the time, no vines had been planted on the property, and the family was poised to sell it. But Tim and Ben convinced the family to give them a chance at taking care of the land, starting a small cattle farming operation while their vines were maturing.
Earlier this year, Erin and I went to visit Tim at Mount Airy. As we walked through the vineyards, he told us the story of difficult decisions familiar to farm families around the country. While inheriting farmland is a significant way that intergenerational wealth is built in America, it comes with challenges. Farmland is taxed very favorably but it is still taxed, and activating and maintaining farmland is capital intensive, an insurmountable obstacle for many young farmers. The decision to keep farmland rather than selling into what has become a very favorable market can be contentious, and the emotional connections and family memories tied to the land can make the decision even more difficult. Often the decision to keep and maintain farmland comes down to the next generation’s passion for and connection to that specific parcel of land — a key element of intergenerational permaculture.
Fortunately, Tim and Ben had that very passion, and Mount Airy is an emerging permaculture vineyard. Tim’s doctorate from Virginia Tech informs his ecological perspective and his passion for the scientific dimension of sustainability connects him to the larger community. He brings literacy in grant writing and project management that are rare but critical in smallholder farmers, and dreams of Mount Airy not only being a demonstration of the viability of polycultures, hybrid grapes, and minimal chemical interventions but a site for passing on this vital research. In a lot of ways, Mount Airy is a research site, but with the risk that comes from self-funding — the market must support the work you are doing. More on that below.
The thing I respect the most about what Tim and Ben are doing has to do with taking risks on behalf of the community. As we know, natural wine lacks the market advantages that industrial winemaking has accumulated to itself over the last century, and often makes up for that with a deep understanding of place and tight connection to local culture. But that has to start somewhere, and Tim and Ben have been building a Virginia wine culture in many ways from scratch.
Midland (formerly Midland Construction) is the Jordan brothers’ estate wine project, named after their father’s construction company. This Riesling is among the first vines they planted, struggling both against drought and well-established pasture grasses thriving due to the absence of herbicides. Erin and I had the pleasure of drinking an early vintage of this Riesling, blended with rising star local grape Petit Manseng, at the old farmhouse at Mount Airy with Tim. For young vines still getting their roots dug in, this cuvee shimmers with balanced acidity and aromatic exuberance, depth on the palate and a bright, clean finish. Like Midland, it’s exciting and promising.
Commonwealth Crush Let’s Be Friends
This amiably named cuvee comes from an incubator project just down the road from Mount Airy. Commonwealth Crush Co (CWC) is based in Waynesboro out of a converted metalworking facility. CWC solves a lot of the problems that face first generation winemakers, which tend to boil down to access to capital. Whether it’s financial capital in the form of bank loans or investors, fixed capital in the form of facilities and equipment, or social capital in the form of distribution networks, marketing, and permits, CWC drastically lowers the cost of entry for new winemakers by bringing these to the table. On that same trip to Mount Airy, Erin and I paid a visit to Lee Campbell, one of the key partners in CWC, at their tasting room.
As a stalwart of the natural wine world, co-founding the Wild World festival and working closely with importer Zev Rovine on top of a decorated career in every corner of the restaurant industry in DC and NYC, Lee brings the crucial skills of connection and community building often missing in the Virginia wine world. More importantly, Lee is a tireless advocate for the underrepresented in natural wine. As many of you experienced when she visited Grandiflora in January, Lee blends a deep understanding of wine and natural wine lore with incisive critical insight and the storytelling skills to communicate that to those of us seeking that perspective.
After a facility tour with Tim, Erin and I settled at the bar at the tasting room with Lee both to learn and converse with her but also to watch her at work. Part of our affinity for Commonwealth Crush is the shared values of hospitality that we embody — a form of hospitality that’s inclusive and educational, drawing people in and sharing while also challenging preconceptions and making each person’s world a little roomier. While we were there, we made Charlottesville restaurant industry connections as well as tasting through CWC’s portfolio.
Let’s Be Friends is a Merlot-driven blend with direct press white juice added to adjust acid — an older practice that is making a comeback in the natural wine world as summers get hotter and we rethink our relationship to additives (none!). You’ll appreciate the freshness once the incredibly ripe, plush, and juicy red and black fruit aromatics confront your nose and palate — it’s a wine that makes a splash but cleans up after itself. It’s a little more maximalist — perfect for Grandiflora.
Star Party 2022 Rose
One of the things I really love about Tim’s winemaking is that it can be incredibly scrappy. Despite having the abundant common pooled resources of CWC at his disposal, Tim is constantly experimenting with lower and lower intervention in winemaking, exploring pathways and contributing knowledge for other Virginia winemakers to build off of. Not relying on the fanciest shiniest new tech but putting tried and true techniques through their paces in a new place opens doors to others instead of pulling the ladder up. Despite offering consulting services professionally, he’s also generous with his knowledge.
Also brewing at CWC is one of Tim’s more off the beaten path side projects, Star Party. Star Party is a collaboration between Tim, his wife, and their in-laws. I know we can be really serious about wine, but this one just exudes fun. It’s negoc’ed (purchased) fruit — Chamboucin, Traminette, and Riesling, all from Augusta County — higher up in the Shenandoah, around Mount Airy. The Chambourcin and Traminette were picked early, foot trodden, and fermented with 7 days of skin contact. This comes off somewhere between a vin gris and a traditional rose in weight, but the Riesling heightens the acid and lightens the body to put it solidly in summer crush territory. The off-the-wall art on the bottle really emphasizes the otherworldliness of this wine. This is from Virginia? According to everything we discussed in the essay — yes.
Lightwell Survey Between the Dark and the Light
Our last wine brings us into the oeuvre of Tim’s brother Ben Jordan and his project Lightwell Survey, also tenured at Commonwealth Crush. We’ve featured their wine in our club before, and it’s wonderful to revisit them as they continue their journey of genre bending, category breaking, and terroir seeking. Ben’s wine career is a little more traditional but that makes it even more interesting that he ended up cofounding a custom crush facility in Virginia. Starting in California and returning to Virginia to become head winemaker at Early Mountain (more on them later), Ben brings many of the Virginia wine industry connections to the Commonwealth Crush project. One of the forces behind Early Mountain’s hybrid wine initiatives, these early experiments have literally borne fruit for Lightwell Survey.
In a collaboration for sourcing with noteworthy local cidery Troddenvale, this cuvee is 2 parts hybrid grapes to 1 part apples. The grapes are a blend of whole cluster Chambourcin dropped into direct pressed Vidal blanc juice, and after fermentation was underway in that mix, Ashmead’s Kernel apples were pressed over top. After primary fermentation, malolactic was completed in neutral barrel. My experience of this wine was full of twists and turns. This was one of the ones we tried at our visit to CWC and my main description of it would be unexpected and intriguing. Whatever hypotheses you might have about this wine as an experience based on my description so far, throw them out the window. This wine is both lighter than I expected in terms of body but full of beautiful texture and viscosity, with aromatics that are surprisingly dark and heavy without any of the textural weight or heat I would expect. It’s also dynamic in the glass and on the palate, shapeshifting and offering new perspectives moment to moment like a jewel glimmering darkly in moonlight. If anyone describes this wine as “unstable” or “inconsistent” I will yell at them. Lovely.
Reserve Tier
Early Mountain Quaker Run Chardonnay
Early Mountain is a great example of a well capitalized operation using that capital as leverage to take risks on behalf of the community. A picturesque chateau perched on a scenic hilltop overlooking the Shenandoah Valley, Early Mountain seems to belong to a generation of wineries that were more about location (in the real estate sense) than terroir, with an event rental business overshadowing their winemaking. However, Early Mountain has translated their diversified commercial success into a portfolio of forward-looking, environmentally and socially conscious projects. Experimenting with hybrids as part of their Young Wines project, hiring one of the few female head winemakers in the region, and contributing to the Veraison Project by participating in their Oeno Camp program, Early Mountain is supporting the emergence of a new generation with new values in the Virginia wine industry.
This Chardonnay comes from a single block of the Quaker Run vineyard planted in 1999. It is farmed specifically for this cuvee to express that specific terroir, which they recognized as ideal for Chardonnay after they planted the vineyard. Made in a style inspired by white Burgundy, it gets a total of 17 months on lees in a combination of second use large format European oak (13 months) and steel. The connection to Burgundy comes through on the palate, with the long and slow maturation process resulting in a distinctively well balanced, evenly textured and refined structure. Their description begins with the word “restraint,” and that’s a wonderful point of departure. Think Coltrane on A Love Supreme.
Paul Barre Chateau La Grave 2018 Bordeaux Fronsac
For our final pick we are crossing the Atlantic to Bordeaux! A port poised at one of the original intersections of modern wine and capital, many of you have heard my criticisms of Bordeaux. Between the area’s role in the development of industrial wine techniques, the classification systems that have both disrupted and protected wine regions, and the use of wine as a speculative financial instrument, I always hold Bordeaux to a higher standard. Similar to Early Mountain, the chateaux of Bordeaux can well afford to take risks and make investments on behalf of the greater wine community, and has no need to benefit at their expense. Fortunately, there are winemakers in Bordeaux that are embracing solidarity with the land and their fellow winemakers that the natural wine movement represents.
Paul Barre inherited the lieu-dit vineyard at Chateau La Grave in the 1970s, gradually embracing organics through a steady — you might call it organic — process of inquiry. In the 1990s, as a continuation of this inquiry, he began converting to biodynamics. In 2013, he sold his tillage machinery and converted to horse tillage. His son Gabriel has taken over the operation, committing to carrying on the process through another generation. I’m excited to see where this takes him.
This is an AOC Fronsac wine, located at a bend in the Dordogne river which protects it from seasonal extremes in temperature and precipitation while still challenging the vines enough to give them depth. Similar to the Chardonnay from Quaker Run, this cuvee is exemplary, with dialed in typicity. It’s 65% Merlot, 33% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Malbec — classic Right Bank. Soft, warm, friendly, relaxed, but deep, this is like a well-traveled friend, good at conversation but not overbearing.
If you’re excited about our Virginia friends, come see Tim and Lee at Depth! We’ll all be at Assembly on June 2nd.
Cheers!
Jason
