Matt Giraud : Photographs : Food+Wine

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After cleaning the mighty press countless times during harvest at Kelley Fox Wines, Stephanie Sprinkle had made it her fawning puppy.
On a break from harvest, under a canopy of ancient cedars, winemaker Kelley Fox tastes visitors through her ethereal Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc.
To a winemaker like me, a vineyard is a cathedral, a place you go to touch the divine – and if you know what you’re doing, put it in a bottle. So when I walked the aisles of this lovely vineyard outside Yamhill, Oregon, I was looking at the details of how it was farmed, for sure. But also... something else: signs it might be the kind of special place that makes a transcendent Pinot Noir. You know, something about this place gives me that feeling...
In the bleak light of one late winter morning, winemaker Kelley Fox sits before a glass door overlooking the vineyard and begins to stir. It's a biodynamic compost tea, and she'll "dynamize" it for at least an hour before she loads it into an old brass backpack sprayer and walks her rows of Maresh Vineyard, applying a little to every vine. Eight months later, the vines will return the favor with vibrant, utterly distinctive fruit that could only have come from that much care.
There are few images as American-Rockwell iconic as kids fishing a hole. Here, under the Sanibel Island viaduct as cars raced to luxury homes overhead, the fishing felt more necessity than recreation.
Farming with the draft horses under a painterly sky.
After first light, the tide recedes, and an island emerges. Tomales Bay is known for its fresh, meticulously farmed oysters, but mussels are in some ways a truer expression of this untamed, primeval place.
Many Oregon winemakers believe the most complex and beautiful Pinot Noir comes when the fruit just barely ripens before winter storms sweep the vines with dilution. Here, the last of his fruit safely in fermenter, Cameron's John Paul calmly watches those storms roll in.
Kasey Mills of Toro Bravo stews fresh clams with pocha beans and chard over an open fire for the second course of a Growing Gardens Chef in My Garden fundraiser.
Kasey Mills of Toro Bravo plates a light potato salad with grilled tofu at Chef in My Garden
Kasey Mills of Toro Bravo roasts potatoes, olives and capers over an open fire to serve with grilled flank steak for the third course of a delicious Growing Gardens Chef in My Garden fundraiser.
On Sado Island, just off the west coast of Japan, a soba master cuts traditional soba noodles. While the ingredients are simple, making soba with consistency, uniformity and speed is not — something I quickly learned when I hatcheted my way through the process after his demonstration. But he made it look so easy: deftly folding dry and wet into one another until the dough kissed (but didn’t cling to) his fingers; rolling it out to a perfect paper moon of even and precise thickness; then dusting, folding and cutting it like a metronome, 5mm, 5mm, 5mm, 5mm. He seemed merely to think soba, and out it would come.
In my other life, I designed the packaging for Les Garagistes, a small winemaking cooperative in Portland. The concept: every wine features something you'd find in a French garage, and the nature of that tool, part or toy says something about the distinct character of the varietal it labels. I'm proud to say these labels were featured on the Communication Arts website.
Blending wine takes a surprising amount of focus and concentration, so after Les Garagistes spent a session building their Bordeaux-style blend, it was time to eat well and simply enjoy wines for a change. This time, one of the Garagistes crafted a paella as complex and beautiful as the wine they’d just created.