vidacycle

Just over 20 years ago Daniella Gillmore started out on a long journey, to create a family boutique winery with fruitful vineyards in the Loncomilla Valley, Maule. A place where people can come, discover their wines, and learn about the heritage and history of the valley. Where drinking wine is about nurturing the soul and connecting to the land and its people.

The first 10 years were spent caring for the vines and their granite soils, building beautiful accommodation and a dining room for guests to soak up the local flavours and have somewhere to stay. They cultivated 20 acres of vineyards, all dry farmed – just the rainwater giving the grapes their flavour. This region is perfect for vines to flourish with almost no intervention, the low-yielding vines are over 80 years old so bring out the distinct soulful flavours of the land.

The next 10 years were about perfecting their wines and to understand what they want to show the world about the Maule…Daniella is married to winemaker Andres Sanchez, so once she perfects the grapes in the vineyard he ensures the wines have the character and soul of the region. In their words this is ‘handcrafted work on a human scale’.

All was going well with their Cabernet Franc winning multiple awards and all their other wines rated very highly by critics around the world…however on 27th Feb 2010 03.34 AM the earth started shaking violently… It was the 5th largest earthquake ever recorded at 8.8 on the richter scale with the epicentre just 80km away from their farm. Thankfully everyone on the farm was ok but the wine cellar and many of the buildings were devastated. This was a real blow to a small family farm like the Gillmore’s, they had to rebuild a lot of what they had created just 10 years earlier and a lot of the wine was lost.

Daniella and Andres were not defeated, they love their family farm, the opportunity to make wines with soul and to share the wonderful quality of life the Maule Region offers. Their wines continue to win many more awards, they have their own beer called Kuhla beer, sold internationally and their wine is accessible globally through Naked Wines and other distribution channels. Daniella says the next 10 year is about sharing their joy of life with more people around the globe, so they invite you to come visit and experience this special place on earth, or you can buy a bottle to taste the soul. You can find out more about Gillmore winery here.

One of the interesting things about creating products that are either particularly unique or not well-known by people is that they there is no language set out to describe them. Even the rich orange-pink colour of the wine is complex to convey. Tinte also has a wealth of flavour not found in many more conventional wines as we have stuck to the completely natural process – the farming and care of the vines and the soil determines the flavours, not the addition of yeast and sulphites starting and stopping the fermentation at will. This is natural wine at its best – unpredictable, flavourful and refreshing.

The other product produced from our 100 year old vines is agraz (or verjus) a little-known waste-product of wine-making. It’s made in early Summer when the vines are thinned and all the lower hanging green grapes removed. These green grapes are sugarless and produce an extremely bitter but fresh grape juice that is used instead of lemon or vinegar to balance sauces, drinks and dressings.

So we invited round some of our friends who have supported us along the way in making these products to drink the wine and eat food prepared with our agraz, olive oil and TINTE and see what words they used, and what flavours they liked.

Jeremy and Joy were the chefs…read more in part 2.

We shared our olive oil, agraz and the Tinte wine with our friend Jeremy, a young chef who has done stints at Noma and Dinner both 2 Michelin Star destinations, and is now opening up his own restaurant Ikoyi. He is amazingly creative with flavours and has heard lots about Fundo Meza for many years…so he is the perfect person to explore different dishes using our ingredients. Joy Rose, part of the vidacycle team and culinary crafter, also made some simpler and super delicious concoctions for starters and a salad. Our friend Claudia also took all these great photos.

Jeremy made crisped chicken thigh, with agraz brown butter emulsion, and cashew tahini in a cabbage taco and a ‘grapes through the seasons’ dessert, both were indescribably good. We all just sat there in silence for a few minutes, stunned and humbled by the wonderful flavours. The whole evening brought out the power of good quality food and the wholehearted wonder in feeling connected to the land.

You can hear more about Joy’s recipes and thoughts here. Jeremy also talked us through the way he approached each dish…

Grapes through the seasons – cold pear in agraz syrup and hot pear in Tinte wine caramel with thyme crumble (butter and ground almonds toasted with fresh thyme leaves and salt)

The inspiration for the pear dish is the change of seasons, the evolution of the grapes from unripe, tangy and sharp, to sweet, rich and fermented. The hot and cold elements, the chilled verjus (agraz) pears set against the warm pears stewed in mulled Tinte wine caramel is intended to bring out dominant flavours for the two seasons- refreshing, zingy and cool, versus spiced and warming. The thyme crumble gives the dish some crunch, the slight salinity brings out all the other sweetness, and the fresh thyme cuts through everything subtly, cooling it all down and giving the dish a unique hint of savoury.

Crisped chicken thigh, with agraz brown butter emulsion, and cashew tahini in a cabbage taco

The chicken dish was just for fun, to taste like a taco but with the complex richness of the agraz brown butter emulsion. I liked the idea of “hiding” everything inside the translucent cabbage leaf. You bite into it and underneath there are all these flavours: the rice roasted cashew tahini, the crispy chicken skin and juicy meat, and then the mildly acidic but butterscotch flavour of the sauce, with some sharpness from the capers and fragrance from the fresh parsley. It’s a complete dish and well balanced, also looks pretty cool.

Jeremy also created this recipe with our Agraz.