Building a tasting menu isn't a weekend project. For Chef Chuck Hayworth of theresortchef.com, the spring menu alone took nearly a year to develop — tasting over a dozen Chardonnays and half a dozen Sauvignon Blancs from across North Carolina before locking in every pairing. Every wine on the menu comes from within 60 to 75 miles of his home base in Boone, the kind of farm-to-table commitment most restaurants only talk about.
The spring menu features courses like asparagus, lemon seared trout, spring chicken with ancient grains, goat cheese, and a lemon olive oil cake for dessert — each paired with wines from the region, including a Linville dry white. And the summer menu, coming the second or third week of June, brings in heirloom tomatoes, mountain berries, and a whole new slate of North Carolina pairings.
But the episode highlight might be Chef Chuck's search for the perfect wine to accompany a 5-to-7-hour braised short rib. His answer: orange wine from Hanover Park in the Yadkin Valley — one of the first producers of orange wine in North Carolina, crafting French varietals with a spicy back-palate finish that bridges the world between red and white. It's the pairing nobody expected, and it works.
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