MURRAY'S IN NYC
HOSTS HUDSON-CHATHAM WINERY
FOR WINE & CHEESE PAIRING CLASS


On July 18th, 2011 Murray's Cheese in NYC hosted "Harmony of Wine and Cheese with Hudson-Chatham Winery."



"While it's difficult to imagine not enjoying a sip of wine with a hunk of your favorite cheese, certain combinations will particularly titillate your tongue and make your soul sing. Join us as we welcome vintners Dominique and Carlo DeVito Hudson-Chatham Winery, whose award winning wines will be paired with a selection of our cave aged cheeses by Louise Geller, Murray’s Director of Mail Order. Learn what cheese types best match these wines and get insider tips on how to find the right match on your own. Join us for a pairing session to explicate the essential fundamentals of wine and cheese harmony," read Murray's website.



Instructors Dominique and Carlo DeVito and Sascha Ingram lead the class.





Sascha Ingram is the Education and Events Coordinator at Murray's Cheese. Sascha Ingram just can't stop talking about cheese. After studying English and working in education, Sascha followed her nose (and her tastebuds!) to Forward Foods, a cheese and specialty foods shop in her native Oklahoma, where she spent the next few years turning on her fellow Okies to the wonders of Epoisses and Uplands Cheese Company Pleasant Ridge Reserve. After she had nearly memorized The Murray's Cheese Handbook, she tried her hand at the Murray's counter, eventually finding her way into the classroom, where you might catch her introducing the basics in Cheese 101, waxing poetic on the origins of cheese in Cheese U Boot Camp, or leading you through the ins and outs of affinage in Mystery of the Caves.



The class was a lot of fun, and we hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did! Special thanks to Sascha!

CRAZY GRAPES TV
RAVES ABOUT
HUDSON-CHATHAM
BACO NOIR OLD VINES 2009

Bill Hyatt is a wine educator, wine professional, and sommelier. But more importantly, he simply loves wine!

"I started this show as a medium to share my passion for wine with others. I hope that through this show I can help you to increase your enjoyment and understanding of wine. While I will accept donations to support this show, I will not let those donations effect the reviews of the wines I will be tasting," says Bill on his website.

Thanks Bill!

See the review at:
http://crazygrapes.tv/season-1-episode-3/

EDIBLE MANHATTAN LOVES
PAPERBIRCH CASSIS
OF GOOD FARM

Amy Zavato wrote a wonderful story in the July/August issue of EDIBLE MANHATTAN entitled THE CURRANT'S SCOND COMING about the success of cassis in the Hudson Valley. The Hudson Valley is fast becoming known as the New Burgundy for its bright, minerally whites, soft, medium bodied reds, fresh farm house ciders, and cassis.

Our CASSIS OF GOOD FARM is a thick, intense berry wine with a tart finish. It has sold out every year!
Today, with more than 12,000 bottles produced in 2011, the Hudson Valley is the largest producer of artisanal cassis. Estimates range as high as 15-20,000 bottles for next year.

Jason and Jeremy of Warwick Valley featured in article.

Thanks Edible Manhattan!

HUDSON-CHATHAM
HUDSON RIVER VALLEY RED
NOW AVAILABLE WITH NEW LABEL



Every year we change the label of our wine. This year we chose KINDRED SPIRITS by Asher Brown Durand.

Kindred Spirits depicts the previously deceased painter Thomas Cole and his friend poet William Cullen Bryant in the Catskill Mountains. The landscape, which combines geographical features like Fawns Leap in Kaaterksill Clove and a minuscule depiction of Kaaterskill Falls, is not a literal record of a particular site but an idealized memory of Thomas Cole's discovery of the region more than twenty years prior to the canvas's execution. The painting is currently held in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas.

The painting was commissioned by New York art collector Jonathan Sturges as a gift to Bryant in appreciation of his eulogy of Coles. Its title was inspired by John Keats' "Sonnet to Solitude". Bryant's daughter Julia donated the painting to the New York Public Library in 1904. In 2005, it was sold at auction for $35 million, a record for a painting by an American artist.

Especially owing to the fact that Thomas Coles, who was a resident of Catskill, was one of the subjects of this painting, and that it depicts Katerskill Falls, another local attraction, we felt there was no better paining we could choose. The painting is one of the most famous works of art of the Hudson River School of painting, an it location and subjects made it all the more personal for us at Hudson-Chatham. And the Hudson River Valley Red has been our most popular wine, with last year's label winning the People's Choice award for Best Label at the Hudson Valley Wine magazine label competition.

Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796 – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School. Durand was born in and eventually died in Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village), the eighth of eleven children; his father was a watchmaker and a silversmith.

Durand was apprenticed to an engraver from 1812 to 1817, later entering into a partnership the owner of the firm, who asked him to run the firm's New York branch. He engraved Declaration of Independence for John Trumbull in 1823, which established Durand's reputation as one of the country's finest engravers. Durand helped organize the New York Drawing Association in 1825, which would become the National Academy of Design; he would serve the organization as president from 1845 to 1861.

His interest shifted from engraving to oil painting around 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. In 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School.



Durand is particularly remembered for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth."

Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general views on art in his "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical. Wrote Durand, "[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation..."

Durand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in a Catskills landscape. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon his death in 1848. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the New York Public Library in 1904, was sold by the library through Sotheby's at an auction in May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million. The sale was conducted as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known. At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time.



Another of Durand's painting is his 1853 Progress, commissioned by a railroad executive. The landscape depicts America's progress, from a state of nature (on the left, where Native Americans look on), towards the right, where there are roads, telegraph wires, a canal, warehouses, railroads, and steamboats.

In 2007, the Brooklyn Museum exhibited nearly sixty of Durand's works in the first monographic exhibition devoted to the painter in more than thirty-five years. The show, entitled "Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape," was on view from March 30 to July 29, 2007.