Washington Grown is made possible by funding from the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program.

And by The Potato Farmers of Washington.

Learn why Washington is home to the world's most productive potato fields and farmers by visiting potatoes.com.

- Hi everyone, I'm Kristi Gorenson.

And welcome to Washington Grown.

Our state has made a name for itself in the world of great wine and spirits.

In this episode, we're gonna learn how the industry is emerging as a leader in sustainable and diverse growing practices.

Tomás is visiting Frichette Winery.

- Am I gonna pucker?

- Oh, you, you will.

- Ooo.

[amused chuckling] - That's pucker.

- And I'm making a special duck dish at Gander and Ryegrass in Spokane.

I love how much you care about the food.

Food is your love language, right?

- That's right.

- Plus I'm checking out Dry Fly's new line of delicious canned cocktails.

I mean, this is like summer in a can with Washington ingredients.

All this and more today on Washington Grown.

[relaxed background melody chiming] - This is favorite part of the day.

- You gave me this job just to keep me occupied, didn't you?

This is what fine dining is all about right here.

[distant beagle barking] - I could eat these all day.

- You all make this look so simple, and easy.

- Cheers to that!

- I only hang out in pretty potato fields.

[chuckling] [airplane engine roaring] - It seems to be no accident that Gander and Ryegrass here in Spokane is seated right next to a bookstore.

Their multi-course menu offers a variety of dishes with each piece like a chapter of the overarching story.

From small single bite dishes, to larger more filling plates.

Everything here is crafted with love, care, and attention.

- Everything is decadent and rich without being heavy, and, and over the top.

- Every single time you get any type of dish, they come out, they explain everything like down to the garnish, down to what they've used.

And it's, it's definitely an experience, versus just you get an entree, and you eat, and you leave.

It's definitely an experience.

- Chef and owner, Peter Froese, specifically designs his menus around simple concepts.

Crafting incredible dishes that are fresh, and unique in order to create the perfect experience for his guests.

- So gander is a male goose.

It's something that's kind of special.

But if you use it as a verb, gander is something that like catches your eye.

Want to keep, keep looking at it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And so we, we kind of take that all to mean something that's special, or excellent, and pairing it with something that's very normal.

Ryegrass is something as simple as your front lawn.

And so we kind of take those ideas, and put 'em together.

- You don't just get one menu item.

You kind of have a little experience, or an adventure every time you do it.

And I like that a lot.

- But at the end of the day, we wanna make sure that you're satiated, or as my family likes to say, sufficiently safancified.

[Kristi amused chuckling] - Love that.

Stay tuned later in the show, when Chef Peter and I make a special duck dish with rye berry salad, and brown butter apples.

Can we just talk about the ginormous tweezers.

that we have here today?

This is what fine dining is all about right here.

[peaceful background melody chiming] - Anyone who makes wine knows that the Yakima Valley is a prime spot to grow amazing wine grapes.

And anyone who likes to drink wine will tell you that local places like Frichette Winery make some of the best wine around.

Co-owner Shay Frichette is the dynamic personality behind the bottle.

- So where did you get your expertise?

- Well, I drank wine.

So, I mean like how much of an expert do you need?

You get your expertise from drinking wine.

- Shay took us up to a spot overlooking Shaw Vineyard.

Vineyards like this one are all based in the Red Mountain AVA, or American Viticulture Area.

That means that this spot is known across the nation as one of the best places in the world to grow wine grapes.

- Although we have 20 AVAs in the state of Washington, all of these AVAs taste very differently.

So wine is about tasting a place.

So when you taste a Red Mountain cab, you're tasting Red Mountain.

The grapes here are more intense, and assertive when it comes to the tannin structure than you find in a lot of areas of our state.

So, think about weather, climate, soil, the way the wind blows, all of those factors, the amount of water you get, or not get.

All of those factors come together, and make what's called terroir.

- Next Shea and I decided to peruse the cabernet.

What characteristics make a good cab grape?

- Well, the basic thing is you wanna have it ripe, and you wanna have it intense.

So you do get a lot of big dark berry, plum, in cabernet sauvignon.

If you pick it too early, you can get some greenness in it.

- Okay.

- So, we actually like to let it hang for a little bit longer.

They're gonna change, and they're gonna get less acidic, and more sweet.

As the acid decreases, the sugar's gonna rise, and you get more flavor development too.

- In order to get the perfect sugar content, and the perfect flavor, they test the grapes using a refractometer.

- When we do berry samples, we'll just take like a few berries.

We won't do any of the green ones.

We'll just pull some of the purple ones off, and then you're gonna squeeze the juice... - Okay.

- just onto this glass here.

- Okay.

- You're gonna close it.

And then you're gonna hold it up in the light, and look.

- So now the number's on the left, it's about close to 15, but it's about 14.

- Okay, so a little over 14 brix.

- And where do you want this to be?

Like, do you have a zone?

- Oh yeah, so our zone is between 24 and 26, so that's where we want to play in right there.

- Okay, so we got some time.

- Yeah, we do.

- Of course, there's no better way to test for flavor than to just give them a try.

- Am I gonna pucker?

- Oh, you, you will.

- Ooo!

[Shay amused chuckling] - That's pucker.

- Out of all the wines made at Frichette, Shay's favorite is especially inspired.

- I saw my first black female winemaker a few years ago.

I had never seen a black female winemaker.

I was so inspired that I wanted to create a wine that was more of an expression of me.

I dreamt up this label called Sashay.

Sashay's a play on my name.

But I love the word, because my mom and her sisters used to go, "Look at you sashaying like you don't have a care in the world."

The wine is bold and the back of the label says, "You are strong.

You are courageous.

You are fierce.

You have the ability to create positive change in this world.

So lift your chin, push your shoulders back, and sashay, girl sashay."

- I think we need to go down, and Sashay.

- I think we need to Sashay too.

Yes!

- Let's do it.

[Shay soft chuckling] I mean, first off, look at the label.

- Look at this label.

- I mean, like, how can this not be a favorite, right?

- "Sashay."

- "Sashay."

It is going to hug your palette, and show you love.

- This is it, huh?

- This is it.

- This is your fave.

- That's my fave.

- Okay, let's see what it's all about, huh?

I once heard somebody say, "How you tell the difference between a good wine, and a bad wine?"

And they say, "Well, if you like it, it's a good wine."

[chuckling] - That's very true.

"If you like it, it's a good wine."

- That's really good.

- Well, thank you.

- No, that was really good.

It's got a little bite to it.

- Yep.

- Just to say "Hi, I'm here."

- I mean, look at the label.

- Exactly.

- Yes, it's gonna have some bite to it.

- If you're gonna Sashay, you better Sashay.

[laughing] - Cheers to that.

[glasses clinking] - Washington is a popular place for beers, and brews, but what about something a little stronger?

Way back in season one, we visited Dry Fly Distilling in Spokane.

They're knocking it out of the park with their vodkas, whiskey, gin, and other products.

And their new location downtown has allowed them to stretch their legs, and make even more drinks for us to enjoy.

- All of our production equipment is about anywhere from five to ten times the size.

- Jack is an operator at Dry Fly Distilling.

Their newest adventure has been their canning line, which has allowed them to make cocktails made with Washington herbs for anyone, anywhere.

- Cans are gonna come down the arm, they're gonna hit the fillers.

Fills 'em up, they'll move through, it'll drop a lid.

In this next section, it gets rinsed, blown off, and then finally quad packed where we case 'em up.

So our most popular is absolutely the Huckleberry Lemonade.

All of our lemon is absolutely real squeeze lemon.

It's a process getting it all into the batching tank, but it's absolutely worth it.

The huckleberry is purchased right out of Washington.

- Yeah.

- Spicy lemonade is pretty cool.

We chop and blend jalapeños with vodka, essentially, and let it saturate over a few days.

Remove the jalapeños, and the alcohol basically pulls out all the flavor from that, and then we end up with a spicy vodka.

And then that's our flavor base.

- Yeah.

And the whole movement of these canned drinks.

That's kind of cool.

- They're definitely taking off.

For Dry Fly it has been awesome.

- Dry Fly embraces a farm to bottle approach, and believes that great spirits start with great ingredients.

Using Washington grain, wheat, herbs, and other products, they're keeping things local.

- So we get most of our grain from Wisota farms, so most of our wheat, our triticale,...

So I think it's really important to people that things are found locally, and that they taste real.

- It's finally time to taste a freshly canned Dry Fly Huckleberry Lemonade.

- Cheers!

- Thank you.

- Okay.

Whoo!

It's very refreshing.

Very lemony and tart, but put the hint of the huckleberry in there.

This is so good.

I mean, this is like summer in a can with Washington ingredients.

Love it.

Cheers.

- Fantastic.

[relaxed background melody chiming] - What is the most widely grown red wine grape variety in the state of Washington?

Don't go anywhere.

You'll find out the answer after the break.

- Coming up, I'm making a special duck dish at Gander and Ryegrass.

- This, rye berries... - Can we just talk about the ginormous tweezers that we have here today?

This is what fine dining is all about right here.

And we're in The Kitchen at Second Harvest trying out some Easy Berry Sangria.

[relaxed background melody chiming] - What is the most widely grown red wine grape variety in the state of Washington?

The answer is... Cabernet Sauvignon.

[upbeat background melody chiming] - We're back at Gander and Ryegrass in Spokane.

Gorgeous plates, incredible food, and specially paired wines with each dish create an enchanting, and magical atmosphere.

Chef and owner, Peter Froese.

Is the mastermind in the kitchen, making sure each dish is delivered with special flair, and flavor.

- Probably the heart of what we do is chef's marathon.

So the idea is that there's a lot of food that comes out, and it feels like a little bit of a food marathon.

- And they bring you little side dishes, and little tasty bits that aren't on the menu.

Sometimes it's just a bite and sometimes it's a little bit more.

- You don't just get one menu item, you kind of have a little experience, or an adventure every time you do it.

And I like that a lot.

- It's incredible, and still a locally sourced product.

It's not that you have to go to some other country to be wowed.

It's something that we can access in the inland Northwest.

- It really comes down to what is, what's available, what we can get our hands on.

We try to work seasonally.

We try to work with our local purveyors as much as possible.

It also gives it a sense of like, every time I come here, there's something different.

There's something that's changing.

- So we have this lovely wine on the table, and we're gonna be pairing this?

- Yeah, this is one of my favorites.

We've kept it on for quite a while.

We're gonna pair it with some duck, rye berries, and a whole bunch of fresh ingredients.

- Okay, sounds good.

- All right, let's do this.

The key to cooking good meat is letting it rest.

- Letting it rest?

- As many times as possible.

So, so that it'll be a nice even cook, and we won't overcook it.

Which is usually where dry meat comes in to play.

- Yeah.

We start by making the salad, I chop up some greens while chef adds rye berries, salt, pepper, sugar, olive oil, and vinegar, then tosses it all together.

Do you have a relationship with like, local farmers, and that sort of thing?

- We sure do.

Last summer I counted nine farmers that we work with.

- That's awesome.

- And it's always a Monday morning text.

- "This is what we have."

- Yep, yep.

- Next, we make a slaw with Washington apples, kohlrabi, chives, and radish.

Then we baste the duck in a brown butter bath.

There's a lot of butter.

- I highly doubt they we're gonna use all of it.

- Oh, really?

I was kind of hoping... - I mean, we can make a bowl for if you want.

- Okay, a side bowl of butter.

While the duck rests, we baste some apples, and mushrooms.

How long does this cook for?

[Chef Petter chuckling] - Until they're done.

- Until they're done.

- I think one of the most important things that I teach my cooks is, you're an adult, you have to pay attention.

If you're gonna be cooking, and people are gonna be paying for your effort, you need to pay attention.

So,... - I love how much you care about the food.

Food is your love language, right?

- That's right.

[Kristi chuckling] So, one thing I made ahead of time, is this carrot puree.

It'll just add a little bit bit more texture to the plate.

- I totally thought it was mustard.

Carrot puree makes so much more sense.

Can we just talk about the ginormous tweezers that we have here today?

This is what fine dining is all about right here.

[relaxed background melody chiming] That's gorgeous.

- Duck with rye berry salad, oyster mushrooms, brown butter apples.

- And of course no meal is complete without a glass of Washington wine.

- This is Robert Ramsey's Cincault.

I'm sure somebody could give you a lot of information about it.

I just know that I like it.

- That's the way wine should be, right?

- Yep.

- I just know that I like it.

- Just that light smokiness.

- Oh, it's nice.

It's very light, yeah.

Let's dig in.

- Go for it.

- How?

[Chef Peter chuckling] I love dishes like this, 'cause it's like, exciting to kind of work your way around the plate.

Okay.

It's rich, and then tangy, smooth, and then crunchy.

It's like the perfect dish.

And then you've got this incredible wine that goes with it.

- That's me.

- That's you.

You do great.

- Well, thanks.

I love it.

To find more Washington grown restaurants, farms, and food visit us on Facebook.

[relaxed background melody chiming] - Grapes are not only good for drinking, there is tons of other ways to utilize them.

One of probably the most common being jams and jellies.

And so we are going to make jelly today with this.

And it's so, so easy.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take about four pounds of grapes, because we need four cups of the grape juice.

And then we're going to use an apple, because we're gonna do this with a natural pectin.

And so the seeds, and the kind of the core on the inside of the apple has a natural pectin in it.

Okay, from here we are going to just turn it on low until we get everything all mashed up, and really stirred well there.

And then we're gonna turn it up.

We wanna do like, a rapid boil for about 10 minutes, and then we're gonna let it simmer for a little bit, and thicken.

And then we will set it aside until tomorrow.

Now that we have simmered it, and allowed it to just cool a little bit, we are gonna go ahead, and we are going to strain the grapes now into the colander.

Okay, and at this point in time, we've had this sitting for about an hour.

You can see the consistency.

Everything is pretty well drained out there.

So we're gonna set it aside, and this is what we have left.

We are gonna put some saran wrap on this.

We're gonna put it in the fridge for about 12 hours, or until tomorrow morning.

And then we're gonna strain it one more time, and finish the process.

Now that we've strained all this out, we are going to add four cups into a sauce pan.

We are going to add to it three cups of sugar.

And now we're gonna take it to the stove, and we're going to turn it on high right away, and we're gonna rapid boil it for 10 minutes.

So it firms everything up.

The pectin reacts with the sugar, and it should create the thickening.

Now that this has boiled enough, we are going to put it in the jars.

Look at that color in there.

It's so pretty.

We're gonna seal the rest up with the lids, and we're gonna place them in the water bath canner in the boiling water for five minutes.

And then you're gonna place it on a nice cloth on your countertop.

And you're going to leave them on your counters for about 12 hours, or until they're just like room temperature to the touch.

Homemade is always the best.

I stand behind it a hundred percent.

You guys need to make this.

Try it in your kitchen soon.

This is a very condensed version of the recipe.

For the full recipe go to wagrown.com.

- Coming up, Tomás and I are sharing a special hotdog creation at Winey Dogs.

We have fun.

- We have fun.

[glasses clinking] [relaxed background melody chiming] - Wine grapes have always been very important to us here at Washington Grown.

And we love learning innovative new ways to grow them.

I stopped by Two Mountain Winery in Zillah to talk with Ron Patrick about their holistic sustainable approach to viticulture.

- The three main pillars relative to sustainability are environmental.

So what are we doing, our impact on the environment, understanding that... And Sustainable WA program has a heavy focus on sort of human resources, and social impact.

So what are we doing to take care of our team?

That's a big factor for us as our most valuable asset is the team we've built.

The third pillar is economic, is we can be the best farmers in the world, but if we can't do that and stay in business, it doesn't mean anything.

So the sustainable changes is really just a series of best management practices.

So what are kind of the key factors in growing,... and how can we more holistically sort of manage our farm?

And as an example, we're starting to deploy what we're referencing as a floor to floor cover model.

- Okay.

- So, historically we would've kept underneath the vine row clean of any weeds.

That was always done, 'cause you were like, "Okay, the weeds are gonna compete with the vines for nutrients, and for water."

But as we've jumped in and we start to look at it, you think, Okay, the weeds aren't that much of a competition.

And the benefit we think we're getting from that is reducing soil temperatures, retaining water, so we're getting less evaporation out of the soil, 'cause we've got that cover crop.

- So tell me about this.

- So this is a soil moisture monitoring probe.

Underground here there's a soil moisture probe that measures soil moisture in real time every four inches all the way down to 36 inches.

So we're able to see the irrigation we're putting on, how it's moving through the soil.

When we first deployed the sensors five or six years ago, we saw like an immediate 25% reduction in water usage.

It was just amazing.

Like, clearly I was over watering.

Water's a a really finite resource, and we should be doing everything we can to use as little of it as possible.

We're able to grow better grapes at less cost, and use less resources.

The way we farm in the not so distant future is gonna look a whole lot different.

And we're gonna look back and go, "How did we do that?"

You know, like I, I look back and go, "How did my grandparents farm without a cell phone?"

And the next generation is gonna look back and be like, "How did you farm without a data scientist on farm?

I don't understand."

Like, this is gonna be different.

You know?

- Yeah.

[upbeat background melody chiming] - Hey, let's go!

- Does anything go better with an ice cold beer than a hot dog?

Well, today we're at Single Hill Brewing in Yakima to find out.

And I'm meeting up with Deann Welch of Winey Dogs, where they're designing a huge menu of delicious hot dogs.

But the secret to their success are the fresh veggies grown right here in the Yakima Valley.

- Every week we do a new dog of the week, and then we write down which ones did well.

People bring us different foods, or bring us suggestions.

It's like,... "Let's think about this."

- Today, we're trying out the Banh Mi dog, made with locally grown pickled veggies, a sriracha aioli, and topped with jalapeños.

Now this thing looks beautiful.

It is a banh mi, but there's a big juicy hotdog in.

- Yes.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

- Banh mi style.

- Blink.

- The hotdog's delicious.

And then all those veggies, very fresh, very light.

And you're right, that little jalapeño hit is really, really good with that dog.

- Yeah.

- That is nice.

That's too bad I just got a half.

[Tomás chuckling] - Now it's time to take these dogs to the patrons of the brewery to see if the Banh Mi Dog is the perfect match for an ice cold brew.

[relaxed background melody chiming] - Really good.

- That's really good.

- Nice sweet, and tangy toppings.

- I can just grab that whole thing, and take a good bite.

- Yep.

- Cilantro really makes it.

- Now what's gonna be a good beer pairing with this guy?

- I'd say a good beer pairing would be the Adams Pilsner.

- The Adams Pilsner to go with the Banh Mi Dog.

Well that sounded like a great idea to me, so I met up with the famous Kristi Gorenson to try out a dog and a beer together.

It's the perfect pairing.

It's the perfect pairing.

It's all set right here.

Cheers.

- Cheers.

- All right, here we go.

- It's nice, and tangy, and all over my face.

[Tomás chuckling] - Any opportunity to share a meal with Kristi is a good one.

So,... - We have fun.

- We have fun.

[upbeat background melody chiming] - Welcome back.

We're in The Kitchen at Second Harvest Food Bank in Spokane, where we are trying recipes from allrecipes.com.

And I have my taste testers joining me today.

We have a chef and culinary arts instructor, Laurent Zirroti.

Thank you.

- Thank you for... - We appreciate your... - for having me.

- expertise.

- Thank you very much.

- And we have Tomás who also has great expertise.

- Oh, why thank you, Kristi.

It's good to see everybody at home too.

Thanks for watching.

- Yes.

So today, this is the Wine and Spirits episode, which is always one of my favorite episodes.

- Yes, it is, isn't it?

- I enjoy it a lot.

And we're going to be trying Easy Berry Sangria.

I don't know much about sangria, but it's, I know it's wine.

- Yeah, red wine.

It's, it's a Spanish drink.

Very refreshing, you can serve it on ice.

We'll see the recipe today.

And there is some Washington fruit, but don't be afraid, especially in the summer, to use exotic fruit.

- Oh, nice.

- Star fruit, that's beautiful.

Some papaya, some even mango in, in the, in the sangria.

Just bring some really, really fresh, and exotic flavor to that wine.

- And this has, you know, Washington grown berries, Washington wine, Washington brandy.

- Wow.

Great.

- Yeah, so a true... - The Washington drink.

- That's right.

This is by NeverMeasureChef.

- Okay.

- Okay.

And the chef says, "I love berries, and put as many as I can into this easy, and refreshing summer sangria."

Let's find out how they make it.

- Yeah, I'm excited.

- Santé.

[relaxed background melody chiming] - Santé.

- Santé!

- Salud.

- This is the first, we're usually not just focused on a drink, you know.

But there is still food in there.

- It's so pretty.

Yeah, there is.

- All right, bottoms up.

- Bottom up, I don't know.

- Oh, that's good.

Yeah, I can really taste the wine.

- Yeah, that's dangerous.

- Oh, very much so, Tomás.

Yeah, very much so.

Because you'll just go to town on that.

- Especially with the sugar and the fruit, you'll, you'll have an easy headache if you drink too much of that.

But I think it's fantastic if you want to drink.

If you want to it drink strained, you can just strain the fruit, and put it on ice to make it a little more refreshing.

- So, the key to this, I guess, is, is kind of letting it sit with the fruit... - Yes.

- for a little bit?

- You want the fruit to, to macerate in the wine.

Bring the flavor of the fruit to the wine.

And that's why those fruits are great because they, they, they taste like wine.

- This a little dangerous though.

- It is.

And you know what, but this is great.

I mean, for wine lovers.

- It's so good.

- We're gonna get a chance to have something fresh, and wonderful to serve at a summer party, summer event.

And maybe there's some wine purists out there that would never put fruit in their wine, and that's fine too.

But this is pretty tasty.

- Yes, it is.

Very tasty.

- You don't want to make with premium high...high end wine.

Right?

That you drink it on its own.

You buy something, I don't want to say cheap, but affordable... - Right.

- that you like, that is decent, and then you can make those kind of mix.

Because it's the same, same way as cooking you, you don't cook with premium wine.

You, you cook with affordable wine.

- Gotcha.

That makes sense.

- Well, cheers.

- Cheers to you.

To a beautiful new season.

- Indeed.

- Washington Grown.

To get the recipe for Easy Berry Sangria, visit wagrown.com.

Washington farmers do more than just keep up with cutting edge technology, they're the ones leading the way.

That'll do it for this episode of Washington Grown.

We'll see you next time.