Tag Archives: April Lisante

9 Reasons to Start Drinking Local Wine

DRINK

Still caught between gifts for next week? Go with an all-local wine tasting. You’ll both be surprised by the breadth of it—you especially because you’ll know how cheaply it came.

By April Lisante

Maybe save the vineyard strolling for more hospitable conditions and head straight for the bar, where it’s warm and toasty, and getting more so with each pour.

If, like us, you’re not in the fortunate position of plotting an escape from this gloomy winter to Tuscany or Napa, there’s still a consolation prize to be had. Through the end of April, the nine-member Bucks County Wine Trail is offering a $20-pass that buys you a tasting at each vineyard. (Cough. Valentine’s Day. Cough.)

The vineyards, which cover about 30 miles, from Rose Bank in Newtown to Unami Ridge in Quakertown, are sampling reds and whites, along with several unexpected varieties, including Rieslings and fruit wines. All are family-owned and -operated, ranging in size from just a few acres to over 70, and some have been around for decades. (The wine trail itself has been a thing since 2004.)

“Our mission was to educate people about agro-tourism and winemaking,” says Theresa Katalinas, a spokesperson for the wine trail.

More specifically, it’s to introduce them to us, their neighbors. Joseph Maxian has been making Riesling since the eighties at Sand Castle Winery in bucolic Erwinna, but out-of-towners comprise the great majority of his visitors. Sand Castle’s out of the way, but Maxian’s hardly been operating on the down-low all this time. Large signs along River Road announce the approach of the winery’s entrance, which, aside from the Golden Pheasant Inn, is the only business around for miles. And he regularly submits his vintages to international competitions.

“We taste it against the best in Europe, and no one can say which is better,” Maxian says. “But we are more known in New York City than Bucks County, so it will be nice to see if the trail brings us more locals. This county is great for wine. I see it as an eye-opener.”

Normally, tastings would range from $5 to $20 per person, on average, at each winery. They entail about a half-dozen three-quarter ounce pours—which can add up fast, especially when you’re driving to your next round. So bring a DD (which could spoil the mood) or pace yourselves across a few weekends. This isn’t a competition. Though, we don’t want to make any presumptions about how your partner will want to reward you at the end of it.

Jerry Forest planted his first vines in 1966—and then waited. Which makes his Buckingham Valley Vineyards, now in its 50th year, the trail’s granddaddy. “I played guitars, I drank wine. I felt like I was going to make a living of one or the other,” Forest says, with a laugh.

Forest, like many of the other wine trail vintners, experienced years of trial before producing his first bottle. Today, Buckingham Valley’s most known for its sparkling wines, in part because they’re a rarity for the region.

“That’s why this trail is nice. We are all different,” Forest says. “We aren’t in competition with one each other. We complement one another.”

Photos courtesy the Bucks County Wine Trail

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Made with Love (and Some Serious Skill)

DINING OUT

Tara Buzan and Alex Hardy are hopelessly in love and they want the Main Line to know it. There won’t be any PDAs, don’t worry. Just lots of impossibly good eating.

By April Lisante • Photography by Matthew J. Rhein

They met by chance, a year ago, two chefs with everything and nothing in common. Alex Hardy is a tattooed culinary renegade, honed for more than a decade in Philadelphia’s greatest kitchens. Tara Buzan is a Main Line native whose  passion for food and family inspire her home-cooked, catered meals. When they met, both had been on the local restaurant scene for years, having never crossed paths.

“He made me Chilean sea bass for our first date,” Buzan says. “It was the first time anyone had ever cooked for me.”

Last month, Buzan and Hardy unveiled At the Table BYOB, their first joint venture. It’s a 20-seat, upscale-American bistro in Wayne, just a stone’s throw from the Wayne Hotel on Louella Court. They want it to be a celebration of their love and a tribute to the passion they share for food.

After graduating from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in hospitality, Buzan began her food career in 2001 with a small catering company called To the Table Catering, delivering meals to Main Line homes. As one of three children, she says, “I grew up in an Italian family, and the idea of not sitting down to dinner with family was foreign to me.”

The catering business, featuring her soups, salads and homemade comfort foods, quickly burgeoned. After operating for six years from a storefront in Eagle Village in Wayne, she had a son (now six) and became a private, in-home chef for Main Line families.

Hardy, who graduated from Johnson and Wales at 21, was thrust into the frenzied Philadelphia restaurant culture and loved it. Working for a who’s who of chefs, he trained with Peter Gilmore, Patrick and Terence Feury, Georges Perrier and Daniel Stern, the Le Bec Fin prodigy who earned Perrier’s Michelin Five Star rating. Hardy learned to approach food with a scientific reverence. And tweezers.

“People always say, ‘Why do you use a tweezer to place microgreens?’ ” says Hardy, who most recently applied his classical French training as sous-chef at the new Autograph Brasserie in Wayne. “That’s how I see the food. I’m the type of guy where, even if it comes out great, I say it could have been better.”

Buzan and Hardy fell in love at first sight, and quickly began to discuss their ultimate dream, an intimate BYOB where fresh, local flavors and Hardy’s creativity could shine. Last July, they purchased the former French café Creperie Bechamel at the corner of Louella Court near Lancaster Avenue, and the plan came to life.

“I originally was thinking of turning this into a lunch café, but now that he is the chef, I am able to do what I truly wanted to do,” says Buzan, who now lives with Hardy. “I can do now what I wouldn’t have the capability to do without him.”

The white-linen dining room evokes a date-night—or, more likely, engagement-night—experience. Its postage-stamp kitchen promises plates constructed with careful attention, relying on monthly menu changes. Hardy’s debut menu features appetizers ranging from $16 to $26, and entrées from $31 to $42. The appetizers include potato bisque with parmesan and truffle infusion ($16) and foie gras with blackberry purée and asparagus ($26). Among the entrées: Wagyu beef tenderloin with charred white onion, carrot and peas ($42) and Tasmanian Sea Trout with hen egg purée (Tara’s favorite) ($35). A special tasting menu runs from $65 for five courses to $95 for eight.

Buzan will manage the front of the house, along with private parties and the catering, while Hardy will man the kitchen nightly. They plan to shave truffles tableside when dishes call for it, and aren’t averse to switching up ingredients daily.

At the Table will likely see overflow from the Wayne Hotel’s Paramour (where entrees range from $27 to $42). The aim is to evolve into a special-occasion and “luxurious-dining” destination.

“Our goal is that every night, we have our chefs have the mentality that we are going for the next Michelin Five Star,” says Hardy, who is hoping they can make this a family venture.

“I feel like if you are a family, and you stick it out together, you can do anything. “

At the Table, 11 Louella Court, Wayne; 610-964-9700.

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