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Ed Williams
‘We’re doing one thing cutting-edge right here. Of us will catch on finally,” says Nick von Cosmos, proprietor and winemaker at Stardust Cellars in Wilkesboro, an hour west of Greensboro.
Stardust Cellars is North Carolina’s first biodynamic farm making wines and meads by a course of — methode ancestrale — courting to the 1530s in France. The traditional method entails bottling the wine half manner by its major fermentation, trapping carbon dioxide fuel which produces a barely carbonated wine when opened.
This wine model is pet-nat — pétillant naturel. It doesn’t bear a secondary fermentation and requires huge human intervention over prolonged time. The wine beneath increased CO2 strain is capped (like beer), not corked. The high-risk course of is like sitting throughout from a Vegas Black Jack vendor whereas additionally enjoying Russian roulette.
Stardust’s grapes are foot-stomped and pressed in small baskets to softly extract juices. The farming focuses on biodynamic and sustainable methods, together with Southdown Babydoll sheep within the vines to get rid of weeds and, ahem, add fertilizer.
Nick von Cosmos walked me by his present portfolio: wines produced from Traminette and Pinot Gris that develop in Moravian Falls and North Wilkesboro and meads produced from native honey with varied taste profiles.
The wines had been fizzy and recent, evocative of the fruit profiles of Traminette and Pinot Gris. The meads weren’t cloying or sticky. Solely barely candy, a freshness and lightness jumps from the glass.
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