With Their Trimmings: Driving the Thanksgiving Economy

By Thomas Heath, Alejandro Lazo

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Today, the table is being set —- by small businesses all around Loudoun. Meet just a couple of the entrepreneurs who make the Thanksgiving economy abundant.

PRODUCE: A Farmer's and Gourmet Supplier's Market

Farmer John Whitmore needed only a can of spray paint and a piece of plywood to prepare for Thanksgiving. That's how he promotes his fruits and vegetables outside his open-air market in Loudoun County.

"Stuff your turkey with our apples," Whitmore suggested.

Photo: James M. Thresher

John Whitmore, whose farm-stand season runs from peaches to pumpkins, suggests stuffing the turkey with apples.

For Whitmore, Thanksgiving means the end of the season for his market on Route 15, five miles north of Leesburg. The season began, as always, with ripening peaches and the promise of long, sunny days nurturing the abundance of fall.

Now it ends, with crisp nights — and squash, yams, pumpkins, hot peppers, green beans and practically every kind of apple one could hope for, Whitmore said.

"We have Ginger Gold, Gala, Macintosh, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious" and so on, Whitmore said. Fifteen varieties, to be exact. "That's quite a list of apples."

Of course he has pumpkins and butternut and cushaw squash. The neck pumpkins — ugly and long varieties of squash — carry the potential to become excellent pies, heavy as they are in starch, unlike the curvaceous varieties popular at Halloween.

The 1,000-acre farm has been in business since 1843 and in the family for five generations. Whitmore devotes about 45 acres of his farm to the mix of vegetables and fruits to be sold at his stand and wholesale to the gourmet grocer Wegmans. This, however, is not cranberry territory.

"I could get them in here, but nobody's been asking for them," Whitmore said. "So I will leave that to the grocery stores."

WINE: Supplying Republicans and Democrats

The chardonnay bottled at Piedmont Vineyards and Winery, located in Virginia horse country halfway between Middleburg and The Plains, has graced the holiday tables of two U.S. presidents.

In 1991, after a last-minute call from a District liquor store, winemaker John Fitter personally drove two cases of Special Reserve chardonnay into the city so that President George H.W. Bush could take it to Camp David for Thanksgiving.

Courtesy of Piedmont Vineyards and Winery, Inc.

And in December 1996, Piedmont's Native Yeast chardonnay was featured for the Christmas Holiday Dinner at the White House.

Over the past three decades, Virginia vineyards have multiplied from just a few to more than 100. One recent report said the state ranked fifth in the number of wineries.

Fitter and Piedmont's owner, Gerhard von Finck, are among the Virginia winemakers ready to fill Thanksgiving glasses. They like to recommend chardonnay, their signature item that they sell for about $16 a bottle, to their non-White House customers as well.

"Up until Thanksgiving, it's very busy. But it kind of tapers off after that," Fitter said. "We have regulars who come in for Christmas and buy wine to give out to people. A lot of companies buy wine this time of year for company employees."

The chardonnays break down into three different labels. There is a Hunt Country, in addition to Special Reserve and Native Yeast. All three have their own characteristics, depending on how long they are aged and whether they are fermented and aged in stainless steel, new oak or old oak.

"We have old vines," Fitter said. "When you have old vines you get better fruit. As the vines age, they produce less fruit but they put the same energy into that fruit, so it has more concentration and intensity than fruit from young vines. We have a smaller crop, but you get higher quality."

Von Finck finds many customers like a light and fruity chardonnay with turkey.

"It doesn't take over the meal," von Finck said.

Piedmont bottles about 1,000 cases of its chardonnay every year. The 10-acre vineyard produces 3,000 cases in all, including reds.

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