Arrive Magazine - May/June, 2008

from the filets to the spareribs to the headcheese and sausages.

“We should have bought three per store,” Burke says. “So far, so good. We trust in the farm. We think the whole natural thing and a little relationship with where you’re getting your product makes a lot of sense.”

All in the Family

The relationship with purveyors makes a lot of sense to Orla Murphy LaScola, the owner and wine director of American Seasons on Nantucket. She’s always looking for small-production wines— less than 250 cases, if she can get it—to match the food of her husband, chef-owner Michael LaScola.

But such wines, especially those from California, are often made by people for whom winemaking is a second job. They’ve already put up their life savings to buy the vineyard; they don’t have the time or money to market and deliver their wines to the East Coast.

“The only way to get your hands on these is to go out and walk the fields

The bar at American Seasons on Nantucket

with them and let them know their baby is your baby,” says Orla LaScola. “We actually go out and see the soil that the stuff has been grown on. It makes you understand the product.”

So she heads out to California, hikes up her wellies with both hands and gets out there to learn.

“As interested as you are,” she says, “they’ll give you as much information as you want.”

And then she’s able to pass that information on to her guests. If someone’s looking to find a wine to match Michael’s oven-roasted duck breast with wild rice risotto and a Bing cherry vinaigrette, she’s able to help them choose among several pinot noirs. The ones from the Sonoma coast will be soft and pretty—something that matches the lighter meats and vegetables. The ones from Napa will do better in the fall, when there’s a little more fat in the food. The ones from Oregon? They’re greener, more acidic, more Burgundian. They’ll go great with meat or fish.

“When we’re sourcing, we’re always looking for wine to go with our food—that’s not just quaffable,” she says. “I don’t want them just to drink it. I want them to pair it with the food that Michael’s serving.”