Verjus turns vineyard clippings into a chef’s secret ingredient
BY ANNE SAMPSON
Every year, sometime in August, workers wend their way through the vineyards of eastern Washington armed with scathingly sharp pruning shears. It’s still a few weeks until harvest, but in those hot summer days, the grapes stop growing and begin to ripen. Colors deepen. Sugars and flavors intensify. It’s called veraison—when vintners thin the fruit from their vines, plucking clusters of grapes and hurling them on the ground to rot.
It’s all for the good of the surviving grapes, of course, concentrating the vigor of the vines on the remaining fruit. Still, it’s gotta hurt.
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The pain of veraison ended at Klipsun Vineyards, one of Red Mountain’s renowned producers of wine grapes, when owners David and Patricia Gelles encountered verjus while traveling through Australia. Made from the juice of those unripe grapes, verjus is a key component in a host of classic dishes. In French, it means “green juice.”
Australian chef Maggie Beer introduced the Gelleses to verjus, and her cookbook, Maggie’s Verjuice Cookbook, published in 2012, has been credited with sparking a resurgence of interest in the acidulant. In the past decade, its popularity with American chefs has blossomed. The Gelleses were entranced with the lively flavors it brought to dishes like roasted meats, salads, and even fruit preparations. They were also thrilled to have found a use for what had been a vineyard waste product.
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“We’re creating something from nothing,” grins the Gelles’s son Alexander, a partner in Klipsun and producer of Alexander the Grape Verjus. One of the only verjus produced from Washington grapes, Alexander the Grape is a favorite of chefs at restaurants like The Willows Inn on Lummi Island and Kirkland’s Café Juanita.
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Verjus has been used for centuries in classic cuisines as an alternative to vinegar, although its presence in Europe began to fade during the Middle Ages as Mideast trade routes made tart fruits like lemons more available. At that time, verjus was an essential kitchen item, helping preserve meat without refrigeration. It’s still prevalent in the Middle East, according to Alexander. “They use it the way we use salt and pepper,” he says. Less acidic than vinegar and with subtle flavors lighter than wine, verjus lends to foods the same kind of nuance that winemakers coax from a vineyard’s terroir.
At Café Juanita, chef Holly Smith draws on the gentle acidity of verjus in a host of dishes. “I love it for its brightness,” she says. “When I make cream-based soups, I like to deglaze with verjus rather than wine. It gives it a real sense of balance. You can’t add acidity in the form of wine if you’re not going to cook it off.”
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In 2010, the Iron Chef contender found salvation through verjus when challenged to create a meal around the secret ingredient of grapes. “They weren’t even wine grapes, just table grapes, and they were so sweet,” Smith laughs. She whipped out her bottle of verjus to help with a grape sorbet, as well as braised rabbit, securing a victory over chef Cat Cora. “I used verjus anywhere I could,” she says. At Klipsun, Alexander has a mission. “Our goal is to put a bottle of verjus in every kitchen.” It’s something he’s been working toward for more than a decade.
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In the early 2000s, as a student at Walla Walla Community College’s winemaking program, Alexander enrolled in a class that required him to create a business plan for an imaginary winery. He gave it a little twist and instead put together a plan for a verjus producer. The class assignment became reality with Alexander’s first bottling in 2003. The early vintages were bottled as Klipsun Verjus, produced and marketed by David Gelles, while Alexander continued his winemaker studies. A six-month internship in Bordeaux turned into several years of education, moving Alexander through cellars in far-flung wineries from Austria to Italy, New Zealand, Chile, and Turkey.
In 2010, ready to put his winemaking skills to work back home, Alexander returned to Richland and began production of Alexander the Grape wines, bottling his first vintage in 2011. At the same time, he resumed management of the verjus production, renaming the green juice with his new winery’s label. Each vintage of verjus is harvested, pressed, and bottled within the space of three to four weeks. The process is simple. “Instead of throwing the green grapes on the ground to rot like everyone else does, we collect them and press them for the juice, and then clarify and bottle them,” Alexander says. “I use the same press I use for wine. There’s no magic trick or fancy equipment.”
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Like the process used to make it, verjus is not a fussy condiment. Because they are unripe, the varietal characteristics of the wine grapes aren’t distinct yet. All the culled grapes from Klipsun Vineyards go into every pressing, no sorting by variety necessary.
Despite its simplicity, Alexander says his client list of accomplished chefs adores it.
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“Verjus is a great food product that ties the vineyard back to the plate,” he explains. “When you’re tasting high-end wine, you don’t want to have a salad dressing made with vinegar, because vinegar embodies the characteristics of bad wine. There could be some overlap of your senses. It could affect your impression of the wine. Verjus is a natural grape product that doesn’t have any bad wine characteristics.”
Most commercial verjus is produced in France, and a smattering is from California. Alexander the Grape is one of just a few products from the Pacific Northwest. “Certainly it comes down to personal preference,” Alexander says, “but what makes mine exceptional is that it doesn’t have any sugar in it.”
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He finds his biggest supporters in high-end commercial kitchens—respected chefs like Smith. “Culinary-educated chefs know what verjus is and how to use it,” he says. “They love it. Verjus is the mother of all sauces.”
Alexander the Grape Verjus can be found at specialty food stores like DeLaurenti and McCarthy & Schiering Wine Merchants, or online at xthegrape.com
Anne Sampson lives in Richland, Washington, where she writes about wine, food, and culture. She has written for Wines & Vines, Good Fruit Grower, Northwest Palate, Appellation America and Salon.
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