23 Apr Please The Palate Pick of the Week: Honoring Earth Day with Veramonte Organic Wines and a Spade to Fork Organic Home Garden

Friday, April 22nd was Earth Day, but every day should Earth Day! So, in honor of Earth Day, I started growing herbs in a Spade to Fork organic home garden and then enjoyed a few bottles of Veramonte Organic Wines. Combined, the wines and the home garden are the Please The Palate pick of the week. What we eat and what we drink comes from the earth. And, we need to take care of the earth. We take so much from it and need to give back. That is what I love about Veramonte Wines in Chile which I had the pleasure to visit in 2018. Veramonte was established in the early 1990s in the Casablanca Valley in Chile. Veramonte was one of the first wineries to invest seriously in this area and Casablanca is today known for its white wines and cool-climate red wines. Around 2012, Veramonte was converted from a conventional winery to a biodynamic winery. Today Veramonte follows organic practices throughout their estate, ensuring optimum conditions for vine growth and the vineyards are sustainable over time. Veramonte has partnered with the non-profit organization, Kiss the Ground. Kiss the Ground was created to focus efforts on healthy soils and to create a symbiotic relationship with the earth. The organization promotes Regenerative Agriculture, which goes hand in hand with what Veramonte has been doing for years in their vineyards. Their farming principles and practices aim to increase biodiversity, enrich soils, improve watersheds and enhance ecosystem services, eventually increasing yields and higher health and vitality for farming communities. In order to promote Regenerative Agriculture, Veramonte will donate to Kiss The Ground for every bottle of Veramonte sold. The Veramonte portfolio ranges from Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Rosé to Pinot Noir, Merlot, Carménère, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Over the last couple weeks, I have enjoyed a few of these wines. I started with the bright, fresh Veramonte 2020 Organic Chardonnay with its lemon curd and pear aromas and lovely texture and acidity as I put together my organic herbal garden from Spade to Fork. Then, a few days later, on a hot afternoon I enjoyed the Veramonte 2021 Organic Sauvignon Blanc and loved its vibrancy and freshness and floral and citrus aromas. I also enjoyed the Veramonte 2020 Organic Carménère with dinner. The wine, with its dark fruit and savory herbal notes and its velvety texture, paired well with some rosemary roasted lamb chops. My organic herbal garden that I started comes from Spade to Fork. Spade to Fork is a family owned business dedicated to sharing the knowledge of gardening and making it simple and fun. They offer growing kits including culinary herbs, edible flowers, vegetables, lettuce & greens, and more. The kit that I have is the Culinary Herbs growing kit which contains Certified USDA Organic Non GMO seeds of Italian Large Leaf Basil, Coriander Cilantro (slow bolt), Peione Parsley, Broad Leaf Sage, and Thyme. Packaged sustainable, eco-friendly, and plastic-free, the kits came with everything I would need, except water. It had five compostable peat pods, five rich potting soil discs, five custom wood burned plant markers and a 26-page growing guide. I added water to the soil discs and next thing I knew, I had potting soil. I added the seeds and my herbal garden was on its way. Drinking organically grown wines, which all retail for $14, and starting my organic herbal garden are two things I have done to celebrate Earth Day this year.