April 2018 Featured Product:

Oliva Premium Olive Oils and Balsamics

Oliva, pronounced “oh-LEE-vah”, and Italian for Olive, opened their doors on May 1, 2017 in the Barracks Road Shopping Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. They offer the finest Extra Virgin Olive Oils and Balsamics available in the Central Virginia area along with culinary gift and product extensions from our oils to include a skincare line for men and women, olive wood accessories, chocolates, pasta, and much more.

Robert “Bugg” Johnson is the proud owner of Oliva. Born and raised in Nelson County and, after receiving a B.S. Degree in Business Administration from Radford University, he began a career in the Financial Services Industry with an emphasis on commercial insurance and risk management. In 1998 he received a Masters of Business Administration Degree with Honors from Kennesaw State University. Along his career he has lived in seven US cities and the island nation of Bermuda twice for a total of eight years. That wasn’t tough duty! During his travels around the globe, he saw some amazing places and met equally amazing people. It was during these travels that he visited the stunning wine and olive regions of Argentina, California, Chile, and Italy. Hooked on the food and flavors, he knew at some point he wanted to bring these “hobbies” back home one day to the Charlottesville area. By 2015 he had logged twenty five years in the corporate world and 1.5M Delta Skymiles so that “one day” became a reality. It was great to be closer to family, especially a new nephew, and all that is so special about calling the Charlottesville area home. In 2016 he became aware of the former Oil & Vinegar store in Barracks Road being for sale and — fast forward — they closed the transaction in March 2017. Robert pulled out of the Oil & Vinegar franchise to maximize flexibility in product offerings, rebranded under the Oliva name, and reopened as a locally owned independent small business that employs and supports their friends, family, and neighbors.

Oliva’s core products include Award Winning Extra Virgin Olive Oils (“EVOOs”) and Balsamics. In addition, they offer a wide variety of culinary and EVOO related products. A few are mentioned above but Robert loves their line of teas, bread dippers, spices and rubs, tapenades, compotes, crackers, chutneys, infused flavored honey, and more. Every line they carry has been hand selected and tasted by the local Oliva staff and many products have wonderful stories. For example, the Olive Wood collection of bowls and cutting boards are made from retired non-producing olive trees in Tunisia. The Polish Pottery is beautifully hand painted and signed by artisans of different skill levels using vibrant colors of red, blue, yellow and green. The staff at Oliva love sharing the stories behind the products for that personal touch and attachment.

If you have not yet gotten the idea that Oliva is the perfect place to find that unique and special gift for a host/hostess, birthday, wedding, corporate or other special occasion, think again! Their baskets and gift sets are as creative as they are functional and beautiful.

Check out Oliva in person at 1033 Emmet Street North (Barracks Road Shopping Center) in Charlottesville, VA or at their website:  www.olivaoils.com

Beginning April 13th, DeVine will be carrying a small selection of Oliva Premium Olive Oils and Balsamics, in addition to adding some of these wonderful culinary delights to our kitchen repertoire, giving our favorite recipes a little something extra special.

The following are the first OLIVA products hitting our shelves:

“Melgarejo” Hojiblanca EVOO — Spain

Intense fruitiness, fresh, very complex and harmonious, with notes of freshly cut grass, tomato, green apple and green almond.  Strong and astringent taste, the bitter and pungent intensity is comparable with the intensity of the fruitiness giving the oil a good balance and persistence.  It is rounded off by an intense taste of green leaf, aromatic herbs, artichoke, green tomato and green banana, which together make for an exceptional oil.

Herbs de Provence (Infused) Olive Oil

Made with UP Certified Extra Virgin Olive Oil, this classic herbal combination includes notes of lavender, rosemary, savory, thyme, and bay leaf. It’s a show stopper drizzled over grilled lamb, chicken, used in marinades, brushed on vegetables to be roasted or grilled, brushed on turkey before roasting, for bread dipping, or in aioli.

All natural, no artificial flavors or additional ingredients.

Champagne White Balsamic

Champagne White Balsamic is a masterful pairing of all natural Champagne flavoring with aged White Balsamic from Modena, Italy. Clean, tart and crisp, with just the right amount of acidity, this exquisite balsamic introduces a flavor of the Mediterranean that will bring your food to life.

This balsamic is excellent for use in vinaigrettes, marinades, rich pan sauces or wherever a clean look and pitch-perfect acidity is desired.  Excellent to serve over grilled fresh apricots and seasoned ricotta cheese as an appetizer.  Complements rack of lamb, grilled chicken and smoked pork.

Traditional Style Dark Balsamic

March 2018 Featured Product:

Brass Cannon Brewing Beers

The founders of Brass Cannon Brewing started off as avid homebrewers. They got into the hobby to enjoy making good beer and sharing it with their friends. Those friends kept on asking for more and more until one night, while under the influence of that very same homebrew, they realized they might be on to something. A mountain of paperwork, many pilot batches and a lot of time later, Brass Cannon Brewing was born.

Founded in a warehouse complex in Toano, VA. Brass Cannon had small beginnings. With very little in the way of startup capital, they had to improvise, building everything they could by hand to save on expenses (sometimes pulling all nighters to get ready). Eventually, they began brewing on a 4 barrel (124 gallon) brewing rig that they had built themselves using leftover parts from other industries. This system, lovingly referred to as a “franken-brew” rig, was something that no one in their right minds would want to use, but fortunately they were all a little crazy. Everything that could go wrong did, but learning to work and produce great beer on that system taught us things that couldn’t have been learned anywhere else and helped to develop the recipes that have been tested and proven over the years.

Eventually, they decided it was time to step up their offerings and began by making plans to move into an as-of-yet unfinished building on Mooretown road, much closer to the center of Williamsburg, and expand their brewing equipment to handle a growing demand.  The Toano tasting room closed in April 2016 and Brass Cannon Brewing moved in to the brand new facility the following Summer.

Today, Brass Cannon Brewing offers a wide variety of delicious craft beers in their tasting room and outdoor patio. Although they are now brewing at a grander scale than they were those years ago, the creators still love to homebrew and experiment with small batches for their popular langrage line.

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February 2018 Featured Product:

Villa Jolanda Vino Spumante Extra Sec Special Edition Valentine’s Day Prosecco

A lovely sparkling wine for your Valentine in an adorable package that says “I Love You”!  This Villa Jolanda sparkler is made from 100% Prosecco grapes grown in the hills north of Treviso, Italy.  The grapes are hand-harvested, chilled in the vineyard, and given a low-temperature fermentation in stainless steel tanks to preserve freshness and fruit.

Lightly sparkling with very pretty, small, bubbles and lovely aromas of white flowers, orchard fruits and a touch of minerality, this wine is full of flavor – peach, ripe apple, lemon zest, and a nice mineral streak.  Fruity and crisp, with a touch of mineral and yellow apple on the finish.   Enjoy this delightful prosecco alone as an apertif, with a cheese and charcuterie platter, shrimp and scallops in a white wine lemon-butter-caper sauce, or popcorn and a movie in front of the fireplace.  Nothing says “I love you” quite like a bottle that actually says I love you in a multitude of languages!

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January 2018 Featured Product:

Simply Cheddar Cheese Balls from Waynesboro, Virginia

About Simply Cheddar:

Created by retired school teacher, Linda Weaver, Simply Cheddar is a cheese ball made of extra sharp cheddar cheeses without using any cream cheese or processed cheeses. Fresh grated onion is used for spice along with red pepper flakes. The cheeses and onion are grated which gives it a smooth texture. Freshly chopped pecans are on the outside.  It is an all-natural product. Chopping and grating the ingredients fresh even enhances the flavor of the product.

Most cheese balls are made with cream cheese and then flavorings are added like cheddar cheese, bacon etc. But this product has only cheddar cheeses.

Storage

Simply Cheddar can be stored in the refrigerator for 2 weeks and can be frozen for 6 months.  Freezing it does not change its taste, texture or appearance. It can be frozen in the original packaging because it is double wrapped.

To thaw, leave on counter for 2-3 hours before serving.

Serving

It can be served on crackers, bread, sliced pears, or sliced apples. Bring it to room temperature and it becomes spreadable.

DeVine currently stocks the 6 ounce, 8 ounce, 12 ounce, and 16 ounce Simply Cheddar cheese balls in our retail freezer.  Stop in today to enjoy the cheese balls that won Virginia Living’s 2017 “Made in Virginia” award.

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December 2017 Featured Products:

Villa Jolanda Vino Spumante Extra Sec Special Edition Holiday Prosecco

A festive Holiday wine in a festive Holiday package!  This Villa Jolanda sparkler is made from 100% Prosecco grapes grown in the hills north of Treviso, Italy.  The grapes are hand-harvested, chilled in the vineyard, and given a low-temperature fermentation in stainless steel tanks to preserve freshness and fruit.

Lightly sparkling with very pretty, small, bubbles and lovely aromas of white flowers, orchard fruits and a touch of minerality, this wine is full of flavor – peach, ripe apple, lemon zest, and a nice mineral streak.  Fruity and crisp, with a touch of mineral and yellow apple on the finish.  This is a fantastic sparkler to keep on hand for everyday celebrations or to stock up on for Holiday parties.  It also hapens to pair well with shortbread or sugar cookies…Delicious!

Kosher Wines for Hannukah:

Hai “Noah” Merlot, Israel

Deep ruby in color with notes of plum and blackberry. Rich, intense, lush, and full with soft tannins and a lingering finish. Pair with flat iron steak topped with a rosemary blue cheese butter, Shepherd’s pie, or Mediterranean lamb burgers.

Terra Vega Syrah, Chile

Rich ruby red with powerful and distinctive varietal aromas of blackberries, plum, and floral notes. On the palate, it is soft and medium bodied, with generous red berry, earth, stony minerality and baking spice flavors. Round tannins are met with a touch of raspberry and spice on the finish. Enjoy with Moroccan vegetable stew, lamb chops with mint risotto, barbecued pork ribs, or Portabella burgers.

What makes a wine Kosher?

In order for wine to be kosher, of course it has to contain only kosher ingredients. And according to traditional Jewish law, once the grapes are picked and brought to be crushed, only Shabbat-observant Jews can be involved in making the wine. From crushing to bottling, kosher wine must be handled exclusively by observant Jews.

Why the strict rules about only Jews? Because in the past wine was often used by pagans in their offerings to idol gods. When something good happened, you’d pour some wine out on the ground as a symbolic thank you (if you were an idol worshipper, that is). The rabbis who set up the rules for kosher wine wanted to make sure that Jews never got a glass of wine that had been associated with an idolatrous offering, so they required that only Jews be involved in handling kosher wine.

Even after these rules were set up, some people worried that if you had a nice glass of kosher Chardonnay at a Jewish wedding, it’s possible that the non-Jewish waiter or waitress might have spilled some of your Chardonnay in an idolatrous practice, while your back was turned. The solution: Mevushalwine. (Shulhan Arukh, YD 123)

Mevushal (literally “cooked”) wine has been heated to the point that idol worshippers wouldn’t use it for their nefarious purposes. It turns out even idol worshippers had standards for their wine. They wouldn’t use wine for an offering if it had been boiled because boiling wine removes much of the flavor. So the rabbis ruled that in order to avoid the possibility of a Jew ever drinking wine that was idolatry-associated, only cooked wine could be served to a Jew by a non-Jew.

Today, people don’t do a lot of pouring wine out for the gods. Still, because of the previous rulings by various halakhic authorities, some people are uncomfortable with a non-Jew pouring them a glass of kosher wine. So mevushal wine is often served at events where non-Jews will be doing the pouring and serving of wine. This stance, of only serving mevushal wine when non-Jews will be serving, is the norm among Orthodox Jews, and those who follow the regulations of the Conservative Movement‘s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.

The good news is that making a wine mevushal no longer entails actually boiling anything. According to Scott Shumaker, the wine manager at kosherwine.com, in order for wine to be called mevushal these days it’s heated up very quickly in a process called flash pasteurization.

Red wine gets up to a temperature of 180 degrees Fahrenheit (white wine gets a slightly lower temperature) for less than a minute and then is cooled down very quickly in order to limit the amount of damage the heat might do to the flavors in the wine. This procedure is based on a responsum from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein who ruled that flash pasteurizing could be counted as making something mevushal. There are other rabbinic authorities who have differed from this opinion, but in America today the most commonly held opinion is that of Rabbi Feinstein.