Enjoying the Fruits of Rural Culture
Jul 08, 2024 02:10PM ● By MARIE EDINGER
Fable Farm’s Fermentory is a unique entity in Vermont. Owned by brothers Jon and Chris Piana, it owes its existence to the success of the farm itself, which began in 2008 as a 2-acre vegetable farm and local gathering spot nestled in the foothills of the Green Mountains. Now, they have partnered with two other farms, Eastman Farm and Kiss-the-Cow Farm, to form the Feast & Field Collective and together steward the old Clark Farm conserved by the town and the Vermont Land Trust.
“Our mission really was to use our agriculture to bring people together, to develop urban-rural connections, and to make farming fun again,” Chris says.
FROM FORAGED FRUIT TO WINE
Over the next year, as every element of the farm grew, fruit fermentation and winemaking began. At present, Fable Farm Fermentory creates “living” wines from foraged and locally grown fruits like apples, pears, and grapes, along with herbs, saps, and honey.
The Piana brothers pride themselves in using no chemicals or sulfites in their products. Instead, wines and ciders are fermented with wild native yeast, then cured in a cave and left unpasteurized and unfiltered. All of their wines and ciders ferment out totally dry, though some express a fruity sensation of sweet.
BOTANICALLY CORRECT PRODUCTS
The Fermentory offers an impressive variety of products, including sparkling and still ciders, some infused with elderflower, currants, or dandelion, sparkling and still grape-apple and grape wines, and cider vinegar, among other herbal elixirs. Recently, they’ve also begun making meads, using birch and maple saps as their base. One standout among their nonalcoholic offerings is a sumac soda, made with foraged sumac and sweetened with maple syrup.
EVENTS CELEBRATE COMMUNITY
The Fermentory’s reputation as an event venue has grown along with Fable Farm’s reputation as a venue for weddings, business meetings, retreats, and music festivals.
On Saturdays, from 1pm–6pm, they host cider and wine tastings in their Tasting Room. What’s more, every Thursday night through September 26, they host Feast & Field, a celebration of music, food, and community held in the farm’s orchard. And from October through the end of March, they continue their Thursday live music gatherings at the winery. Called Rumney Sessions, they are a scaled-down but equally spirited iteration of Feast & Field.
On Thursdays, the gates open at 5:30pm, with live music at 6pm. Bar service runs from 5:30pm–9pm, and food service runs from 5:30pm–8pm.
Their dinner menu, which changes throughout the summer, features local organic food from Fable Farm and Eastman Meats and vegetables grown across the street and harvested within 48 hours of being served.
“It’s a very raw, beautiful human experience,” Chris says of Feast & Field. You can pre-order tickets at www.feastandfield/tickets.com and food at www.feast-field-at-fable-farm.square.site/
ARTISAN CHEESE, PICKLES, AND PIZZA
While at the Fermentory, Chris
encourages you to mix beverages in
flights to suit your tastes, then pair them with local artisan cheeses and
seasonal pickled vegetables made
from the Fermentory’s own garden.
They make pizzas on-site, too, using organic Vermont-grown wheat for their sourdough crust.
“The pizzas are a great vessel to highlight our farm-grown vegetable and meat options. They can get pretty exotic, even the sauces,” Chris says. “Most of the toppings are grown on the farm. So, it’s really a farm-to- table wine and eating experience.”
FABLE FARM FERMENTORY
1525 Royalton Turnpike
Barnard, VT
