Food & Wine USA - (10)October 2020

OCTOBER 2020 73

elaborate than midday sandwiches. Earlier, they snacked on

crostini: some smothered with chicken liver mousse and dabs

of Pinot Noir jam, others topped with kale-and-basil pesto. Now,

Carver serves a rich crookneck squash soup; those steamed

potatoes, generously studded with butter-fried sage; cannellini

beans with caramelized onions; her husband’s homemade

baguettes; and a brined coppa roast with fennel stalks and

sliced onions (the recipe is from their longtime friend, chef

Timothy Wastell, who often prepares it for this dinner). For

dessert, another guest, Sarah Ann Hahn—affectionately known

around these parts as “the Gluten-Free Cowgirl”—made a pear

galette with such a light, buttery crust that no one misses the

gluten at all. Everything on the table, including the pears and

the pork, was grown or raised (and, yes, slaughtered, except for

the chickens) right here on this picturesque 70-acre property.

Then there are the wines. For this harvest dinner, Marcy and

Carver have broken out some special bottles they’ve been cellaring.

A magnum of 2011 Pinot Noir from the Pelos Sandberg Vineyard

in the nearby Eola–Amity Hills is luscious with layers of dark

fruit and tobacco; they’ve been working with owners Don and

Johanna Sandberg’s fruit for 10 years now. There’s also a bottle

of Big Table’s top Chardonnay, The Elusive Queen, from 2017, its

letterpressed label depicting a winged beekeeper holding out an

ornate crown designed by Carver, who is also an accomplished

artist. As the dinner progresses, more wine is opened: a 2016

Yamhill-Carlton Pinot Noir, a 2016 The Rocks Syrah, and a 2018

Pinot Gris, made in the skin-contact ramato style, ruddy in hue

and full of flavor. In Big Table’s first vintage, 2006, Marcy bottled

only 150 cases. Today, he and Carver make more like 4,500 (their

wines are in stores and restaurants, but they’re easiest to find

by ordering directly from bigtablefarm.com). The growth has

been organic—appropriately, since that’s how they farm—with

production climbing year by year, as has Big Table’s cadre of

followers. In 2014, Carver and Marcy held an old-fashioned barn

raising; a hundred of their best customers pitched in financially

through a crowd-sourcing campaign to help fund the project.

This year, the couple finally opened a separate tasting room

in nearby Carlton. Carver says, “After hosting tastings in our

kitchen for 14 years, we were finally able to afford a space other

than our home. Brian had actually gotten to the point where he

put a ladder out his office window just so he could get out of the

house and get his wine work done without getting wrapped up

into hours of socializing. It was definitely getting a little nuts.”

It’s dark now, and dinner is winding down. Clementine and

Levi, Big Table Farm’s two loyal Catahoulas, are curled up by the

wood stove, barely conscious of the party breaking up just a few

feet away. Dishes are carried to the house. Last conversations

linger. Then, one by one, the guests get up and hug Carver and

Marcy goodbye, and nothing is left except the good quiet of a

farm at night.

After a toast to the harvest

with plenty of Big Table Farm

wines, guests dig into a

harvest feast with dishes like

crostini with Chicken Liver

Mousse (recipe p. 77) or Kale-

Basil Pesto (p. 77).