Americana Hour at Mount Salem Vineyards Celebrates Authenticity With a Twist

In the food and wine world, authenticity feels like everything. Companies tout that their product is authentically American, Mexican, Italian, Austrian and the like. But is it possible to truly be authentic, when no terroir can be exactly like another, and every part of the world has been influenced by another?

As a Central European-inspired wine and food company, this is a question we consider, and what makes us proud to say we produce items that are Americana – born of the American experience, using land and ingredients made in America with modern American twists, yet acknowledging and honoring its origins.

Yes, our vines are from Austria, Italy and France. But our wines will never taste exactly like those counterparts found in those countries, due to countless variables. This applies to our foods as well – we strive to create ethnic foods that are as accurate as possible, but at the end of the day, they reflect our own ingredients and skills to create the ultimate product made and served here in America.

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Every Saturday at noon in June, we’ll celebrate the fusion that is Americana with our Americana Hour, where we’ll create foods prepared with locally grown ingredients whose origin stories will be part of the experience, along with the wines we pair them with.

It’s important to us to commemorate this concept because as true champions of fine wine and food, we want to understand where ingredients come from and how they came to be – and sometimes that isn’t as straightforward as diners may believe. For example, many Hungarian dishes use paprika. But paprika actually comes from dried chiles, which originated in America. The same applies for Poland’s staple potatoes, which originated in South America, and even Italy’s pasta, which originated in China.

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At the end of the day – or even at the end of the meal – we must know where a food comes from and how it got there to truly appreciate it. And sometimes, that makes us remember that we’re all a lot more connected across the table than we ever thought before.