After 20 years in downtown Woodstock, Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber quietly announced this week that they will close their restaurant, Osteria Pane e Salute, in mid-April.
The closing, they said in a Monday email to subscribers, is less of an ending and more of a transition. The small, second floor restaurant on Central Street, where Barber is chef and Heekin is sommelier, is just one part of their business.
The couple also grow vegetables and wine grapes on their Barnard land. They make wine and write books — most recently, Heekin’s An Unlikely Vineyard: The Education of a Farmer and Her Quest for Terroir (Chelsea Green Publishing: 2014). As their vineyard and winery have expanded over the past few years, so too has the attention they’ve needed to devote to them.
“We really found that OK, it’s time to consolidate,” said Heekin, in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Their wines and Heekin’s book have been reviewed favorably in publications such as The New York Times and Food & Wine magazine. As their renown has grown, more people from outside the region have found them at the restaurant.
Once there, they “have a great evening together,” Heekin said, but those guests “really want to connect with the farm.”
So, at the end of the meal they often ask if they can come to the farm in the morning, she said. People want to see where the grapes are grown and the wine is made.
“It’s been kind of an organic progression,” Heekin said.
Transitions aren’t new to the couple. They began in 1996, with a first floor bakery and cafe in the building where the osteria is now located. Though they always aimed for the small restaurant, serving dinner carefully crafted from high quality ingredients, they felt the bakery and lunch business would be an easier place to start.
“We knew that we were wet behind the ears and we felt like we needed a lot more experience,” she said.
The bakery and cafe gave Heekin and Barber, who came to Woodstock from Middlebury, a chance to get to know the community before the business evolved. Gradually, they retired the bakery, then ended lunch service and moved to dinner-only (Thursday to Sunday).
Inspired by a restaurant owned by a friend in Italy, the couple aimed to serve simple, homespun meals that focused on the ingredients, Heekin said. That focus led the couple to begin growing one of Barber’s favorite ingredients, radicchio, which was not readily available in the Upper Valley at the time. From there, the couple expanded to growing more and more of their own food. A sommelier, Heekin was inspired to try making wine and then growing grapes.
“That’s been a crazy journey that we did not expect at all,” she said. “I really felt like I found my calling in that process. We sort of each had our own creative outlet within the farm and restaurant.”
The couple has always taken breaks in the spring and fall, which Heekin says has been key to giving them the rest they need to avoid burnout. Lately, that time has been devoted to the farm, vineyard and winery.
Beyond their home farm, they now also cultivate grapes in Vergennes and West Addison, Vt. They’re working with neighbors to grow grapes on more land in Barnard and hope to collaborate with a farmer in Brattleboro, in order to compare grapes and wine from different parts of the state.
“In the last five years, the challenge has been how to navigate both businesses,” Heekin said.
They haven’t had time to take their annual three-week trip to Italy to recharge and reflect, she said. Instead, their travels to places such as Boston, New York City, California, Montreal and the U.K. are wine-focused, working trips. The wine is now available in Spain and will be available in eastern Europe next year.
“Thank goodness we love what we do,” she said.
Though they are embracing the move out of Woodstock, saying farewell to the restaurant is bittersweet because they love the space, Heekin said.
“It is really magical,” she said.
Walking over the threshold, she said she feels transported to another place.
While she would like to pick it up and take it with them to the farm — known as La Garagista Farm and Winery — their land in Barnard is also special, she said.
As part of this transition, Heekin and Barber have already begun offering tastings and pop-up meals on the farm as Hart, a tavernetta.
In the space, just 10 feet by 20 feet, they have a table that seats 10 and a bit of standing room. The meals there have a “cocktail party feel,” Heekin said. They are private and open only to their email subscribers.
“Everybody talks about farm to table, now we’re looking at bringing the table back to the farm,” she said.
The osteria will remain open through mid-April. Reservations can be made by emailing psalute@aol.com.
Private events at Hart will continue. For more information or to subscribe to the email list for updates, visit deirdre-heekin-pd6f.squarespace.com/about-1.
Cupcake Wars
Norwich Public Library is set to host a “battle of the batters” next Wednesday. Young bakers will work in groups of three or four in a baking and decorating competition from 2:30 to 4 p.m. at the library on Main Street.
The library will provide the materials for the free event. To sign up, call 802-649-1184 or email beth.reynolds@norwichlibrary.org.
Food and Garden Studies
As part of the Vermont Grazing and Livestock Conference this weekend, members of the Maasai Indigenous Project of Kenya will make a presentation about their culture and grazing management, particularly the challenges of managing water in a part of the world that goes eight months a year without rain.
The presentation will take place at the Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee on Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. It is free to registered conference attendees and $12 per person over 18 without conference registration. More information about the presentation is available online at bit.ly/2izrHx1 and more information about the conference is at uvm.edu/
pasture/?Page=conference.html.
The visitors will also have crafts available for sale, with profits going to support well construction and irrigation systems.
The University of Vermont Extension Service is offering an online master gardener course beginning on Feb. 7. The course will include 13 weekly, live, interactive webinars on subjects ranging from backyard vegetable gardening, perennials and annuals, soil fertility, tree care, landscape and botany basics, pest and plant disease control, rain gardens and sustainable landscape practices.
The cost for the course, which runs through May 16 on Tuesday evenings from 6:15 to 9 p.m., is $440 and the deadline to register is Monday. For more information or to register, visit uvm.edu/mastergardener.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
