The Hermitage Inn
Wilmington, Vermont
Bertha Eastman Barry would be pleased.
As editor of the Social Register she once ruled the world of high society from this modest clapboard summer home on the lower slopes of Vermont's Haystack Mountain. Today, the comfortable elegance draws guests from all over the U.S., Europe and Asia. The 90-minute drive along the spectacularly scenic NY Route 7/VT Route 9 whetted our appetites, but nothing prepared us for the opulence of Jim McGovern's table.
"McGovern" (as his staff calls him) does not do anything by half measures, and he has several wonderful obsessions. When you enter the dining room, you are immediately hit by one of them: the decoys. There are thousands of carved and painted wooden mallards, canvasbacks, red-breasted mergansers, green-winged teals, Canada geese, swans - even a pair of (in this case aptly named) wood ducks.
The next obsession is apparent in the menu. He raises his own game - ducks, geese, partridges, wild turkeys, even deer - for the table. On this occasion we had duck, and a partridge in a delectable hunter's sauce of Madeira wine, mushrooms and a touch of tomato and tarragon.
This was real food, the flavor infinitely superior to the bland, mass-produced, chemical- and hormone-laden meat available in supermarket America. The delicacy of flavor in the Hermitage's paté, for instance, is simply indescribable; "That ain't chopped liver," as my grandfather used to say. It is made from the livers of McGovern's own geese, and that makes a delicious difference.
And then there is the wine. McGovern's cellar contains 35,000 bottles. Each year since 1985, the Hermitage has been cited by wine Spectator magazine as having "One of the greatest wine lists in the world." So read up a bit before you come, for there are gems here you cannot find at your average five-star restaurant. We had a 1985 Chassagne-Montrachet Deleger that alone was worth the drive. If you are uncertain, ask McGovern for help; he's glad to advise, and he'll talk your ear off.
Dessert, and another obsession: the maples. McGovern taps his own trees each spring and turns the sap into 300 gallons of syrup. He sells it in the shop, and he uses it on the table - in the morning over pancakes, at night on the carrots, and on the duck.
And in the inn's specialty: Maple Walnut Pie. Imagine the texture of pecan pie on your tongue, then replace the pecans with the bittersweet taste of walnuts and add the delicate sparkle of maple. Magnificent.
[The Hermitage Inn, Coldbrook Road, Wilmington, Vt. 05363. (802) 464-3511.]
