Westchester Wine Heaven
This is the first in a series of articles about my favorite restaurant in Westchester, Crabtree’s Kittle House. Located at 11 Kittle Road in Chappaqua, its name comes from John Kittle, who built the original barn on the property in 1790, and the Crabtree family, the current owners. As you can imagine, I am more critical than most when dining out. Kittle House has never disappointed me, and I’d like you to get to know them better.
One of their most amazing features is their 60,000-plus bottle wine cellar. It has been lovingly and expertly overseen by Glenn Vogt, partner and wine director for the restaurant. Starting with a small room that wasn’t temperature controlled holding about 150 bottles, Vogt, a resident of Croton-on-Hudson, and the Crabtree family made the decision to create something extraordinary. Focusing on great winemakers of the world that inspired them with their passion and dedication, they began to acquire many rare and small production vintages. This, of course, created the need for a larger and more sophisticated cellar. Once the 10,000 bottle cellar had reached capacity, they began knocking down walls into the old garages that once held horse carriages to expand. I had the privilege of touring the current wine cellar, and I was gobsmacked. Just as impressive as the cellar he created is Mr. Vogt’s wine knowledge. His recommendations are always spot on to pair with both my meal and personal preferences.
Currently Kittle House has about 4,800 selections available on their wine list, which makes an encyclopedia look like a pocket guide. They also offer a smaller list featuring some of the more popular wines. In the cellar “sleeping” are more cases of wine waiting for their time to be added to the list. Mr. Vogt told me that he is currently impressed with the high quality, delicious wines coming from lesser known California wineries. A wonderful thing that the restaurant does is to have wine dinners, introducing these limited production, hard to get wines and their makers. The amazing wines are paired with equally amazing food, mostly from the Hudson Valley. There are two such events in March. On the first is a dinner with Marcia and Tim Mondavi (yes, that Mondavi!) and their Continuum wines. On the 22nd, Russell Bevan of Bevan Cellars in Napa will feature some of his artisanal wines. Please call 914 666-8044 for reservations. You can follow Kittle House on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for their newsletter on their web site (link above).
Yorktown’s own Karen Symington Muendell is Chef/Owner of Serves You Right, Culinary LLC in Westchester. She caters, teaches and does public cooking demonstrations at area farmers’ markets.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
