Wine Forest

Connie Green began selling foraged chanterelles to chefs in 1979 and founded Wine Forest Wild Foods in Napa in 1981; its dried wild mushrooms are made for home cooks.

About Wine Forest

Based in
Napa, California
Founded
1981
Known for
foraged wild mushrooms for chefs and home cooks

Connie Green, a seventh-generation daughter of the Florida panhandle, learned to hunt mushrooms in Napa Valley from her late husband, an Estonian whose family were also foragers. In the late 1970s she brought chanterelles to a famous San Francisco French restaurant whose chef doubted they grew in America. She founded Wine Forest in Napa in 1981, and the company has supplied kitchens such as The French Laundry. She also co-wrote the cookbook The Wild Table with Sarah Scott.

Her network of pickers now stretches across the West and into Alaska, Canada, Mexico and Europe. After the cookbook came out, requests poured in for the wild ingredients her chefs use, which led to the company's line of retail wild foods.

Wine Forest questions

What is a chanterelle?

Chanterelles are wild mushrooms, most of them yellow to orange, though the Pacific Northwest also has a white one, with false gills: ridges on the underside of the cap instead of true gills. Many have a fruity smell that recalls apricots. They grow in forests in partnership with the roots of host trees, from western hemlock to California live oak, and pickers gather them from the wild.

How do you rehydrate dried wild mushrooms?

Wine Forest's own method is to soak them in tepid water for at least 15 minutes, longer for thicker mushrooms, swishing them after five minutes to loosen any grit. Lift the mushrooms out, then pour the soaking water through a fine sieve or a coffee filter. The strained liquid can go into a stock or a sauce.

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