Los Poblanos and Zapata Ranch Are Stirring Up Culinary Education
Words and Photos by Stephanie Cameron
Long lunch table in the pastures next to Medano Creek. Opposite page: The lodge at Zapata Ranch.
Just beyond New Mexico’s northern border, the headwaters of the Rio Grande flow through the San Luis Valley, flanked by the San Juan Mountains and the Great Sand Dunes and Spanish Peaks. At the valley’s eastern edge lies the Medano-Zapata Ranch, owned by The Nature Conservancy and managed by Ranchlands in a partnership model that emphasizes environmental conservation practices. The ranch borders the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and is home to a conservation herd of bison, a herd of Angus cows, and sixty horses that all run on their own pastures. The bison roam the fifty-thousand-acre pasture of the ranch known as the Medano.
In April, Los Poblanos and Zapata Ranch teamed up to connect people through community-based dining and education. In an event called Wines of the Southwest, Dylan Storment, the director of wine and spirits at Los Poblanos, helped lead a series of educational opportunities during an immersive weekend-long dining program in collaboration with Zapata’s head chef, Ivan Guillen. From open-air dinners to picnicking next to Medano Creek, from campfires to wine workshops, a group of seventeen people from around the world gathered at the table to learn about the food shed of the Rio Grande and the ecologically diverse meadows, wetlands, sand dunes, and cottonwood groves of Zapata Ranch. The days on the ranch were spent exploring on horseback and foot, and the evenings were filled with wine and food, followed by relaxing to live music by the bonfire with s’mores.
Chef Ivan crafted an unforgettable and uncommon take on traditional comfort foods, using local produce and meats, including bison from the ranch’s herd. The majority of the produce featured on the Zapata Ranch menu is supplied by Valley Roots Food Hub, a nonprofit, grassroots program headquartered in Mosca, Colorado. More than sixty-five independent, regenerative-soil farmers contribute their harvests, including microgreens, fruit, goat cheese, Amish-raised eggs, pork, beans, quinoa, corn, polenta, elk, yak, beef, and sunflower and safflower oils.
Top: Long table prepped for dinner on the deck at the Zapata Ranch lodge. Left: Pork schnitzel and mole blanco paired with Jaramillo Vineyards tempranillo. Middle: Ravioli al uovo with house ricotta and leek sauce, paired with Caduceus Dos Ladrones. Right: Beefmaster and barley soup with Frying Pan Ranch Beefmaster, paired with Jaramillo Vineyards tempranillo.
Left: Entrance to the Medano pastures. Middle: Medano bison fennel sausage and potatoes, and Zapata Valley chips with Los Poblanos Oaxacan salt. Right: Dylan Storment making strawberry bay leaf and pear ginger shrub cocktails with Sheehan Ollpheist. Bottom: Guests returning from horseback riding to enjoy lunch in the field.
From top left, clockwise: Medano meatballs and fennel cream with ground bison, duck fat, chives, and oregano, smothered in fennel and garlic sauce, paired with Luna Rossa Nini; sunset at Zapata Ranch; fire-roasted triple-cream brie with caramelized New Mexico red apples and shallots, served with house-made crackers, paired with Sheehan Cielo Dulce; focaccia and porchetta sandwiches with Los Poblanos jam, served alongside tangerine, watercress, and arugula salad.
Learn more about future events at Ranchlands and Los Poblanos, visit ranchlands.com and lospoblanos.com/events.
