Skip to main content

Dinner with Paolo Cantele in Houston


Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Paolo Cantele at Tony’s here in Houston. He was in town with Jeremy Parzen checking out our city and sharing his wine. I really enjoyed hearing Paolo talk about the natural beauty of his home in Puglia, Italy. Whether he was talking about the winery, the vineyards or the beaches; his pride in his home and in what they produce there was apparent.
The family has worked to reduce the environmental impact from their winemaking on the land while also working with some Italian research groups. They are studying indigenous yeast strains, the effects of Brettanomyces on wine and on working to reduce micro-toxins. This combination of caring for the land in the vineyard while staying in front of the most current research in the winery is all part of the family’s goal to create wine that is not only a fresh, wholesome part of your dinner but a wine that can also tell the story of the place from which it came.
Our dinner at Tony's was fantastic as expected. I had opted for the pansoti, a pasta dish with squash, parmesan and sage to start and the seared halibut with fennel confit and oranges for my main course. Each of these were excellent with both the Cantele Chardonnay and Rosato* current releases. The wines were fresh and food friendly. Each of these would also be a good choice for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
Paolo was gracious enough to also order some Nebbiolo for the table from Tony’s well thought out wine list, which, along with a surprise course of the new Alba white truffle soufflé, gave the group an unexpected and decidedly decadent taste of Piemonte in the midst of a discussion of American wine culture and the beauty of Puglia.
I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Paolo Cantele, hearing about his home and tasting his wines. It was also a treat to enjoy this evening  with Dale Robertson from the Houston Chronicle, Amy Gross of Vinesleuth, James Brock from the Houston Press and Alfonso Cevola, aka Italian Wine Guy.
 
*The Cantele Rosato is highly recommended and is available at Whole Foods for $13.99
Labels:

Comments

  1. Alfonso CevolaNovember 5, 2013 at 3:43 PM

    Nice to meet you too, Sandra....thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sandra CrittendenNovember 5, 2013 at 3:59 PM

      Hopefully, we will get together again soon! Until then, I will see you on line :)

      Delete
  2. Donna Oran ValenteDecember 4, 2013 at 12:54 AM

    Ciao tutti. It's sooo nice to see Cantele wines being so well received back home (USA). My business partner (also American) and I were actually referred to the Cantele cantina a few years ago while searching for new cantinas to add to our customized Salento wine tours. The referral came from another family cantina owner who could not fit us on the requested day. We felt an immediate attraction to the cantina who welcomed our American-style of just 'showing up' unannounced. Umberto Cantele gave us a grand tour and with heart felt passion told his family's history of wine making. We were treated to a few samples in the cantinas new wine tasting room where I, for the first time in my 20+ years of wine sampling, fell in love with their TERESAMANARA Chardonnay which they just so happened to be processing during our tour. Pugliese whites are far superior than any Cali imitations I have ever tried. I invite you and yours to come see for yourselves. We would be honored to take you on one of our tours and share our hard-earned (snicker,snicker) findings with you. Check us out on our new website (www.winetourspuglia.com) and fell free to book your stay with me (Villa Donna or Donna's Cottage) and get my 'guests only' discount. There is also the annual 'Cantine Aperte' (Open Wineries) weekend held the last week in May which I still have vacancies for. Meanwhile enjoy some AMATIVO....I sure did during our Thanksgiving day celebration here in Puglia without a turkey but Italian roasted chicken and potatoes cooked under the drippings made a nice substitution...missed my Chardonnay but Amativo was the best I could get at the nearby shopping center for an incredibly low price. I'm constantly shocked how inexpensive quality wines are here in southern Italy...I just hope with the decade+ expotential growth and exports increasing that my favorites don't go over my military pensioner's budget!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for reading Wine Life - Houston.

Popular posts from this blog

Lust Zinfandel 2007

     My husband loves this wine so he purchased quite a few bottles at a recent Michael~David  dinner that we had attended. Last night, I decided to open a bottle to serve with dinner. I was making a roasted southwestern pork tenderloin, sweet potato fries (w/ chipolte ketchup) and a salad consisting of baby lettuce (fresh from my garden) with strawberries, red bell peppers, red onions and walnuts tossed with a white balsamic-raspberry vinaigrette.      This turned out to be a great pairing. It is a bold wine that really stood up to the strong chipolte seasoning while complementing the fruit flavors. I opened the bottle a 1/2 hour before I served it as I have found this wine to be more enjoyable when I do so.      The Lust Zinfandel by Michael~David 2007  was a dark purple color with a ruby rim. It has intense aromas of very ripe mixed berries and baking spices-both allspice and ginger with hints of cedar. It has flavors of creme de cassis, milk chocolate and also more of the baking
5 comments
Read more

Nocera - A Native Grape from Sicily

Nocera is a native grape from Sicily. It comes from the Messina province which is located in the northeast. Nocera is a quality red wine grape that is most known as a blender in the red wines of the Faro DOC. I had the opportunity to taste some pure versions (which according to Wine Searcher are rare) this week at a trade tasting held at Roma Restaurant in Houston. Wine production in the region dates back to the 14th Century BC, however, phylloxera decimated the vineyard area in 1881 leaving it at a fraction of its original size. The area boasts a Mediterranean climate with sunny days and coastal breezes, moderate rainfall, and mild winters, all ideal for grape growing. The Nocera grape is a bluish/black color and has a thick skin which allows for the production of structured wines with prominent tannins which are balanced by good acidity. High alcohol is common. Red wines produced from the grapes are an intense ruby color with purple highlights and aromas and flavors of dark fruits a
Post a Comment
Read more

The Salta Tour 2012

Vine Connections and Pioneer Wine Company hosted a seminar and tasting event for Houston's wine trade and media at Backstreet Cafe yesterday. All but two of the wines were from the Salta Province of Argentina. Salta is the most northern wine region in Argentina lying close to the Bolivian border. The climate is very extreme due to the high altitude.  Plantings start at 5,000 feet above sea level and climb to 9,000 feet, making these vineyards the highest in the world. The intense sunlight the area receives helps to create grapes with more anthocyanins, these are the color pigments which result in softer tannins, lower astringency and more intense flavor. The wines produced are extremely pure, concentrated and terroir specific. Torrontes Riojano which is considered the best of the three Torrontes clones is the most widely planted grape with plantings of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Tannat increasing. The seminar started with a tasting of four Torrontes wines, three from diff
5 comments
Read more