PUGLIA 2015

After 2 successive years visiting the region of Puglia together with a big number of international journalists where money, Michelin restaurants and so on was no problem and we ware always welcome even private,

So I thought it was time to mix business with pleasure and so I took my wife, a great taster by the way, with me to the wine land of Puglia by car, 4500 Km of road going and back but with the necessary stop over’s in Italy’s wine regions, to Puglia.

After  a few weeks of thinking about the mix feeling we had from visiting the wine houses, I think it is time to share them with you. And I’m not talking about the tourist wine houses which anyone can go to.

It is sad to mention but I think much of the Puglian winemakers are still living in an other century and don’t care to much about the effect’s this visits can have on their export.

From about 10 winery’s we ware planning to visit and received confirmation we ware only received properly by 3.

In Belgium it is impossible to imagine after confirmation on an appointment there is nobody there, or forgot about it. This is exactly what happened on our trip. I want mention them all but I was deeply disappointed by these wine houses which I thought it was worth writing about them for their export.

• Vigne e Vini: not open because of trip to Asia, nobody available for visit and a cost of € 10,00 per person for a tasting ??? Promotion???

• Magistravini, Eméra: nobody there, forgot about the appointment, the nice girl from the reception did let us taste some very good wines wines but we had to go back for the rest. Two day’s later, the lady was there but the visit was taking over by the export manager. After the question if he was happy with the export to Belgium he answered it could be better. So I asked to give me some samples to put in a tasting here with some professionals which was no problem at first, but 5 minutes later there seems to be a problem of availability so I only received a few samples. Export?? Promotion??? 

• Tenuta Rubino: Visit with Mrs. Romina Rubino canceled and replaced by guide, uninteresting tour, nobody to talk about technical thing, no wine maker or enologist and tasting of 3 good commercial type of wines. Visit finished after 45 minutes. No samples possible. Promotion??? 

I want mention them all but We ware welcome at least by these:

• Apollonio: Because of business matters we ware welcomed only by one of the owners , Mr Massimiliano and then the tour was taking over by a nice lady. We had the possibility to taste whatever wine we wanted and it went well. Good wines, the Primitivo a bit high on alcohol but over all nice wines, some a bit commercial. There was no problem to get some samples to put in tasting later this year. A very warm goodbye by the owners.

My wife at the entrance

• Tormaresca: Thanks to my good friend for many years André Lindhoudt from Le Wine who takes care for the distribution in Belgium, not only the wines from Antinori, we ware welcome on the site near Brindisi.

A nice lady lead us trough the wine field to the place of reception of the harvest and the following of wine making and she knew a lot. Of course we didn’t see Antinori himself but also no technical staff.

The tasting was very well prepared and we even had the chance to taste some more specials. We did bring some wine gifts for the family home. Thank you André.

• Castello Monaci: This was really the top of all our visit’s. The owner Luigi Serraca Guerrieri was ready to welcome us even after a late arrival the day before coming from abroad. We went for a visit to the vineyards together with the agronomist where people ware busy working to clean the surplus on the vines and the wife took pleasure in helping them a bit.

        

We learned a lot of the different vines and we went also for a visit to the olive plantings.

A great tasting was prepared with wines from autochthonic grape varieties.

Even if the wines are already imported in Belgium but the distributor is only working with distribution in restaurants, it was no problem to take some samples with us. Thank you Luigi. We do the tasting later this year.

After the tasting we went to Porto Cesareo to the restaurant Luigi recommended Bacino Grande. You can eat good local dishes mostly fish and it is a very nice setting along the white beach and the aquamarine clear sea.

We ware settled in the center of the very nice Baroque city of Lecce, a place very much alive, many nice things to see and restaurants everywhere from the easy pizza to the more gastronomic restaurants.

One restaurant I really want to mention is the Ristorante Alex, right at the Arco di Trionfo at the tennis club, a nice setting but because of the very nice weather we took lunch outside.

Great service and very good gastronomy by the Lady Chef Alessandra Civilla. Thanks also to the sympathetic owner Alessandro Libertini.

Sadly enough on everything comes an end and after a week of Puglia it was time to get home but not before a stop over in the Colli Piacentini and Switzerland.