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A new Thanksgiving tradition: Teresa Manara Negroamaro

By Do Bianchi

It’s been an exciting year for Cantele in the U.S.

Earlier this year, the winery launched its new partnership with Leonardo LoCascio Selections (Winebow), the number-one importer of Italian wines in the U.S. today.

And for the first time since Cantele began selling its wines in the U.S. decades ago, the winery’s flagship Negroamaro — the Teresa Manara Negroamaro — is now widely available in the country.

Like the estate’s flagship Chardonnay (Teresa Manara Chardonnay), it’s named after Teresa Manara Cantele, the woman who inspired the family to move to Puglia’s Salento peninsula three generations ago.

It’s made with the estate’s top selection of Negroamaro grapes, picked at ideal ripeness to produce a full-bodied, rich but lithe expression of Salento’s noble red grape variety.

We are particularly happy that it has finally made its way to the U.S. because we believe it’s a wonderful wine for the classic Thanksgiving meal, fresh on the nose and palate but with enough structure and smooth tannins to make pair well with Americans’ favorite holiday dishes.

Feel free to email our American blogmaster Jeremy if you need help finding Teresa Manara Negroamaro at a wine shop near you.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American friends!
Why Chardonnay from Puglia? The answer lies in a church…

By Do Bianchi

When people first become familiar with the wines of the Cantele family, they are often surprised to discover that the winery produces Chardonnay.

Primitivo? Of course! The great red workhorse of Pugliese wine.

Negroamaro? It goes without saying! Negroamaro is the quintessential red grape of the Salento peninsula and it produces one of the greatest wines of Italy.

Historically, Puglia has been known for its production of red grapes. And there was a time (and not so long ago that people don’t remember) when red wine was shipped from Puglia up to Northern Italy and even as far away as France. It was often blended into red wines that needed higher alcohol levels or more color.

Indeed, Puglia was a powerhouse in commercial wine production throughout the modern era.

If you drank a red wine in a Paris restaurant at the height of the phylloxera crisis during the mid-nineteenth century, it’s not unlikely that you drank a wine grown in Puglia.

It wasn’t until the early 1990s when Augusto Cantele began experimenting with new approaches to grape harvest that Chardonnay became a commercially viable grape variety in Puglia and he is widely recognized as the Chardonnay pioneer of the Salento peninsula.

He believed — and his vision for white wine in Puglia has become a reality — that the limestone subsoils of Puglia’s Salento Peninsula were ideal for the cultivation of Chardonnay.

Indeed, the entire Salento peninsula lies on limestone.

That same limestone is what gives the city of Lecce it’s golden baroque architecture.

It’s also what has made Puglia one of the world’s greatest olive oil producers since antiquity.
Homemade taralli (and Cantele rosé) at Gradisca in New York

By Do Bianchi

How could we not share the above photo from one of our favorite restaurants in New York City?

Those are taralli, the classic savory snack from Puglia, homemade at Gradisca in Manhattan, one of the city’s leading Italian culinary destinations.

The folks at Gradisca, which is named after the famous character in Federicao Fellini’s classic film Amarcord, take most of their inspiration from Emilia-Romagna (be sure to try the tigelle btw!).

But they also venture out into other regional cuisines of Italy, like these taralli (from their Facebook).

Technically a savory shortbread, taralli are baked using just flour, olive oil, and salt — Pugliese flour and olive oil, of course!

Some believe that they originated as a sort of friendship ring that travelers could carry with them.

Our English-language blogger once heard Master of Wine Jancis Robinson say that they were possibly the best accompaniment to wine tasting (no joke!).

Not only will you find fun specials like this at Gradisca, but you can also drink Cantele Rosato there.

We couldn’t be more proud to be part of this extraordinary program.

Gradisca
126 W 13th St.
New York NY 10011
(212) 691-4886
Google map
Harvest 2019 comes to an end…

By Do Bianchi

Those are some of the very last Negroamaro grapes that winemaker Gianni Cantele and his team harvested last week.

The bunches will be used to make Cantele’s top red wine, the Teresa Manara Negroamaro.

A native grape variety of Puglia (the heel of Italy’s boot), Negroamaro is considered by many to be the region’s top red grape. Traditionally blended with smaller amounts of Malvasia Nera to make the Cantele Salice Salentino, its rich flavor and freshness also make it suitable for barrique-aging (as in the case of the Teresa Manara, made from 100 percent Negroamaro grapes).

Gianni is very happy with this year’s harvest and expects the wines to be classic in style.

No one really knows the origin of the grape name, although some believe it to mean bitter red [grape], possibly inspired by the fact that it is an excellent grape to use in the production of dry red wines.

Others think that the name might be a hybrid compound of Latin and Greek meaning red-red [grape], perhaps because Latin and Greek were once spoke in Puglia, a former Greek colony that was ultimately conquered by the Romans.
Wine Spectator “Smart Buys”: Cantele Salice Salentino 90 points!

By Do Bianchi

From a preview of the November 2019 issue of Wine Spectator:

Cantele 2015 Salice Salentino Riserva
90 points
“Smart Buy”

This fresh, medium-bodied red shows a lovely mix of ripe and black fruit, currant, raspberry and blackberry flavors, with light, creamy tannins and hints of iron and herb.

Alison Napjus
senior editor
A beautiful shot of Negroamaro bunches, ready to be picked

By Do Bianchi

“The temperature today,” wrote winemaker Gianni Cantele on his Facebook this week, “doesn’t give you the impression that summer is over.”

“But the swallows,” he observed, “are ready to leave for warmer shores and the Negroamaro grapes say hello to autumn.”

Gianni will begin picking his top grapes any day now.
The bees know when it’s time to harvest the Negroamaro

By Do Bianchi

“The bees,” wrote winemaker Gianni Cantele on his Facebook this morning, “tell you a lot more than any grape refractometer could! We’re ready to pick!”

A grape refractometer is a handheld device that allows growers and winemakers to measure the brix (sugar levels) in the berries in the vineyard without having to take them to the lab for analysis.

But who needs one when you have the bees???!!!

Let the Negroamaro harvest begin!
Wine Spectator features Cantele Rosato

By Do Bianchi

With harvest well under way here in Salento at the Cantele winery, we couldn’t have been more thrilled to learn that Wine Spectator has featured our Rosato from Negroamaro as one of the editors’ top rosé wines for the summer of 2019.

In “10 Rosés for One Last Hurrah,” senior editor Alison Napjus offers this tasting note for the 2018 Cantele Rosato (88 points), one of the magazine’s recommended wines for Labor Day weekend (the official end of summer in the U.S.):

“A bright and buoyant rosé, with an appealing mix of mulberry and white cherry, almond blossom and pink grapefruit sorbet. Tangy finish.”

Click here for the complete review (subscribers only).
Harvest has begun at Cantele!

By Do Bianchi

The 2019 harvest has begun at Cantele!

Those are Fiano grapes above, photographed by winemaker Gianni Cantele. They were among the first grapes to be picked.

Puglia’s yield this vintage is predicted to be slightly smaller than last year’s. But the quality, by all accounts, is very high and Gianni and his team are already hard at work making the wines, which they expect to be great this year despite the lower volume.

With the white grape harvest now well under way, Gianni is still tasting and analyzing laboratory samples of the red grapes to determine when he’ll start picking the estate’s Primitivo and Negroamaro.

Buona vendemmia, as they say in Italian! Have a great harvest, Gianni!
It’s a small world after all: Cantele at Walt Disney World

By Do Bianchi

It’s always a great feeling to discover that someone likes your wine enough to pour by-the-glass on their list.

But when that restaurant happens to be at Walt Disney World (near Orlando, Florida), it’s something really special.

We were just thrilled to see that Terralina, the Disney Springs Italian restaurant, is currently pouring our Rosato from Negroamaro by the glass.

Let’s just say the news left us tickled pink.

Anyone up for a trip to the Magic Kingdom? It’s a small world after all!

Image via the Disney Springs website.