We are organising our Christmas supply of wines, cheeses, shipping our new olive oil and bringing in pulses and cereals for the New Year. All these will be in just in time for Christmas.

I’m just off the phone one of our suppliers Franco Santucci. Franco is the manager for Le Poggette, one of our wine suppliers. He is also the commissionaire for agriculture in this part of Italy. He helps me source some of the greatest products from this part of Italy.

This year Franco picked up for the second time The Veronelli Prize for the best wine in Category with their Torre Maggiore. That is like winning an Oscar in the wine business of Italy. It is a Montepulciano grape which they have turned into an amazing experience.

We will also bring in their Colli Amerino which is based on the central Italian grape Sangiovese and the third wine we stock from Franco is Canaiolo, a less well know grape but you will probably have drunk it in the blend of a good Chianti.

http://www.fattorialepoggette.it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaiolo

Our House wine has from day one developed a big following. It is by Alessandro at Sandonna. It is simply great drinking red, the perfect “vino rosso”. One of the reasons this has been so successful is the fact that it is unfiltered. It is an honest farm wine, created by someone who is skilled in modern for winemaking techniques. This gives you a taste that is almost lost today’s offer of low and mid range wines which are more than not doctored in one way or another. Here is something truly natural and of quality.

The wine business is tough and Alessandro like many people in this industry need a second job to keep the show on the road.  So when he is not in the cantina or the field he works for the National Railways. We are the first people to have exported his wines, helping him to deal with customs arrangements and transportation documentation. He has rebottled his Merlot under the name Selve di Giove and we import from him another less well know grape Ciliegiolo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciliegiolo

Lentils are eaten in Italy at New year as a symbol of prosperity
http://www.bettinibio.com/

Have you ever had lentils and sausage at Cookie? Or tried our farro soup.
Umbria has a long history of pulses and cereals. We import these from the Bettini farm who are certified organic producers.

From here we import ancient grains like Farro (spelt) and the famous lentils from Castelluccio “lenticchia di Castelluccio di Norcia IGP” which compete on the world stage with the green lentils from le Puy en Velay

We will be holding a cheese and wine on the 21st of September at 6.30 pm £15. Please book with the restaurant.

The night will introduce the wines we directly import ourselves. These come from small producers in Italy, Austria & Romania. In conjunction with our tasting we will have a guest speaker Dr Pamela Clayton from Glasgow University who will speak about the state of the European wine market and the issues of marketing small European wine producers.

We will launch our newly bottled house red by Alessandro from the Sandonna farm in Umbria  and bring back our favorite white, Gruner Veltliner from Mr Schmid of Pillichsdorf in Austria.

Our new arrivals

will be from Romanian. Romania is the fifth largest wine producer in Europe today but hardly known outside its borders as 95% of its production is drunk domestically. Its wine industry is going through a revolution with some fantastic wines beginning to see the light across it borders. We will bring you native grape varieties such as Feteasca Neagra & Regala and the ancient Cramposie from Prince Stirbey.