A reality that grows side by side with cooking in order to always offer customers the best.
Today we want to focus our attention on a parallel but integral part of “da Tonino restaurant”: its cellar. We will let the winery tell its story, about its birth, about the people who dedicated their energy and passion to it, until it became a fundamental element that travels side by side with the excellent and refined cooking of the restaurant.
The winery was established in the mid-90’s, under the management of chef Antonino Aprea; after some years, however, its management passed to his son Gennaro, who is still in charge of it with an expert attitude and dedication.
Since the beginning, the enthusiasm poured by the Apreas into the project brought excellent results. At that time they mainly focused on great northern wines, especially from Tuscany; attention was also paid to good products from southern Italy, more or less known. As time goes by, this vocation to the territory evolves more and more, and Gennaro spends more and more energies looking for young wineries with excellent products, local realities that are worth proposing and bringing to the attention of customers.
Today in the cellar there is a great variety of labels, from the great champagne to the most niche wines. A good 90% of them is made of Italian wines, ranging from the big names of the north to small producers, including young producers of our territory as well.
Wine cellar and restaurant are, now, two realities that go on the same track, and they inevitably influence each other. For example, as many meat dishes come from the kitchen, it is natural that the winery offers a rich and varied selection of important red wines, while always being careful to offer valid alternatives to customers ranging from countries and styles. Pairings that are typically suggested are a Greco miniere Cantina dell’Angelo with the “chicken or egg first” or Taurasi Perillo to accompany Maialino nero, friarielli, sweet potatoes and BBQ sauce.
Gennaro and his brother Salvatore try, on one hand, to keep in touch with the great producers who still make up the wine list of the winery, but at the same time they never stop looking for new ones, even abroad, which can offer products that are maybe niche products, but always of high quality. Aprea’s attention is paid both to countries where the tradition of wine is renowned, such as France, and to other countries, such as Greece and Georgia, capable of offering excellent wines with flavors which are also very different from the ones we find in Italy. As a witness of the equal importance today of winery and restaurant, there is the care the Aprea family gives to both projects: when they have in mind an improvement for the restaurant, they do their best to make sure the winery is not less important, with the goal of making them grow together and to offer customers the best on both sides.