Wine Tasting Adventures with A New Team in Puglia
This summer our General Manager Fran Rossi travelled to Italy with one of our wonderful suppliers Alliance Wine. During the trip, she visited local vineyards sampling new wines and met with the producers of some of our favourite bottles on The Taybank wines list.
The team at The Taybank extends far beyond the team in the building or on the payroll. I’m incredibly lucky to work with so many amazing suppliers and producers, a community of guests, friends and family all collaborating on a daily basis and this is the beauty of hospitality to me. So I felt even luckier to take a trip to Italy this Summer with one of those suppliers, Alliance Wine, to meet one of those producers, Produttori Di Manduria.
Along with a group of grateful industry people, I headed to Pulglia, right in the heel of Italy to visit Produttori Di Manduria. The trip was guided by Team Alliance and makers Giovanni Dimitri and Anna Gennari who create the beautiful Lirica Primitivo, Zin Fiano and Aka Rosato which feature on The Taybank’s Wine List, and over the next two days they ensured that we fell even more in love with their wines than we were before.
Tasting wines with wine makers amongst the vineyards and in their winery is the very best way to experience wine. It was an inspirational trip and a brilliant chance to step out of the day to day operations to enjoy learning more of their story and to see the passion and skill that goes into every bottle. The energy and insight they shared was contagious.
To start the trip, our gracious and generous hosts treated us to a walking tour of the city of Lecce where we were staying and our local guide told brilliant stories about the Baroque architecture and fascinating history. Then, after a quick cocktail, we arrived at a beautiful piazza to a rustic restaurant to enjoy an alfresco six course tasting menu all thoughtfully paired with Produttori Di Manduria wines. A sure- fire way to make friends and bring a newly “recruited team” of like-minded industry professionals together was to dine at a special Italian table; to be looked after rather than doing the looking after. It was a top evening.
Now that we’d all bonded over shared industry stories (the good, the bad and the hilarious) relaxed and made connections, this new team was ready for our early morning wine tasting at the winery in Menduria. It has an open-to-everyone museum housed in the original cellars and took us back in time to experience the ancient ways of winemaking. The museum tour was followed by another delicious menu and a further comprehensive tasting of Produttori Di Manduria’s entire portfolio delivered by Giovanni. Every single wine was delicious and some have been earmarked for future Taybank wine lists. We also toured the winery and visited the vineyards to see and walk through the ancient vines that produce the world’s best Primitivo.
As if it couldn’t get better, Giovanni then took us to the coast where he had arranged for us to spend an afternoon at a beach club, this was no ordinary team-building experience, it was a chance for this group of hard-working hospitality experts to have a little slice of a holiday right in the middle of a busy Summer season. It was bliss and of course, included Produttori Di Manduria wine with added sunshine.
To end the trip, we were chauffeured from the beach to a stunning restaurant for our third tasting menu in two days and while the details are a little hazy, it was an incredible experience.
And then, home time. The scenery, the food and the wine were all outstanding but the best bit was the brilliant people I shared it with. A massive thank you to team Alliance Wine for making it happen and bringing such a great group of people together to experience something world-class.
The sun may have set on the trip but not on the connections made. I have loved sharing the stories and products with our team and guests back home at The Taybank but also welcoming and being welcomed by our extended crew for dinners and celebrations, job opportunities and collaborations.
Here’s to drinking more wine with more brilliant people soon!