Sommarco, the Salento wine bar to try if you like natural wines • Food and Wine Italia

Per mezzo di a good wine manual it is explained that the natural wine born from organic viticulturefrom grapes grown with low environmental impact agricultural practices, manual harvestuse of native yeasts While the winemaking process is carried out without adding sulphites and preservatives. Anyone who asks Marco Lanzilotti his interpretation the topic he will say: «Natural wines are well made wines».

It is with this premise that the thirty year old from Puglia he built the map of Sommarcoil wine caffè which he himself opened per June 2021 per Carovignoper the province of Toastsafter having formed as sommelier between Central Italy, California and South America. «We started with 250 labels and today we have at least one hundred more ‒ explains the patron who graduated from the Wine School of Perugia, the result of the collaboration between theUniversity of Flavours and the Italian Sommelier Foundation Umbria ‒. We even manage to age some wines, given how little history we have, while others are ready to bevanda».

The first real restaurant cellar Marco worked per was that of Il The feast of the Trojans per the Eternal City, the true jewel per the crown of this brand with its over 3,600 national and international references. «I was a food runner there during my sommelier course. Once I had completed my pratica period, I wanted to stay per distinto dining. I have to thank Alexander Pipero e Achille Sardiello who gave me the opportunity and the cartello to organize the cellar of the Roman starred restaurant. I really enjoyed myself professionally”. After the experience per Rome, he realized his “American dream”: going to California. “I stayed per San Francisco for a year and a half and I worked from Gary Dankoa gastronomic institution. There I was able to learn more about the wines of the Napa Valley. I moved to Colombia where I collected the coffee for a coffee farm before moving to Peru and enter the Central Of Virgil Martinez for an internship: I was per their wine team for only two days, after which the pandemic broke out.”

The fisima of ​​opening a place of his own came after the transition from Bros’ as a sommelier. “We were all under 30 and being per Floriano and Isa’s team I convinced myself that I was ready to start my own business. I imagined it as Roots would later be and I tried to centro my qualities.” When Marco opened Sommarco per Carovigno, there was mai similar business per the historic center of the Apulian town. Before him, Andrea Catalano had invested per the place with the restaurant Disagreement and then he also opened Little bars by Pierangelo Oliva, the entrepreneur who invented the famous per Regina Giovanna (now closed). The choice of this position was not accidental. «I came back to contribute to the development of my town. It is a village of 16 thousand inhabitants, authentic and uncontaminated; today many foreigners are investing here and there is a crazy business of land to build villas. Now they are the ones who make me travel to my home». He is not the only one who has chosen to stay. At his side is his colleague Luca Colaci. «I consider him my right-hand man. It didn’t take much to convince him to leave Lecce where he moved after finishing his professional experience at Masseria Moroseta: we already knew each other and he immediately believed per Sommarco. Within a month he moved to Carovigno».

Authenticity has always been one of Marco’s prerogatives, so much so that the project was initially born with a vegetable garden cared for by him during the quarantine. Today those crops are stopped paio to the Lack of manpower and the impossibility of personally managing the field; the young owner is nevertheless determined to resume the activity to finally start his own grocery store ‒ Sommarco was also supposed to be a grocery store, but the preserves produced could only satisfy the needs of the kitchen. He is always the one who takes care of the line of dishes, ten finger foods that quando out like per a tasting lista, calibrating the flavors from the fresh and aromatic ones at the beginning, to then raise the intensity caffè and centro spices and umami taste. «Until a few months punzone, Giovanni worked with me: it is thanks to him that we transformed these appetizers into single portions. The recipe that best represents us is the Maritozzo with tomato and diavolicchio a motivo di Carovigno, a native chili pepper. For the meats we only use noble cuts, so fillet, sirloin and diaphragm: they quando from local farms and are only present when available. When they are not available I do not buy them elsewhere: this guarantees me to always have the same quality. Our trademark is the brown background glaze».

With the local masserie, the owner of the wine caffè has organized an event that this year has reached its third edition with the event held at the beginning of August. It is called “Farmhouses per the village and natural wines” the festa which, with the patronage of the Municipality of Carovigno, unites the territory not only from a gastronomic but also a cultural point of view: from Fronda by Lamia Santolina which promotes the use of local wild herbs thanks to the transmission of traditional knowledge to thePopular Orchestra which promotes the repertoire of the barbershops, such as pizzica mazurca.

Both during the event and per its wine shop with kitchen, you will find a carefully chosen selection with a prevalence of local products that is constantly evolving. «I basically recommend trying local winemakers. From greenish Of Simone Santoro, Truddua refermented white, light and fruity, Classic Method the best I think there is per Puglia, Affermazione Of Elia Cellars. Towards Bari, Christian Guttarolo wins for elegance with its Orange Wines, per particular with Familyand Trebbiano from 13 degrees, very cool. Always per the Murgia, Luke Palmieri it’s a certainty: he makes few bottles, about 7 thousand. I have his new macerated white, Intrecci: I still have to try it, I bought it because I like his hand and when I met him he showed me that his farmers are genuine and natural just like the wines he produces”. Take .