Today we drove out to Tenuta Cavalier Pepe a winery about an hour outside of Napoli. The drive out there was pretty. Aly had message the winery they night before to see if they were open for lunch and if we could get a tour. They responded quickly that the winery was open for lunch and tasting. We arrived at about 11:40 and the gates were closed. We message the owner and she had the gate opened for us, she said during the week they keep the gates closed. We went inside and had our temperatures taken and then were given our breakfast bags. We opted to sit outside because it actually felt amazing, low 80s and a nice breeze.
Beautiful flower boxes around the outdoor seating. Breakfast -water, juice, and ham & cheese croissant. Our caffe was brought out on a nice silver tray.
We thing were given a tour of the winery. The man who did our tour was actually visiting from northern Italy. His dad is friends with Milena (the owner), so he is down learning about running a larger winery and helping out during the summer. He gave us information about the grapes that are grown in the area.
Nice view with the vineyards in the background.We learned that grapes can produce until they are about 40 years old. The grapes in this area were only about 25 years old. The older the vine they less they may produce. These grapes will be ready for harvest the end of September until about November. All the grapes are hand picked to make sure the ripest ones are being picked at the correct time. Rose bushes were placed at the end of the rows. This is so they can monitor if anything harmful is around it will get the roses and the wines can be saved. Now time to check out the inside. This is where the wine is put directly into the bottles. The goal during this process is to make sure all of the oxygen has been removed from the bottle prior to it being corked. Once the bottles are filled they will be help for up to 6 months before they are washed, labeled, and boxed for sale. Cool doors leading to the next area that holds all the tanks of wines. This container is filled with red wine. There are markers on the sides of the tanks to let you know how much wine is in the container. They want the container to remain full to make sure no oxygen gets inside of the tank. Once the wine has been processed and removed from the skin and has had time to soak, someone then has to remove all the skin from the tanks (once the wine has been transferred). There is a scoop that reaches inside to get the skin of the grapes out, but the someone has to get inside to make sure everything is out and has been cleaned. Eduardo (our guide) told us usually that is a younger/newer person that has this fun job. There were different wooden barrels that held different types of wine and for different amounts of time. We learned that the smaller barrels may be used for up to 5 years before they are no longer used ant more. The new barrels will give the wine a more woodsy taste than older barrels. The winery does sell their barrels. when they no longer can use them. If the barrels are uncleaned they are about €120 and cleaned is €150. Some bottles were stored in cement barrels. These do not change the taste of the wine. The toppers help let carbon dioxide out of the top without allowing any oxygen to get back inside. You may notice the candles on top of some of the barrels. This was because the lights were working the other day and they still had tours they don’t do anything for or to the wine. There was a lot of wine in bottles and in the barrels. They are building an upper level to work on increasing production. Next was time for the tasting to start. We were shown all of the wines we would get to try today. We tried the first wine in the main part of the winery. We started with the Oro Spumante it is aged for 6 months in autoclave before bottling. It was good. They provided us information of what the color should be, the aroma, taste, and what food to pair with. This wine is over 100 years old and was planted by Milena’s grandfather. It no longer produces grapes. Evidently Italy has a lot of rules about how long vines can be used to produce grapes. These are baby grape vines. During the 1st four years the grapes are watered. After that they are no longer watered once they start producing gapes. 30-40% of the vines planted will not grow to produce grapes. Walking up to the restaurant and having amazing view of the town. The views were just so amazing. We made it up to the restaurant at about 1pm to start the lunch and wine tasting. View from inside the restaurant. There was a man eating when we arrived, but he finished shortly after we arrived so we were the only people there. While the limited number of tourist has been fun for us to get a lot of private tours it has to be hard to the businesses. The square is fried cheese, the small circle with the fork is potato, the larger piece is sort of a bead with tomato sauce and cheese. All of it was very good. Now time for lunch and the wine tasting to begin. Vele Vento Vulcano- Food pairing: vegetable soup, light first course, white meats, seafood, and pizza. Cold cuts and cheeses from Irpinia, Italy. I guess I didn’t get pictures of the veggies that we were served family style.
Santa Vara- Irpinia Falanghina D.O.C. Food Paring – pasta with meat or seafood, cheeses, delicately spicy dishesBrancato Fiano Di Avellino D.O.C.G – Food pairing: well suited to regional and international foods. great with soups, fatty fish, vegetables, risotto, white meats, and fresh cheeses. Fusilli with zucchini flowers, sausage, cherry tomatoes and zucchini. This was so amazing and light. It want these pasta dishes now!Evidently I only took 1 picture of the Reds (we tried 3). The ones we tried were Terra Del Vara, Opera Mia, a reserve. Milena was also eating in the restaurant doing business at another table. She brought the award winning 2013 reserve over for us to try with her. It was fun, but I am not a big fan of red which if why I forgot to take more pictures. Thousand leave of Pampano suckling pig with spinach, baked potatoes and dried tomatoes. This was amazing as well, but I was getting so full!!! We were given good pours of wine and if you finished you glass they came back and asked if you wanted more! We also knew we had dessert and another wine. Nope still not time for dessert! This is just to cleanse you palate before the dessert and dessert wine. Watermelon, green apple, plum covered in powder sugar and a liquid jelly. This was really good everything was sweet and tangy. Now time for the Cerri Merry. You can drink this with your dessert or it can be sued as a toping for fruit or ice cream. We had a nougat parfait for dessert. It was amazing, frozen with some cherries. Since it is Italy you are offered a caffe. I was so full, but you ended up accepting the caffe. While finishing up eating we were given an order form to make our wine selections. The we have Eduardo our order and he sent pictures of the orders back to the tasting room, so our wine would be ready to be paid and picked up once we got down the hill. The breakfast, tour, tasting and lunch was €50/person. We thought for basically a private tour and lunch this was not a bad price. We were given plenty of food and wine during the day. It is now about 4pm as we head back down the tasting room to collect our wine. An all day adventure for sure! Another amazing view from behind the restaurant area. With the purchase of wine we received wine glass identifiers and a wine topper. This is one of the wine boxes you could purchase for €7
Juli's Journeys 