An Evening With Alessia

Published April 2008


Last Friday evening a small group of us here in Kota Kinabalu were given the opportunity to interact with Alessia Antinori, a scion from one of the most important Italian wine families. Held at Shangri-La's Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa, the venue for the event was at the resort's Italian restaurant Peppino - voted one of Malaysia's best restaurants.
Thanks to the culinary skills of Chef Denis Vecchiato, Antinori Biancos and Chianti Classicos were intelligently paired with a sophisticated Italian menu.
The dinner, entitled "An Evening With Alessia Antinori" gave guests the chance to familiarize themselves with some of the more popular wines from the Antinori fold. 

With a large number of awards and accolades and a very solid reputation in Italy's somewhat rigid wine structure and appellation, the Antinoris clearly know what they are doing when it comes to all things grape related. To quote Marchese Piero, the head of the Antinori family, "ancient roots play an important role in our philosophy, but they have never held back our spirit of innovation."
 
The Antinoris have been producing wine for the past 600 years and are credited with formulating the 'Super Tuscan' in the 1970s ; a richer version of Chianti table wine. 
Marchese Piero Antinori's experiments with other grape varieties from the region, namely cabernet sauvignon and merlot, were initially frowned upon and was considered a very bold move at the time. With the success of the Super Tuscan however, Antinori can now rest on the laurels of it's premier wines and the direct product of this trial is the famous Tignanello which was clearly the ambrosial star of the evening.

I was fortunate to be able to speak to the charming and gracious Allesia on life as an Antinori.



YOUR FAMILY HAS MADE WINE FOR 26 GENERATIONS?
Yes. I am part of that 26th generation with my other two sisters. We are three women involved in the wine business. So it's quite unique. 


DID YOU AND YOUR SISTERS ALWAYS WANT TO BE IN THE WINE INDUSTRY OR DID YOU TRAIN FOR SOMETHING ELSE?
No we had the choice to do whatever we wanted. But we have wine in our DNA, in our genes. I actually wanted to study history of art but then decided that I wanted to leave Florence and ended up studying wine making. I focused more on being a winemaker in the beginning but now I mainly look after sales. 

DO YOU DO MUCH TRAVELING?
Yes I travel to the Middle East and Asia. I spend about 4 months out of a year here in this part of the world. 

THAT SOUNDS TIRING.
I always tell myself that during all the trips that I make, I try to stay more relaxed but then that's impossible. I arrived on Monday morning at 6am in Hong Kong. I spent a day there for work. On Tuesday I went to Singapore and on Wednesday I was in Bangkok. And yesterday I was in Siem Reap in Cambodia. Today I came here.



HAVE YOU BEEN TO SABAH BEFORE?
No. It's my first time. I've been to KL and Penang many times before but not to Sabah.



AS YOU'VE TRAVELED EXTENSIVELY IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD, IS THERE ANY TYPE OF FOOD THAT SHOULD NOT BE PAIRED WITH WINE?
I think Asian food does generally go with wine. But if it's is extremely spicy or too hot it will ruin the taste of the wine. Something to look at is Cambodian food. From what I've tried I didn't find it spicy and it actually went very well together.



YOU HAVE WINERIES OUTSIDE OF ITALY, IN HUNGARY AND AMERICA. IS THERE ANY PARTICULAR REASON FOR THIS? Absolutely. My father has always traveled abroad a lot. The main characteristic about Antinori is that it is a hundred percent family owned and also that we have an extremely open minded view on Italian wines. So we went ahead, traveled a lot and fell in love with the new wine areas. And for us it is not a matter of financial matters but exchanging opinions and experiences with people from the new wine areas of the world.
We got the chance to invest in Napa Valley in the 1980s and in Chile we own fifty percent of a winery there. We have a beautiful property called Bàtaapàti in the south of Hungary. And then there's a small collaboration in Washington State too. 



THAT SOUNDS QUITE PROGRESSIVE.Nowadays you would say it's quite normal, especially from the 90s onwards. In the 70s it wasn't normal but I believe that what makes us good is having an open mind and also having the opportunity to invest in new areas back then which today, would be too expensive.



SO YOU GOT IN EARLY.
Well in the Napa Valley in the 80s we were one of the first ones there. Also in Puglia which is a region in Italy, I would say that we were one of the first foreigners, not from that particular area,  to invest there. So it is really important to have a pioneering approach.



ARE THERE ANY PLANS TO FURTHER DEVELOP WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE?
With my father anything is possible but we also concentrate on whatever we have. There are a few interesting wines that we are exploring, grape varieties, but you never know. Whenever my father travels he always comes back with something new, some new ideas



WHAT ELSE SHOULD WE KNOW ABOUT ANTINORI?
That the history and tradition of Antinori is very important. Also innovation, to be able to really look ahead and experiment. And to be obsessed with quality, that's a very important factor. That comes across from our entry level wines to the top ones. Being family owned one hundred percent, which is something I think is very rare nowadays. 


An Evening With Alessia Antinori at Peppino's Italian Restaurant, Shangri-La's Tanjung Aru Resort. 

MENU
Appetizer : Tuna sashimi with baby Mesclun in lemon and olive oil dressing
Wine : Campogrande Orvieto Classico DOC

First Course : Double boiled porcini mushroom consommé with goats cheese ravioli and black truffle
Wine : Villa Antinori Bianco Toscana ITG

Middle Course : Maltagliati pasta with pan fried goose liver and fresh thyme
Wine : Peppoli Chianti DOCG

Main Course : Over roasted to perfection lamb loin with red wine reduction and baby vegetables
Wine : Badia a Passignano Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG

Dessert : Edelweiss chocolate and lemon cheese delight with petit berry cake and red fruits coulis. 
Wine : Tignanello Toscana IGT