The fun part of this business is discovering great wine, meeting passionate people, visiting and learning about the geography and history that makes for great wine, finding the unexpected and serendipitous food pairing, turning people on to something they haven’t tasted before or heard of before, seeing a worthy brand become known….that end of this work is what propels us onward and involves us in a way with which we will never tire.

And then there is the small problem of getting the wine here!

Here’s just one example: our newest treasure: Azienda Agricola D’Ancona Passito di Pantelleria.

OK, granted this is somewhat of an extreme situation, but, unfortunately, not as rare as one would hope.

The island of Pantelleria is off the coast of Sicily but is in fact even closer to Tunisia than to Sicily. So one could say it is somewhat remote from the Italian mainland, but, well, it is after all still part of Italy, and certainly has a proud heritage and tradition, not to mention being a place that makes one of the most exquisite dessert wines in the world, a passito made from the Moscato di Alessandria grape, known locally as Zibbibo. We were excited to find something there that we thought would further enhance our portfolio.

We were introduced to the two sisters who are the moving force behind this winery at Vinitaly in April of 2007. It took only one taste for us to become very interested in bringing in their wine. I was hardly an expert on Passito di Pantelleria when I first tasted it, but it seemed to me to be more subtle, more balanced, more pure, more honest; in other words, more of a “Tesori Wine,” than any other Passito di Pantelleria I had tasted before.