Pop-up Restaurant at Frontline: 25th April now confirmed

Great news! Charlotte, Cesare, Rohan and I are going to be hosting our first pop-up restaurant at Frontline in Paddington on 25th April. 


The idea is to create a typical Potentino lunch and dinner even if we aren't sitting under the loggia looking up at Monte Amiata with Coco and Messy playing in the courtyard or sitting by the fire in the kitchen playing Scopa...

All our ingredients will come from Monte Amiata or from Frontline's Farm in Norfolk. Since we can't be sure what will look good in the market, we have put together a few sample menus to whet your appetite.

Lunch Sitting 1-12:00 for 12:30pm ONLY 8 PLACES LEFT £20 


Lunch Sitting 2- 2:30 for 3:00pm £20 NOW SOLD OUT
A plate of crostini with walnut pesto, tomato and mentuccia, garlic and olive oil 

Charlotte's famous spaghetti with bottarga, zucchini and flowers

Seggiano pecorino and chestnut honey

Fresh ricotta and chestnut puree

Dinner (one sitting, 7:30 for 8pm) £20 NOW SOLD OUT

Farinata di ceci

Fabbio's Italian pork sausages in wine and Fave e foglie (broad bean puree and bitter greens sauteed with garlic and chilli)

Seggiano pecorino and chestnut honey

Cesare's Tiramisu 

Coffee and water are included.

Wine can be purchased by the glass, bottle or case!

We will have some of the new season olive oil as well.


LAUNCHING THE NEW WHITE WINE
Charlotte has posted about our new and very exciting white wine- Lyncurio. This will be the very first opportunity to taste it.


Opening Hours
The bar will be open all day from 11:30am-10:30pm.

Booking
I hope that this will become a monthly event- but as this is a soft launch, we would like to get an idea of numbers so that we have one fewer thing to worry about. Please book by posting a comment below with your name and time you want to eat and number of people you will be.

Film Screening
Frontline will be holding a screening at 4pm of Live from Bethlehem. You are more than welcome to come for lunch and then stay on for the screening and come back for an early supper afterwards! If you would like to book a ticket to the screening please click here.

Getting There
The Frontline Club is in 13 Norfolk Place, Paddington, W2 1QJ.
The building is on the corner of Norfolk Place and St. Michael's Street. Norfolk Place runs between Sussex Gardens and Praed Street and is just opposite the entrance to St. Mary's Hospital.
Closest Tube Station: Paddington

The Potentino Pop-up will be in the Clubroom on the 1st floor.

Buying Potentino Wine
If you would like to have some wine delivered to your home. Please click here for the Piropo and here for the Sacromonte. Delivery is free.

Conca d'oro sulla televisione

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7z1wORbh5E

links

www.vinoalvino.org/blog/2010/03/giu-le-mani-dalla-conca-d’oro-di-seggiano-un-mega-hotel-di-fronte-al-castello-di-potentino.html

http://www.sommelier.it/archivio.asp?ID_Categoria=9&ID_Articolo=1871

http://www.vinix.it/myDocDetail.php?ID=3881&lang=ita

Invito al Convegno

INVITO AL CONVEGNO

PER LA TUTELA DELLA CONCA D'ORO

CASTELLO DI POTENTINO Seggiano SABATO 3 APRILE ORE 16,00

Invito a un dibattito pubblico

“Per la tutela della Conca d'Oro”

presso il Castello di Potentino - Seggiano www.potentino.com

Con interventi di rappresentanti nazionali di Italia Nostra, del “Comitato per la Valdorcia, Amiata e Crete Senesi”, WWF, operatori economici della zona

È stata invitata l'Amministrazione Comunale e la cittadinanza interessata.

Potentino in Peril

Known as the 'Golden Basin' because of its wonderful fertility, the valley between Seggiano and Montegiovi shows no signs of modern intervention.  A paradise of bio-diversity dotted with mixed plots of vineyards,  olive groves, orchards, vegetable gardens and chestnut woods.  It is dominated by the Castello di Potentino, a national monument and a wine-making estate, owned by relatives of the writer Graham Greene. (Decanter 4 stars and Guida L'Espresso 5 bottles - top 12 wines in Tuscant 2010).  Thanks to the lack of construction it has remained more or less unaltered since Medieval times and there is evidence of much earlier  farming found in the Etruscan wine-making stones by the river.

Now, after centuries untouched, it is under threat - a project for a well being centre about 

500m from the castle and various other connected residential structures with asphalted access.

It is sadly only one example of what appears to be a symptomatic destruction of a historic rural heritage - the Val D'Orcia famous for its classic Tuscan look used in films like the ENGLISH PATIENT is also suffering from similar concrete invasions.  Montepo, another wine estate owned by the Biondi Santi family has been completely surrounded by wind towers.  Basically, local councils are short of money as EU grants and certain taxes are no longer designated to them, so they are merrily giving away remunerative permissions on the only resources they have left - the unique Tuscan landscape which the tourists come for and the very image which help sell its famous wine and food abroad.  A very effective auto-destruction.

"Organic" Wine

I saw this fascinating post in the New York Times Freakonomics Blog  last week. It seems that labelling wine organic doesn't offer the price premium that it does with other organic products.

I have always had a bug bear about farming legislation which distinguishes between organic and conventional farming. The onus and expense of certification should be reversed where organic should be the default position rather than an expensive, bureaucratic choice.

The bureaucratic burden should be placed on the farmers who wish to use pesticides and fertilisers (whether organic or not) through the purchase of licences and taxed on the use of environmentally harmful products and there should be regular checks on all farmers to make sure that they are in compliance. 

I would prefer to see a list of chemicals used on the produce I buy- a list of ingredients with their relative levels.

Wine should certainly not be excluded from this as I think most people would be horrified to know what goes into some of the more industrial "wine beverages" that are available on the lists of even the finest wine merchants.

I am certain that there is a kernal of an idea here- it isn't entirely practical and I am not convinced that this would always help inform the consumers' decisions, but the fact that a chicken can be pumped full of antibiotics (not on the label), plumped with all sorts of hydrogenated fats (on the label) and we still accept a bottle of wine that tells us nearly nothing, makes me wish I could raise one eye-brow...

Charlotte will have more to say on this I am sure!

First Outing for The New Vintages and LYNCURIO's debut

www.acquabuona.it

Terre di Toscana 2010 - Terza edizione. 7 e 8 marzo a Lido di Camaiore

Terre di Toscana e i suoi territori. Maremma (grossetana), Lucchesia, Massese

Per finire, l’alta Maremma interna o, per riassumere in una parola, il Montecucco. Altro mondo, sebbene ci troviamo ancora in provincia di Grosseto. Le giaciture e i terreni sostanzialmente differenti, le condizioni climatiche in alcuni casi pedemontane, concorrono alla realizzazione di vini più freschi e contrastati che non quelli della Maremma classica. A Terre di Toscana saranno presenti tre campioni del territorio: Leonardo Salustri , che con l’aiuto del figlio Marco cura le vigne una a una per ricavarne dei sangiovese personalissimi e di grande energia, i Montecucco Grotte Rosse e Santa Marta.  Castello di Potentino, con lo straordinario Montecucco Sacromonte, l’intrigante Piròpo (pinot nero in larga prevalenza, per ora in assemblaggio con sangiovese ed alicante), e con la nuova scommesa in bianco, chiamata Lyncurio, di cui siam certi si parlerà.