Manteca launches own wine and amaro

Shoreditch restaurant Manteca has announced the launch of its own Sicilian white wine and an amaro which it will be selling both on- and off-trade.

Manteca opened in late 2021. The restaurant offers a nose-to-tail Italian-inspired dining experience, with an Italian-focused wine list to match.

The latest addition to the list, called Volume One, is produced by Sicilian cooperative Valdibella with input from Manteca’s head of wine Emily Acha Derrington and supplier Modal Wines. Valdibella was founded in 1998 and is a member of Addiopizzo, an association of Sicilian businesses that refuse to pay ‘pizzo’, the ‘protection’ money extorted by the Mafia.

The blend is 60% Catarratto (from two separate Validbella vineyards) and 40% Grillo from the 2022 vintage. A third of the Cataratto (20% of the final blend) had 10 days of skin contact to give it colour, complexity and texture.

Describing the wine, Derrington said: “This is a wine that jumps out of the glass. It’s a wonderful shade of yellow, with gentle aromas of jasmine from the Grillo. On the palate, this feels like a wine born in the sun: weighty ripe stone fruit, balanced with the texture, acidity and trademark touch of bitterness from the Catarratto extra lucido. The 10 days’ skin contact of the small amount of Catarratto adds an extra dimension, without too much structure or tannin. It’s a wine that you could happily sit and enjoy with many of the small plates at Manteca, but one that will also carry itself into the main courses.”

Tasting notes include honeysuckle and white stone fruit. One of the suggested pairings is the restaurant’s signature brown crab cacio e pepe.

The label is inspired old jazz posters, a homage to Manteca itself, which takes its name from a Dizzy Gillespie record. The intention is to follow up Volume One, which retails at Modal Wines for £24 (or £55 for a bottle/£9.50 for a glass in the restaurant), with subsequent wines.

The amaro was made for Manteca by Vault Aperitivo in Saffron Walden, Essex. It is based on apple bouse, a barrel aged brandy-like drink traditional to Essex, that was infused with green walnut, acorn, mint, fig, cacao, nettle, rosemary and pine. Its retail price is £38, with a single costing £4.50 in Manteca (£90 for the bottle).

Derrington noted that this digestivo is unfiltered and balances “earthy bitterness with fresh mint and chocolatey cacao”.

Manteca isn’t the only restaurant to recently make a foray into the world of spirits. Anthony Peart, bar manager at Tom Kerridge’s two-Michelin-starred pub The Hand and Flowers, recently launched a rum.