Join Niagara, Okanagan winemakers for dinner
The Pennachetti family first established roots in Ontario’s Niagara region in the early 1920s when Giuseppe Pennachetti emigrated from Italy to work as a mason building Niagara’s Welland Canal.
After establishing a successful concrete business with his sons, Giuseppe retired and proceeded to explore wine-growing, a passion from his days in Italy. The family carried on the tradition and, in 1973, the Pennachetti family acquired its first farmland at Cave Spring on Niagara’s Beamsville Bench.
Named after the limestone caves and mineral springs located in their vineyard, Cave Spring Cellars has been producing wines in the Niagara region for more than 30 years.
Still run by the Pennachetti family, the winery has been a leader in the evolution and devel- opment of the wine industry in Niagara and was among the first to plant Riesling and Chardonnay vines in the region.
Christine Coletta has seemingly been involved with every aspect of the hospitality industry in British Columbia — from holding management roles in Vancouver restaurants and hotels to overseeing the construction, marketing and management of several fine dining establishments, to creating her own marketing company, to working on provincial and federal government initiatives including the hospitality industry training program Serving it Right. For her long service to the industry, Coletta was inducted into the B.C. Restaurant Hall of Fame in 2013.
Coletta also served as the executive director of the British Columbia Wine Institute from 1990 to 1999 and helped raise awareness of the province’s fledgling industry.
Being so involved with the wine industry led, not surprisingly, to Coletta and her husband to establish Okanagan Crush Pad and Haywire Winery in 2011.
Coletta and Haywire winemaker Matt Dumayne are joining together with Cave Spring’s Tom Pennachetti for a cross-country collaborative winemakers’ dinner at Guru Restaurant on Friday, May 5.
In addition to their selection of wines, Pennachetti and Coletta have experienced and will share their intimate knowledge of the growth, evolution, successes and challenges of the Canadian wine industry over the past three decades.
An added feature of the dinner will be the appearance of guest chef Duncan Ly of Calgary’s Foreign Concept who will team up with Guru’s chef Deependra Singh to create a multi-course menu to compliment the wines. Ly is one of Calgary’s most wellrespected and award-winning chefs, winning silver at the 2014 Canadian Culinary Championships.
Guru is located at 17021 100 Ave. Tickets are $145 plus tax and available at www.northernlands. ca.