What to drink at Trullo

Trullo in Islington promises a marriage of Italian recipes with British ingredients. Louis Thomas finds out how this philosophy also manifests itself in the wine list from buyer Will Amherst. Opened in 2010 on St Paul's Road, Trullo arguably pioneered the art of serving Italian-inspired simplicity to Londoners before it was cool. In 2023 the restaurant would open a wine bar next door, but this has not come at the expensive of the main restaurant's wine offering.

Own label

One new inclusion to Trullo's by-the-glass selection is a 2023 Gavi di Gavi (£10). "The own label Gavi di Gavi is our second own label wine, we started by bottling our own label Chianti with Poggiotondo and Liberty Wines just before Christmas 2023, and got it to table in the early part of the last year," explains Amherst. "The second part of the project was getting a white onto the table, which we bottled with Alliance Wine and Produttori del Gavi, and that went over the line in September, so we managed to match it up wrongly with what people would be drinking seasonally!" "We had quite a few options for both wines. We are linked to both producers through our connections with certain suppliers, and we wanted to work with people who a) we liked personally, and b) had some experience bottling own label wines. We settled on it being a Gavi di Gavi before we got to that stage, because the Gavi it came to replace on our list was our bestselling wine. Gavi is an easy wine choice – it shares something with Albariño for me, maybe not the ageing potential, but it is a great crisp seafood wine," he adds. Indeed, placed alongside an antipasto of Cornish monkfish carpaccio with blood orange & fennel, or a primo of tagliarini with shaved violetta artichoke & bottarga, the slightly saline and pleasingly zippy Gavi di Gavi is an appropriate match.

Alternative options

While Chianti and Gavi di Gavi are classic crowdpleasers, there are some slightly more off piste offerings in the by-the-glass selection. One of these is the 2019 Celementi Valpolicella Superiore (£12), which the list notes is served chilled, perhaps to preempt customer complaints about their glass of rosso being colder than they expected. "We've always served the Recenti Valpolicella chilled since it went on," says Amherst. "It came off for a little bit over Christmas, but was still available by-the-bottle, chilled. I think we drink red wine a bit too warm. Cellar temperature doesn't mean room temperature. We serve the Valpolicella at 11°C in order to get the best out of what is a light red wine. Having a bright cherry, red-fruited wine chilled is great for tables who don't know exactly what they want in the summer – it's very versatile, you can have it with most things on the Trullo table, pork, fish...though it might not stand up to pairing with a T-bone." Another wine available by-the-glass which could well cause consternation among staunch wine list traditionalists is the Sant'Agnese Covante Coda di Volpe (£9.50) from the toe of the boot, Calabria, which Amherst describes as a "gateway orange". "We wanted an orange wine that was hopefully interesting and would excite people who haven't tried it before, but wasn't too funky, or too 'orange'. Lots of the northern Italian oranges, of which we have a few on the list, they are bottled in 50cl bottles or smaller by certain producers because they're quite a lot to deal with, especially if you are uninitiated. I didn't want to have an orange wine available by-the-glass which you would only have one glass of!"

Sweet Sicilians

When you are proffered the dessert menu, the 'After dinner' drinks section includes two Sicilian sweet wines, as well as a Recioto della Valpolicella. One of these is the 10-year-old Marsala Riserva from Curatolo Arini (£6.50 for 70ml), a fitting drink for an Anglo-Italian eatery given that it was the British who came to Western Sicily and did what we do best and added extra alcohol to the wine. "I think fortified wines have been done a great disservice," argues Amherst. "They are fantastic with all their nutty, dried fruit aromas you get with oxidative ageing, with a bit of backbone from the fortification process. They are not obvious to most people as they are not obviously sweet, but with a cheese board – at the moment we have gorgonzola dolce, which is very good with the Marsala. It's a huge injustice to see Marsala as something you put in your gravy or cook your chicken in." Though excellent with the cheese, it felt appropriate to match the Marsala with Trullo's ricotta doughnuts, served with a cinnammon custard & Marsala-macerated prunes. If you're ever unsure about a wine pairing, you can't go far wrong by going with whatever was used in the recipe. Amherst, who recently travelled to the wind blasted island of Pantelleria, has the most famous wine from this speck of land located somewhere between Sicily's west coast and Tunisia. "Donnafugata's Ben Ryé Passito di Pantelleria is on the opposite end of the spectrum to the Marsala – it offers everything you want from a really voluptuous, luscious dessert wine." The 2022 vintage is undeniably delicious, with its aromas of marmalade and olives, but one can't help but taste it and dream of what it will taste like in a decade, when the Ben Ryé develops its signature profile of black coffee and capers.

Home grown hits

Although the wine list is, unsurprisingly, centred on Italy, there are a few entries from producers a little closer to home. Hailing from just a short hop across the channel, the sparkling by-the-glass selection includes a NV Brut Reserve Champagne from Charles Heidsieck (£16), which has been on the list since before Amherst joined Trullo three years ago. "Champagne excites people, and given there is something of a Parisian brasserie about Trullo, I think Champagne is quite a nice thing to have," he says. There are also a number of English sparklers from Nyetimber, Roebuck and Langham, an inclusion which Amerst argues makes sense given the restaurant's emphasis on British ingredients: "We're very keen to showcase the English sparkling wine because although we are an Italian restaurant, fresh British produce is at the heart of everything we do, and so I thought it was quite important to echo that on the wine list." One wine to watch for future iterations of the list could come from the perhaps more divisive category of English still wines. "Recently I was introduced to a Chardonnay from Whitewolfe in Kent, by Liberty Wines, which is very good. Climate change is obviously doing terrible things for everyone else, but is doing quite good things for some wine regions, including England. We haven't got round to listing the Whitewolfe yet, but I think there will be a section for English still wine – I think it's worth celebrating."

Where next

Asked which Italian regions he plans to add to Trullo's list in the future, Amherst says: "I'm criminal for not including wines from Sardinia. I have one listing from there at the moment, but I need to get some Cannonau on there because some of those wines are fantastic. Quite a lot gets neglected because of the dominance of Piemonte and Tuscany, but we're not alone in that. I also think the southern regions, such as Campania and Sicily, are overlooked, but we have to consider how much people are willing to spend on them, so I am prepared to put lower mark ups on them. You have to be okay with making a bit less money on them if you really believe in the wines." As for his own dream wine and dish pairing from the current food menu, Amherst still plumps for a Piemontese bottle: "This is hard, because I know the head chef will judge me! I'd go with the pork chop with soft polenta, and wine-wise, Giuseppe Rinaldi Langhe Nebbiolo 2021 (£182), which is horrendously expensive, but absolutely delicious and from a very good year."