Vine Farmer & De LaPosta

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You are listening to Food for Thoughtwith Billy and Jenny, brought to you
by the Box Center. For morethan fifteen years, this dining duo has
been eating their way through New England, mixing it up with top chefs,
jumping behind the line of the hottestrestaurants, and giving you the inside scoop
on where to wine, dine andspend your time. So get ready,
it's Food for Thought giving you somethingto chew on. Hey, everybody,

(00:21):
welcome into Food for Thought, broughtto you by the Box Center. I'm
Jenny. Happy New Year to everyone. I hope that everyone is entering into
twenty twenty four feeling happy and healthyand rested. I guess that's always the
goal, but sometimes that's not alwaysthe plan. But this week we have
a couple of great guests on theshow. We're going to talk a little

(00:42):
bit about a few different businesses.The first one is Vine Farmer and it's
a wine import company that's led bytwo brothers who live here in Massachusetts and
they really focused on kind of thenext generation of wine making and why makers.
And they're going to tell us alittle bit about that. We have

(01:03):
Chase and Kayden. How are youguys, thanks so much for joining us,
doing well. Thank you, Jenny, thank you so much for having
us. This is Kayden speaking hipand this is Jase. We're really happy
to be here. Hi guys.Okay, so how do I say your
last name? Chaffy the long asorry short staffy? Okay, good sassy,

(01:25):
Okay. Well, it's so niceto meet you guys. I've heard
a lot about you from our mutualfriend JP, who has talked a lot
about what you're doing, kind ofin a different way, I think than
people typically think of when they thinkof importers. So why don't we start,
Why don't one of you give usa little backgrounds on who you are
and kind of what sets you,guys apart as an important company. We

(01:51):
really entered this from five to sevenyears ago where I had seen this this
interesting thing happening in the line industry, where there's almost this perception that all
the stones had been overturned and youknow, the legends kind of are who
they are, so to speak.But I'd noticed this kind of gradual shift

(02:12):
happening where a younger generation was cominginto basically you know, various wine regions
around Europe, France and Italy,I think, are the big ones for
it. And you know, maybethey had parents that least out vines and
didn't want to make wine, butthen the leases were expiring and they wanted
to jump in and do things,or maybe their parents made wine in a
very conventional way and they wanted toreally dedicate themselves to doing something a little

(02:34):
bit more hardcore. But the pointis there was this shift happening and all
of this opportunity that started popping up, and a lot of these younger winemakers
in some cases, you know,we're almost redefining not necessarily the style,
but the perception of what the realexpression of the land is from some of
these regions. So I maybe it'sa long way of saying as just they

(02:54):
we perceive that there was a tonof really interesting things happening in the next
years in line really was what startedto be defined, and we've more or
less run with it as important andyou know, all these great opportunities that
come to us. I think becauseof this, I think it's so interesting
and I think obviously wine is yourexample of how you're starting to see that

(03:16):
shifts, but I think that canbe said about so many different areas of
just business development and retail. AndI think wine is particularly unique because there
is such a familial history to it, Right, Generations fund generations of sort
of growth in some of these biggerhouses. And You're right, as generations

(03:37):
change, the desires change, theflavor Plilotte changes, the desires for how
to do things changes, And Ithink it's a really interesting niche that you
guys were able to find. Solike, why did this become your business?
Because I know this wasn't a directpath for you guys. Why don't
you start there? Yeah, sothis is this is Jase. It really

(04:00):
had started with me, and Iwould say it was a very long time
coming in the sense that when Igraduated from undergrad I became a wine each
and I had a job outside theindustry for about thirteen years, but all
my free time was spent with wine, and basically I was spending all my
money online as well. I wasdoing a lot of wine travel, meeting

(04:20):
a lot of people, and youknow, just immersing myself more and more
in it. And I'm consider myselffairly entrepreneurial person. And at some point,
maybe like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, I started to think, you
know, maybe I could start myown business. This would be kind of
interesting. It would be fun todo something that I'm passionate about, but
something that I also believe really haslong term legs where I could build something,

(04:44):
you know, thirty or forty yearsand just really dedicate myself with something.
So it took a number of yearsto mentally get to the spot where
I thought I could do that.And starting something like this takes a long
time anyways, because you don't justyou can't just pop up with ten different
producers from Europe overnight. There's there'sa ton that goes into that to cultivating

(05:04):
these relationships the right way, andcertainly the licensing takes a long time as
well. So's this really slow burnuntil we basically went live right around that
right, beautiful timings. Yeah wow, Yeah, so's a ourther like jump
there. I mean, so Jacehe really was the architect of Vine Farmer,
and I kind of joke I'm theyounger brother that kind of came aboard,

(05:27):
right. It was kind of like, right when the Space Shuttle was
launching off the TAD, I sortof grabbed a hold of one of the
fins and took a ride up.I love that. That's so awesome,
and I think it's great to beable to work with brothers. We're going
to talk about that in the nextbreak. But but so, Jase,
you were in want I just wantto say you were biotech consulting world,

(05:49):
so like different in so many ways, but obviously had this interest in wine
and then you also became a Somaliathat correct, Yeah, it was.
I took the song certification with theCorner Mass of Sawmyes in twenty fourteen.

(06:10):
I was at that point most ofwhat I was doing with WY was on
my own, but I was doinga little bit of classroom work and at
some point I was honestly kind ofjust interested if I could pass the test.
I knew I wasn't going to beworking in a restaurant or I knew
that that at the time wasn't whatI was interested in, but I you
know, it was before having kids, had a little more free time and

(06:30):
really wanted to city there. Iwant to see if I get pass it.
Well, that's pretty awesome, andI know that it's not any easy
feat in Kate, and I knowthat your background in product development and account
management and retail branding and software likethis all helps, right because these were
all backgrounds that didn't necessarily This wasn'tnecessarily the plan, but this is where

(06:51):
it led you guys to, whichis pretty cool. So we are going
to take a break. I wantto talk a little bit more about what
it means to not only be animport company, but sort of to give
us the lay of the land ofthe wine world. I know from an
experience of being a part owner anda sparkling wine brand that we've talked about
a couple of times on the showformerly that I've since sold. There are

(07:15):
so many nuances to this and somany different layers to just the bottle of
wine that you pick off off ofthe store and put in your glass at
home, and some of those layerswho we're going to talk about on Food
for Thought when we come back injust a minute. You're listening to Food
for Thought brought to you by theBox Center and Salem Waterfront Hotel and Sweet

(07:35):
Welcome back to Food for Thoughts broughtto you by the Box Center. So
I'm excited to have the Chaffie brothershere with me on the partners of Vine
Farmer, which is a wine importcompany. It is run by these two
brothers, which I definitely have toask about at some point. When you
look at sort of who you are, you say to yourselves, we are

(07:58):
importers first. So to some peoplethat means nothing, right to some people
when they think of the wine theylike, they know that it's at the
store that they go to, andthey know that they you know, may
come from another country. But there'sa lot of nuances to this industry.
So can you talk not without youknow, not with getting too too too
much in the weeds, but givespeople an idea of what it means to
be an importer and then reference someof the relationships that you've developed since you

(08:22):
started, since you started mine farmerright. So this is definitely a complicated
one. But to keep it relativelyfocused, we think to be an importer
is it's the source, right,this is this is what we do.
We are sourcing wine and we arebringing it to the country. The selling

(08:43):
of the wine here is really afunction of wholesaling, which is related to
importing, and it's definitely part ofit. But when we say that we
are imports first, what that reallymeans is we are all about the sourcing
we're all about the wines, areabout the people behind the lines, Like
this is really what's exciting us aboutthe industry, and when we think about
our long term vision and what wewant to be doing, it's you know,

(09:05):
it's it's setting trends based on that. It's going on and finding things
that we are really excited about andbringing it here. So that's really the
i'd say almost the entire import firstfocus with us. That's awesome. And
and to give people to give peoplea sense how many importers are there in

(09:26):
the world's or in the in Massachusetts, let's just say there are a lot
of importers in the country. Ibelieve in numbers in the thousands in Massachusetts
and ninety slors in the state.Well, yeah, in Massachusetts, I
think you have some businesses that arewholesalers only that will byline from other importers,
and then there are some importers thatwill also sell fule feel like we

(09:48):
do. I think in general there'ssomewhere between like eighty and one hundred different
importers slash full salers around And tospeak to a little bit about the importer
slash little sailor, like Jason mentionedimporters first the wine. We pride ourselves
on self import and self wholesale,meaning we're only going to in Massachusetts as
we wholesale when we sell the youknow, to restaurants and stores. We

(10:11):
only want to sell the wines thatwe ourselves are imboarding. The growers we
have a relationship with that we havevisited, that we know personally. We
want to keep it from from whenthe wine leaves the grower to when it
gets delivered by us to a storeor a restaurant. It is all within
our pipeline of the pine farmer.Yeah, and this kind of does go
back to the question I need totell me how it's like to work with

(10:35):
your brother. It's it's funny becausegrowing up our parents had a retail paint
and decorating store, like a hardwarestore, and they, I mean they
had that when I was about tenyears old. Jase was twelve these two
years older than me. But sowe always kind of growing up, had
that kind of closeness because we wereworking together. We saw behind the scenes

(10:56):
of our parents because of both ourparents were there about them running a store
and having that managerial kind of mindsetand open world. The entrepreneurial piece.
Like Jason mentioned, he's always kindof had that entrepreneurial bug. And then
he went off to UMass Amherst afterhigh school. That's actually where our parents
met. And then I did thesame thing. I went off to you
maths as well, and a lotof our friends. As we got older,

(11:18):
our friends became friends with each otheragain only two years apart. Kind
of worked out pretty well, andso then then we went off in our
own directions in the corporate world postcollege, and I had something in the
back of my mind always told methat someday we would probably find some sort
of connection entrepreneurially where a business wouldcome back into play and we would do

(11:39):
something. Now that is not tosay he is not without at hiccups.
I think, let's see, inthe first year, I think I only
quit five times, and which wentdown a little less the second year.
I think in twenty twenty three,I only threatened to quit once, So
I think that was I think wefind I love this honesty because the truth
is being an entrepren nerve is unbelievablyhard, unbelievably hard, and doing it

(12:05):
with someone that you know as wellas you know your brother, I imagine
could be even harder. So Iappreciate the honesty, and it's good to
know that the number of threats aregoing down and down and down, because
that means that things are apparently goingpretty well. We are meshing pretty well.
We've definitely because known each other aslong obviously as long as we have
being brothers, but we've never workedwith each other post college, and we

(12:31):
developed into like different professional people.So then kind of coming back to a
professional setting where it's really him andI there was you know, yeah,
it's interesting, it's interesting dynamic.I think some of the stress in the
beginning came because everything we were tryingto do was basically doing things not necessarily
the long way, but for thedeep foundation. What I mean by that

(12:52):
is we wouldn't bring the wine inbecause we think it's going to sell.
He brought the wine in because itwas something we were in love with and
it made a lot of sense forus on the business. So maybe it
was something that was a little bitharder to sell. My whole point was,
you know, once we once weput the legwork in and do it
and maybe a slow varn, butonce we get there, it's going to
be something that has sticking power inthe market. But it's hard in the

(13:13):
beginning of something because you're you know, you're trying to speed the train up,
so to speak, in a monkeep right. You don't have a
ton of time for these things.So that was maybe we're more of our
arguments from the beginning, but weare. You know, it's worked out
so far and we we really haven'tmade compromises and we're we're doing it the
way we want and it's, uh, it's been getting It's a great foundation.
I love that. I love itand I appreciate the honesty. I

(13:35):
mean, part of what we loveto do in this program is we talked
to so many different entrepreneurs, right, I mean, if you think of
a restaurant tour or really any businessowner, like that's exactly what you are.
You're seeking to do something in oneparticular way that hasn't been done before.
And so we love these sort ofnuanced these stories. So thank you
for sharing. So let's talk aboutsome of this specific brands. You've talked

(13:58):
so much about how important the curationprocesses for you, so can you share
some of them with us. Yeah, you know, we focus almost exclusively
on Italy, So I guess I'llstart with something that's not Italian. Debra
Breweder in zur Valley, Germany,a couple of like young brothers roughly in

(14:22):
their mid thirties whose parents didn't wantto didn't want to make wine basically and
at least out some of their familylandholdings. All of it came up.
The leases came up about ten yearsago, and Midshean is where the Stefan
have basically taken everything back and essentiallyhave dedicated themselves in making wine like their
grandfather did, which is in avery hands off way, very vineyard first
and even though we do a lotof Italian wine, Cad and I both

(14:46):
have a very strong love for reestlingin German recling in particular, So it
was it was a very random chancethat we were ended up connecting with these
two brothers, but we were basicallyable to introduce their wines to the entire
country and then since been gaining alot of notoriety in Germany. They're covering
in Mozella Finelines prinstance, which isa pretty cool Moso focused publication. But

(15:09):
you know, they are two peoplewho are really excited about who are becoming
better known in the market, andI think their general story is something that
there are shades of that throughout ourentire portfolio. With more than half of
the people we import wine from andof the twentiest producers we're working with,
maybe seven or eight were actually introducedto the country bias as well, So
something that's kind of fun also Andcan do you want to jump into another

(15:33):
one? Yeah, I would say, I mean I'm going to go into
Italy. I would say one ofJason mantioned. We've introduced some to the
country, some are a little morewell known globally, and one that has
been a rising star for sure inthe last several years has been Kiracondello,
a young lady that is over inAmelia, Romania. So we're kind of

(15:54):
like the north central part of Italy, but on the east side, the
Romania side that's very to the Atriaticand the village that Kiara farms in and
lives in is called Kadapio and isactually the ancestral home of the Saint Jovey
say great, they call it SaintJervey say Piccolo, but it's not born
in Tuscany, which is a reallyinteresting thing that I learned when we started

(16:15):
working with Kiara. But she soshe's farming the san Javeys Piccolo and she
kind of grew up in a winemaking family and like I learned a lot
from her grandfather was a very likedRegis style wine maker, really old tool
and I really wanted to sort ofrevive the traditions in pronopio Is. They
have documentation going back to the thirteenhundreds on wine making and Saint Jeve Sain

(16:38):
in particular, and a lot ofthat is using some cold cluster and you
know aging and large old oaks.It's a very old school process. And
she's had a lot of notoriety,like I mentioned as a rising star in
twenty twenty two. In November twentytwenty two, she was recognized and what
was that It was Food Wine Italia, Food and Wine magazine Italian. She

(17:00):
said top Italian Wine. Oh yeahshe was. She wasn't named top Italian
winemaker under thirty five just just lastyear. So uh, really impressive winemaker.
And we've made a wonderful relationship withher and it's one of our one
of our top sailing wines is yourchanger. They say one of our favorite
people, very talented and thoughts foodsso nice is I think the relationships that

(17:22):
are developed obviously become like your family, because in order to tell this story
to all of the different restaurants andbusinesses they are putting in, you have
to really know and appreciate and understandthe nuances that make their wines different from
every other every other person's wine.And I think that that's that comes out
so clear as you're sort of talkingabout them and being you know, some

(17:42):
of your your favorite clients with suchdiverse backgrounds, but an equally compelling story.
We're going to take a break andbe back with more food for Thought
in just a minute. You're listeningto Food for Thoughts brought to you by
It's the Box Center and Stale andWaterfront Hotel and Sweet. You guys are
so passionate. It's so cool tohear some of the really awesome stories of

(18:03):
some of the folks that you're workingwith as importers. If you're just tuning
in, this is a two brotherteam partners of Vine Farmer. They're here
with us in Massachusetts importing wine fromreally really amazing kind of next generation wine
makers with a focus on that.So, guys, you clearly can sense

(18:26):
your passion and sort of the hardwork that goes into all of this.
So first, can you tell mehow you're finding the winemakers that you're working
with. We find everyone we're workingwith at this point basically by word of
mouth. It's really interesting this whenI think back onto how all this is
unfolded, because eighty percent of ourportfolio is actually connected with one producer named

(18:52):
Kashina vl del Prete in roerol Sonia. We're a friend in the industry.
It's kind of a mentor. He'sa bit older than me, and he
said, you know, you shouldgo knock on the door of this house.
They have a young son there's inhis twenties. He's doing some cool
things with some of the young peopleactually in Roera, and you know,
it was really an eye opening thingfor me, and so much of the

(19:12):
portfolio has been you after we workwith them for a little bit, you
know, he's got some other friendsand other regions and we ended up going
to visit them and then someone alwaysknows someone, so it just it's just
spawned out and branches. We've neverI lovething like that. It's really just
so much, so much ship andI know so much of this like you're

(19:33):
talking about your mentor, but somuch of this is about relationships and so
much as it is about trust.And obviously you've created a trusted name to
be able to have this expand youknow so quickly. So how much are
you guys traveling to these places thatyou're telling us about. We're still trying
to figure out exactly what it lookslike on an ongoing basis, since we

(19:56):
really started during the pandemic and thea couple of years it was it was
not normal job. But before thepandemic, I was going to roughly three
times a year. Pretty much whatwe're doing now quarterly would be ideal.
Yeah, in the perfect world,it's and you know kids and I both
have have you know, chis home, not like a try not to be
away too much as we want tobe around our families. But I think

(20:18):
three four times a year is prettymuch one of this. And Jason has
done some solo trips, so I'mkind of like, let me run the
visions for the week, and youknow, you you have some fun in
Italy. So I think it's moreimportant for Jason to be on the ground
anyway. In that regard, that'sawesome, and I know that grind with
the kids. Have you guys broughtthe kids to Europe yet? Actually I

(20:40):
have about a year and a halfago. I brought my wife and kids.
And unfortunately there are no direct flightsinto uh into Milan, which is
which is things because that's pretty muchalways where where we're starting. So we
flew into Zurich and it's sort onebecause it was not stopping. Figure it
was better to have a four orfive hour drive with the kids, which
it definitely was. So we hadthis beautiful ride down from Switzerland through Lake

(21:03):
Como and to Piedmont, and itwas it was kind of like a half
work, half vacation where we canstuck around Piedmont in the Barolo and Roero
area and I, you know,I would do tasings in the mornings and
then we'd all relax in the afternoon. And so a lot of the people
we work because we mentioned, areyoung and they have kids as well,
so we were it was just spendinga lot of time together. Kids were
all playing, even though they couldn'tspeak the same language. It was pretty

(21:26):
cool. Actually, I love thisso much. I mean we have I
have young kids too, and we'vedone a couple of international trips and nothing
about that, nothing about that iseasy, but it is I think just
so worth it to sort of likekeep flexing that muscle and uh and make
it happen. And obviously for thebusiness it makes total sense. So I
want to spend the last few minutestalking about how people can connect with you

(21:48):
here in Massachusetts and also who someof the restaurants are that are carrying some
of these lines. Yeah, soI guess we'll start with the symbol.
And so for connecting with us,we are Vine Farmer on Instagram, VF
lines dot Com is our website,and on the back of every bottle that
we import, you basically have avine Farmer sticker, which makes it very

(22:11):
easy to tell a wind from usand the whole idea of what that is.
Someone likes our general plotsk and enjoyedsome of the wines from us,
if they've seen other bottle with depthstick around the back is probably going to
be something that resonates with them aswell. Yeah. There, and then
with restaurants and you know where wecan find our wine if you're going to

(22:32):
some of the best restaurants around thecity. It's a really good change to
come across them. Some of ourfavorites are Bien twenty six and Oteka right
there in Beacon Hill. We workwith Tallula In Cambridge you work with Paanes
also in Cambridge, which are wonderfulplaces. Wonderful spots down Actually an interesting
spot is down in Dartmouth, arestaurant called Little Boss, which is really

(22:52):
under the radar for people that areat least up in like the East,
like the East Side in the Bostonarea. Ohas one of the best restaurants.
It's fabulous. Our biggest customer isItaly. We have so many different
lines there, so there's a reallygood chance to find Beatley's the ban Farmer
on the shelf there just picking uprandom bottles. We do a bunch with
Federal Wine as well Wine Press inBoston in Brooklin out West be one of

(23:17):
our favorite customers because we both wentto the unas. AMers again is the
Western Mass connection, but a provisionsout in the West. They're in AMers,
Northampton. They just opened up inlong Meadow too. Those are all
such great businesses that we know reallywell quickly. How can people meet you
because I know you're doing wine tastingsat various places. I know you mentioned
it on Instagram, but but butlet us know where some of the things

(23:38):
are that people can connect with you. Yeah, we have an event page
on our website and we work prettyhard to keep that updated. So if
it's something that's like a lot dinnerand there are tickets for it, there'll
be links to that. Otherwise,if it's just a tasting, we'll basically
put up, you know, adate and a time, and we do
that on Instagram as well as theInstagram is the easiest one. We do
stories, we have posts on those. Actually, later this month we're doing

(24:00):
our first inaugural industry only portfolio.Oh that's awesome. Well, guys,
make sure that you guys follow alongwith them on Instagram. It's been so
nice to chat with you guys.You're so passionate. Thank you so much
for joining the show her time,Jenny's It has been fantastic. Thank you.
All right, we'll be back withmore Food for Thought in just a

(24:21):
minute. You're listening to Food forThought. Rough to you buy in the
Box Center and Salem Waterfront Hotel insweets? Okay, well, we just
talked a lot about wine, andI don't know what goes with wine any
better than pizza. Although I justdon't know anything that doesn't go well with
pizza or any day that you can'tfeel good about having pizza. So I'm
excited for this next guest. DellaPosta is located in Newton, Massachusetts,

(24:45):
and it's been around since November oftwenty twenty one, obviously an interesting time
of opening, sort of during COVID. Chef Mario Laposta is its owner,
and he is doing so many coolthings that make you I think more that
this is not really just your averagepizza. I think I could say so.
Chefla Posta, thanks so much forjoining us today. Yeah, absolutely,

(25:08):
thanks for having me. So inthe beginning, we'd like to give
our listeners just in a kind ofidea of who you are, where you
came from, and why pizza issuch an important part of your life.
Sure, absolutely so. I grewup in an Italian family. My dad
was born in Italy and my mom'sparents were born in Italy, and they

(25:30):
were my mom was an incredible,incredible cook growing up, and you know,
obviously visiting Italy quite a bit aswell. There was that influence there
and lots of my grandmother used tovisit all the time, and aunts and
uncles and cousins and just growing up, pizza was always a part of you
know, being from southern Italy,being my dad was born just outside Naples,

(25:51):
pizza is a big part of theculture. On top of that,
my mom, like I said,was an amazing cook and made this incredible
homemade pizza. So I was alwayslike pizza SATs from a very young age.
People used to teach me about it. I had a nickname, Mario
Mazzarella, and so food was likealways like, you know, a part
of our family, something I wasalways really passionate about. And I always

(26:14):
said, mom, We're gonna havea pizzeria when I get older. And
you know, as I started toget into my teenage years, I started
working at local pizzerias in Connecticut,just outs between New Haven and Hartford.
So I grew up on New Havenstyle pizza, and uh, I just
got into cooking and got really passionateabout it. And you know, went
to college not sure which direction Iwas going to go, and my sister

(26:38):
married a chef and I started workingfor him and he became really inspirational.
I worked at in a fantastic restaurantConnecticut called Brico, and then I decided,
post college, let's move to Italyand apprentice and learn the real way
to make pizza. So I movedto Rome with my sister who lives there,
and started calling around local pizzerias andbasically asking if I could just come

(27:00):
and learn and work for free.So I worked in Rome for a few
months, and then I moved closerto Naples, just about an hour north
of Naples and Campania, and livedat our grandmother's house for the summer and
worked with an amazing pizza iolo there, and you know, learned to bake
pizza in thousand degree ovens in sixtyto ninety seconds, really Neapolitan inspired pisa.

(27:25):
And then I came back and startedrunning the pizza program for a for
Terry Lodge in west Chester, NewYork, which was a part of the
Battalion Basionas Hospitality group. And thereI had an amazing mentor named Andy Knusser,
and Andy trusted me with developing thepizza program there. The great thing

(27:47):
about Andy was he really pushed meto be a chef and learn all aspects
of the kitchen and aspects of thebusiness and pushed me to you know,
make better pizza. So over theyears, I you know, I was
the piece I was making fifteen yearsago was probably not very good. But
I started learning about flour and differenttypes of ingredients and sourcing. So about

(28:10):
twenty fifteen, when I moved toBoston, I opened up a restaurant in
the seaport called Babo, and Igot in touch with a company called Central
Milling, and me and the owner, Keith jus So, we had about
a five hour call the first timeI ever spoke to him. We just
talked about flour and baking, andCentral Milling started sending me flour and I
was hand mixing flour, trying todevelop my own blend of flour that was

(28:33):
you know, achieving the type ofpieces that I wanted. So I developed
a blend of flour with different typesof flour from Central Milling, mostly organic
wal wheat. There's double zero inthere, There's a couple other different types
of flour in there. And thenI flew off to California in Sonoma County
in dates with Keith and learned moreabout the flour, and there I learned

(28:56):
about sour though, you know,being just outside Sanfrance. That's what bread
there is all about. And CentralMillin started they loved my flour blend that
I created, and they started baggingthe flour for me and sending it into
Boston. And on top of it, I learned about sourdough. So seven
and a half years ago now,I developed my own sour dough from local

(29:17):
organic grapes. And yeah, we'vebeen I've been feeding that that starter ever
since. And uh, it's sevenyears old now and you can still take
that great that is So that's soamazing and so and and do you think
that that was because of all ofthe different places that you went, all
of the different kinds that you chose, and what like, if you were

(29:37):
to describe that what makes the starterso special? So the great thing about
a starter is, I mean,the reason why I started doing this,
I was always I'm always on thenever ending quest to make better pizza.
So how do I how do Iget that? How do I learn more
about dough? How do I makemy pizza taste better? And the great
thing about sour dough is there's anatural flavor that, and the dough is

(30:02):
all naturally leven. There's no yeastin the dough, so the dough is
naturally much much lighter, and thenit has a lot more flavor because it
has all these this wild, naturallyyeast that is naturally, you know,
a little bit sour. That's whyit's called sour dough. And the pizza
just has so much flavor. You'reallowed to you don't have to use as

(30:22):
much salt to the season your dough, so we have a very our salt
content is very low. And thenon top of it, the flour we
use. Sometimes we have flour fromthe mill to the restaurant in two weeks,
that's how fresh it is. Andcombined with the flour and the flavor
of the sour dough and the ingredientsthat we use, you know, the
piece is just really special. Sookay, so now you're in Newton with

(30:47):
this famous dough, and and tellme a little bit about your space.
So we opened in it about twoyears ago and we have a great little
restaurant about seventy seats, and thegoal was to do a artisanal pizzeria,
So we're Dollopostat Pizzeria artiginale and thepizza is Neapolitan inspired. But the reason

(31:07):
we say we're ourtismal is because weuse domestic flour. We use California tomatoes,
Bianco denopoly. We source a reallyamazing mazzarella from Copuda Brothers Creamery in
Pennsylvania, which is naturally lactose free, so we're not importing We still get
Mosrealdi booflam pre sure of the parma, but we're not importing all these ingredients
from Italy and saying oh, we'reone hundred percent Neopolitan. I mean,

(31:30):
you can't replicate pizza from Italy.It's just it's different. The things that
grow there are different. So reallythe essence of Italian cooking is the source
has close to home. Right.If you're from the ocean, you eat
a lot of fish. If you'refrom the mountains, you eat more meat,
you eat more heavy. So we'retaking that principle and we are and

(31:52):
we are just bringing that into ourrestaurant with our sourcing ingredients. So that's
why we call ourselves an artisanal pizzeria. But we also have that tastic starters,
so we focus on you know,I think the restaurant is very authentic.
There's a lot of passion that weput into it. There's a lot
of Southern Italian influences as well asthe rest of Italy. So we have

(32:13):
great starters on the menu, youknow, highlighted by my mom's meatball recipe
that we source all local beef fourfrom Chickening Chicks Farm in New Hampshire.
We grind all the meat and housethe meatballs is just fantastic with Grossman are
wood fired of and we have Romenew food like Free which is a rice
ball. We do homemade pastas onthe menu. We have an amazing chicken

(32:35):
partmy Giana, which is done withactually a bonus half chicken. So I
think, you know, we arefirst and foremost of pizzeria, but the
rest of our food is incredible aswell. So we always encourage us to
come in order a few appetizers,you know, share a pizza or and
entree and then certainly always tried topizza. Now is your sister still living

(32:58):
in Italy? My sister lives inRome up we still have quite a bit
of family there and so and sowhat do they think about your starter?
Obviously they come home and try it, and they try your piece of How
does it feel, because like there'sculinary with such a big part of your
family obviously growing up. Yeah,I mean my family is my biggest fan,
you know, so they're they're alwaysvery complimentary, love what we're doing

(33:22):
here. You know, my wifeis my biggest critic in such a good
way. She's always there to say, hey, you know we could this
is amazing, but how do youmake it better? And she's always right,
So I love having her input aswell. And yeah, I think
everyone's just just really happy that,you know, I get to share a

(33:43):
little piece of our family through therestaurant. Oh well, we're going to
take a break. But I lovedhow much she's talked about the artisanal experience
is really about bringing what is closeto you. And yes, to bring
something from Italy, not only doesit lose its fus not only does it
lose the quality of the ingredients doesnot you know, people sort of don't

(34:04):
quite understand that, but like stillpaying homage to the fact that these recipes
are you know, generations and generations. But that's the quality of things are
going to come from being here locally. I think is such a great twist
to making something as authentic as youclearly are. We're going to take a
break and we'll be back with Sethin just a minute. You're listening to

(34:25):
Food for Thought, brought to youby the Box Center and Salem Waterfront Hotel
in Sweet Welcome back to Food forThought, Rocky by the Box Center.
Chef Mario la Pasta, owner ofthe Dala Posta right there in Newton,
Massachusetts, right on Washington Street.He's been around here at Newton for a
couple of years, but he's beenin the pizza world for a very long

(34:45):
time. I want to start byreferencing you competed in a world pizza competition
in Italy and you've placed. Yeah, yep. So annually there's a pizza
competition in Parma, northern Italy.It's called the World Pizza Championships and Italian
and I've competed, I believe,about four times, and it's really challenging

(35:07):
because there's six or seven hundred competitorsroughly over thirty countries. Obviously some really
amazing pizza makers. Usually the Italiansalways win and get you get the opportunity
to make one pizza and that's it. So however it comes out, that's
what you're living with. And oneyear I competed. I believe it was

(35:27):
twenty eleven. We had about sixhunder competitors and I played tenth overall in
the Neapolisan, which is which waspretty exciting at the time. My plan
to hoptically go back in the futureand improve on that. That is so
cool, Chef. I mean,I can't wait to see you do better
than that. But oh my god, tenth in the world. That's pretty
amazing. Okay, so, Chef, you're bringing back something that's been very

(35:47):
popular at the restaurant called Margarita Monday'stell us about it. Yeah, so
last spring we started doing Margarita Mondayand really, you know, so it's
it's a ten dollars margaritat Pizza everyMonday. And last year, you know,
being a new restaurant, being alittle under the radar, not a
lot of people in the area knowingabout us yet, it was really an

(36:08):
opportunity for us to share our storyabout our pizza. And obviously, you
know, the hard and soul ofour pizza is the margarita. So we
thought, you know, with January, this would be a great opportunity to
bring back Margarita Monday. We ranit throughout the summer, and you know,
being that people are home a lot, it's cold, you don't go

(36:29):
out as much. It'd be agood good way to for people to eat
our pizzas come in the restaurant orto take out. A great thing to
look forward to on a Monday,for sure. Okay, now what about
catering. That's something that you're alsooffering. Yeah, we just started catering
in the last couple of months,so we're really excited about that. It's
another way for guests to really enjoyenjoy our food and you know, whether

(36:53):
it's at home with a party oror through you know, your office or
work. We're really excited to havelaunch catering. So that's that's been received
really well. And I think youknow, being in Newton and close to
Boston and a lot of businesses inthe area, it's it's a great place
to do it well. It soundslike it's delicious. And lastly, was

(37:15):
about a minute left. I wantto talk about your wine list because you
really spend a lot of time curatingit. Yeah, so you know,
everyone has an amazing wines from Tuscanyand Piamonte and northern Italy. You know,
Sicilian wine is really popular nowadays.We've really curated a wine list that's
focused on southern Italy, specifically Campania. One of my favorite wines, ali

(37:36):
Ainico is just an amazing wine.The wine from Campagna is wine that you
know, hasn't been heavily marketed,doesn't have a lot, you know,
isn't marketed through tourism in Italy,and I just think it's an untapped region
in Italy and these wines are amazing. They're called the brool over the South,
and I think over the next fiveor ten years, as more marketing

(37:58):
goes into these wines, we're goingto really see them explode and become thought
after. And you know, rightnow we're really trying to bring these wines
to the forefront at the restaurant.That's awesome, and it is so nice
to be able to pay attention tolittle parts of this world that we don't
necessarily know about, which you clearlydo. Anyways, Seth, it's been
so nice to chat with you.Congratulations on all this success. We look

(38:20):
forward to seeing all the things thatare going to come down the pipeline for
you. But it's just really beautifulto see, like a familial story,
have so much success, and everybody, if you're not salivating, you will
be when you go into Zella Postaright there in Newton and Washington Street.
Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks Janning, I hope to see
you soon and we have more foodfor thought coming up next week on Sunday.

(38:42):
But now it's time for sixty minutes. Thanks so much