As part of our regular series of demos, ICE brings a wide variety of professionals to ICE to share their experience and knowledge with ICE culinary students and alumni.
Last night, we hosted Joe Campanale. As beverage director and co-owner of three successful West Village restaurants, Dell'anima, L'Artusi and Anfora, Joe Campanale is behind the wine lists of some of the most popular Italian restaurants in New York. Yesterday, ICE students and alumni had the opportunity to taste some of the Italian wines he is currently featuring at his restaurants and talk about their characteristics.
At the restaurants, Campanale is able to explore his deep love of Italian wine and showcase wines that diners might not be familiar with. One of the most interesting things he shared was the fact that there is ten times the number of native grapes in Italy as there are in France. Italian winegrowers have greater opportunity to produce a plethora of unique wines.
The demo included tastings of three reds and three whites, all from Italy and all with dramatically different flavors. Having Campanale on hand gave the students the chance to learn from his expertise on these fascinating wine regions. In addition to walking through the flight of wines, Campanale discussed his career path, sharing his story and experience in the industry. Similar to many of ICE’s own graduates, Campanale didn’t initially think his career would be in the food industry. Even though he went into university thinking that he would become a lawyer and politician, Campanale quickly realized that his real passion was in food and service.
Soon, he was pursuing a master's in food studies at NYU and learning as much about wine as he could. He became a Certified Sommelier of the Court of Master Sommeliers and earned a Diploma in Wines and Spirits from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. Campanile shared how his love of food inspired his career and how he hoped sharing his story and knowledge would help the ICE students to find their way on their own career paths.
