Green Entertaining with Santa Margherita Wine

What’s better than a glass of wine with friends on a weekend? How about a glass of wine that is working to support efforts in creating sustainable forests from coast to coast? Well, this month Santa Margherita is partnering with Tree Canada, and for every bottle of their Pinot Grigio sold, they will donate 50 cents toward planting sustainable forests in local communities across Canada. I don’t know about you, but this wine + trees effort is something I can get behind.

This past weekend, in order to celebrate earth month and Santa Margherita’s partnership with Tree Canada, I decided to host a little afternoon gathering filled with wine, cheese, and a gorgeous offering of charcuterie from Finest Sausage & Meats, including an award winning bacon and gypsy salami, a dry salami, and a schinken mager.

The Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio and Chianti Classico paired perfectly with the assorted cheeses, olives, spreads and meats. I may not be an expert wine sommelier, but my senses do let me know when something tastes good, and the Pinot is surprising refreshing and easy to pair with food!

Inspired by the unique plantable basil neck tag that came with my wine (since it is planting season and all), I decided to whip up a fancy appetizer of my own. I do love a good caprese salad, but knowing my guests would be enjoying most of this food using their hands, I switched it up, and took all the flavours from a caprese salad and made a lovely tart. The fresh basil is really the icing on the cake here, the aroma that is released when the leaves are picked is so inviting… the perfect complement to the melty mozzarella and flaky pastry crust.

Tomato, Basil & Mozzarella Caprese Tarts

recipe adapted from sweet paul mag

Ingredients
1 large sheet puff pastry
sprinkling of flour
8 sliced mozzarella medallions
8 cherry tomatoes, sliced
fresh basil

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Cut the pastry into 4 squares and roll it out to double size. Use flour on your rolling surface to reduce sticking.
3. On a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, place each pastry.
4. Place mozzarella and tomatoes on top.
5. Bake until golden, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from oven and top with fresh basil.

It was a lovely little afternoon, and all my guests were thrilled to know that by enjoying Santa Margharita wine sustainable forests are being planted.

Don’t drink wine, but still want to make a difference this earth month? Simply tweet this blog post with the hashtag #SM_PinotGrigio and Santa Margherita will donate 50 cents to Tree Canada!

Disclaimer: This is a paid post. Santa Margherita provided me with a corporate sample of their Pinot Grigio in order to take photos for this post. That said, payment did not influence my opinion of the wine. Finest Sausage & Meats also provided me with the charcuterie for this post.