BY KEITH LACEY
A successful Sudbury pizzeria company has teamed up with the province?s top winemakers to create a new specialty menu they hope will boost
sales and create a quality dining experience for customers.
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Ron Toppazzini, founder of Topper?s Pizza, and Sherri Haigh, director of public affairs for the Wine Council of Ontario, are excited about a new campaign which matches specialty pizzas from Topper?s with fine wine from 11 of the province?s top winemakers. Haigh is a former Sudbury reporter. |
Topper?s Pizza, the company started in Sudbury by Ron Toppazzini almost 25 years ago, has teamed up with Ontario?s best wineries to create a new menu pairing specialty pizzas with Ontario Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) wines.
Ron Toppazzini and his son Keith, who runs the company along with his brother Kelly, were on hand Thursday with LCBO representatives, media personnel and Sherri Haigh, director of public affairs for the Wine Council of Ontario, to kickoff a new wine and dine campaign.
Great tasting pizza mixes extremely well with fine wine. Topper?s made a pitch to the wine council to create a new specialty pizza menu and assist Ontario?s burgeoning wine industry two months ago, said Keith Toppazzini.
Starting next week, and continuing through the winter, all Topper?s Pizza outlets in Greater Sudbury and around Ontario (there are now more than 30 across the province) will display posters about the Topper?s Pizza and Ontario Wine promotion, he said.
?We?re living in busy times where it seems everyone lives in dual income homes and it?s always run, run, run,? said Toppazzini. ?Dinner still remains the most important meal of the day and is the one time the family can get together for a meal...we think the idea of a specialty pizza and fine bottle of Ontario wine makes a lot of sense.?
Eleven of Ontario?s best wineries have joined with Topper?s Pizza to come up with an extensive list of wines so thousands of Topper?s customers can enjoy ?an upscale dining experience,? said Toppazzini.
All front desk staff at every Topper?s outlet will be trained on offering advice about what wine products go best with the new specialty pizza menu, he said.
At the tasting session, guests tasted grilled chicken bruschetta pizza and washed it down with a Vineland Estates Semi Dry Riesling. That was followed by a sampling of Pizza Primavera accompanied by a crisp dry rose from Cave Spring. To finish things off, a Topper?s Greek pizza was enhanced with a delicious Pelee Island Rose.
Even though most people lead extremely busy lives, market research indicated pizza customers were demanding increasingly sophisticated tastes, with results showing 20 percent of adults considering themselves ?gourmet customers? in the $40 billion North American pizza industry, said Toppazzini.
Topper?s started to introduce specialty pizzas several years ago in response to this demand, he said.
Offering a fine wine choice to be sipped along with a specialty pizza made good business sense, he said.
As a company that conducts all of its business in Ontario, it also made sense to support the province?s wine industry, he said.
The 11 Ontario wineries participating in the campaign include Cave Spring Cellars, Chateau des Charmes, Colio Estates, EastDell Estates, Henry of Pelham, Lakeview Cellars, Legends Estate, Pelee Island, Pellar Estates, Stony Ridge Estate Wines and Vineland Estates.
Haigh said the Ontario Wine Council is pleased to be part of such a unique marketing campaign, which helps promotes Ontario?s wine industry.
Over the past decade, Ontario wineries have been recognized in many international competitions and the province has forged a reputation of making
world-class wine, she said.
All wines getting the VQA stamp of approval mean they have been taste-tested by a group of experts and every ounce from every grape comes from Ontario, she said.
Getting the opportunity to showcase some of the best Ontario wines with a well-conceived marketing campaign like the one proposed by Topper?s was an idea the wine council couldn?t turn down, she said.
None of the wines being promoted are available at Topper?s, but can be bought at all LCBO outlets.
Haigh stressed not all people have similar tastes and while Topper?s staff can make recommendations about what wine goes best with what pizza, at the end of the day people will make their own choices.
?The recommendations are only a guideline,? she said.
For customers who don?t drink wine or alcohol, all Topper?s stores have a selection of non-alcoholic drinks that can be ordered with any item from
the menu, said Toppazzini.
