Exploring Italian Wine One Grape at a Time
A day in Valpolicella with Sabrina and Riccardo Tedeschi at their winery was a great opportunity to learn more about their winemaking. Here, I will take us back to a lovely summer day when I jumped on a train with destination Verona and Valpolicella. I had gotten an invitation to come and visit the Tedeschi … Read more
Villa Santo Stefano is a small estate on the hills of Lucca where the German top-level automotive executive Wolfgang Reitzle and his wife Nina Ruge, journalist, TV presenter, and author, have made their dream of Italy come true. With a clear-cut and precise vision, they have turned their small corner of paradise close to Lucca … Read more
Buon Anno! 2022 starts out by talking about how a glorious past of viticulture can reinvent the future of Aglianico in Basilicata in the Italian Food, Wine, and Travel group. We take a closer look at Aglianico del Vulture, especially, but also Aglianico from Campania. Camilla of Culinary Cam had the great idea of watching … Read more
Puglia and Radici del Sud was one of my first destinations for wine in southern Italy earlier in the summer when things started to open up again, allowing for events to be organized. This was my fourth Radici del Sud event, and I also had a small hand in the selection of some of the … Read more
All roads lead to Rome, so to speak, as Alain de Lille, the French poet, and theologian wrote in 1175, but also to the wines of Lazio. Rome is, of course, more known for its magnificent history and its past as the capital of the Roman Empire and today the capital of Italy. However, all … Read more
On a Tuesday in early December 2016, Saverio Basagni from the Monterotondo winery in Gaiole in Chianti, who is into traditional winemaking, was a guest at my #WinesOfItaly #LiveStream. Livio Del Chiaro was helping out with the translation into English. Saverio was in the wine bar of Bianca and Livio while doing the live stream. The … Read more
We started out on November 22nd by proposing a toast to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of #WinesOfItaly #LiveStream and then Valerie Caruso and Stephanie Davis, who are into wine education and podcasting, presented themselves. They both have Italian ancestry; Valerie from Abruzzo and Stephanie from Sicily. Val and Steph got to know each other being in … Read more
So this is Christmas…. While I was thinking about a Christmas theme to write about a couple of weeks ago, I realized it would be more fun to ask some wine writer and sommelier friends to tell their Christmas stories. As I am focused on Italian wine, I thus asked them to talk about their … Read more
The event Vino é by Fisar (Federazione Italiana Sommelier Albergatori e Ristoratori) took place a month ago by now at the Stazione Leopolda in the center of Florence. This was the first edition of Vino è and it was organized in association with the annual congress of Fisar. The idea was to innovate and open … Read more
Some week ago, the consortium of Chianti Classico presented a new initiative with tartufo bianco (white truffle) going on right in these days. This year, as most of you might know, Chianti Classico is celebrating 300 years of grand history. It was in 1716 that Grand Duke Cosimo III of Medici made a public announcement … Read more