Exploring Italian Wine One Grape at a Time
The Orcia River runs quietly through the valley, slightly north of Poggio Stenti winery and south of Montalcino, an almost unnoticed border between two wine worlds. On one side, the slopes rise toward Monte Amiata and the perhaps more rural world of the Alta Maremma; on the other, the vineyards of Brunello stretch across the … Read more
On a summer day back in 2018, I was picked up by Carlo Lisini and, together with a couple of other wine writers, headed to his family winery in Montalcino for a vertical Brunello tasting in style. Today, the winery is run mainly by cousins Carlo and Ludovica and their children, though all the cousins … Read more
There have been several articles in the media lately listing wine bars to visit in Florence, including in La Repubblica and Wine Enthusiast. This is interesting because it shows how the wine bar scene has grown a lot in the last few years. Up until about 10 years ago, there were a few good wine … Read more
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. We are in the midst of the Christmas holidays. Wednesday was Christmas Eve, the most important day in Sweden; yesterday was the 25th, which is celebrated in many other countries, and today is the Feast of Saint Stephen. I have always loved Christmas, and I still do. … Read more
…a chat about wine tourism from different angles. Watch the Wines Of Italy LiveStream HERE. The other day, I “restarted” my Wines Of Italy LiveStream by having a talk with Tomasz Steinmetz, of Velo Wino in Poland, about wine tourism. We discussed the differences and similarities between wine tourism in Poland and Tuscany. Poland is … Read more
Capezzana is a historic estate in Carmignano, Tuscany, known for its wines deeply connected to the local territory. For the past few years, they have organized a vertical tasting every autumn to highlight the uniqueness and evolution of their wines. Each tasting focuses on a specific wine from their selection. These tastings are highly educational … Read more
The Viticoltori Montespertoli (the Montespertoli Vintners) was founded in 2022 by 15 vintners in the Montespertoli area to change the discourse and produce authentic, terroir-driven, and contemporary wines. On their website, they say that what unites them is “their pride and passion” for what they do and, while doing so, to safeguard the tradition of … Read more
The Italo-Swiss couple Adriana and Urs Burkard dreamed about investing their time and resources in something different after a life spent in Switzerland’s corporate and finance sector. They decided on Tuscany and ended up acquiring three different estates: La Tenuta di Terrabianca in Radda in Chianti where the selling owner also had land in Maremma, … Read more
In Lucignano, located in the Valdichiana area in southeastern Tuscany, lies Tenuta Licinia. It is a small farm that the Belgian lawyer Jacques de Liedekerke acquired in the 1970s. His grandson James Marshall who has run the winery since 2020, says that his grandfather was “a wine lover but [in the beginning] he had no … Read more
The night of the Oscars is just over and as always it’s a grand event that celebrates the past year of mainly American cinema. I only watched a small part of it such as Emma Stone’s thank you speech with her partly broken dress in the back. Those little moments that always make the Oscars … Read more