Blog

    Buon Vino fa Buon Sangue In Italy, there’s a saying that good wine makes good blood implying a connection between good health and the practice of drinking wine. Recent medical and scientific...

Lo Spritz – the National Drink of the Italian Summer Summer is on its way. Plans are a little vague this year with the world health crisis and the huge toll it has taken on our beloved Bel Paese....

The Sweet Spot In a famous scene from “The Godfather”, Don Corleone’s caporegime, Clemenza, goes out to pick up dessert for his wife. Along the way, he takes care of some family business. He tells...

Cesanese – who has even heard of this wine? Hardly ever seen outside this region, it has very ancient origins in Lazio, as grape growing and winemaking have existed in this area since the Etruscans,...

By Joyce Tarantino, Italian Wine Scholar From the highest slopes in Europe for vine cultivation under the shadow of Mont Blanc to the windswept volcanic landscape on the island of Pantelleria, there...

Reaching from close to the Matterhorn in Switzerland almost to the Mediterranean, Piemonte (Piedmont) covers a lot of territory. The region lies east of the border with France and west of Milan,...

The hills of the Langhe are also known for some of the finest Dolcetto. Dogliani, Alba and Diano d’Alba are the denominations of production. It ripens first of the three grapes of the region and...

By Joyce Tarantino, Italian Wine Scholar About an hour’s drive north of Verona, just below Austria, Trentino Alto-Adige is surrounded by the soaring peaks of the Dolomites, a UNESCO heritage site....

By Joyce Tarantino, Italian Wine Scholar Head northeast from Venice towards the border with Slovenia to arrive in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy’s most eastern province. Overlooking the Adriatic Sea...

Italy curves along the northwest coast towards France  where Italian Riviera faces the Ligurian Sea and up to the border with Piemonte. Genoa, the capitol, was one of the powerhouse city states of...

By Joyce Tarantino, Italian Wine Scholar Anchored by its most famous city, Milan, the north central region of Lombardia (Lombardy) spans an area from the Swiss border in the Alps in the north to the...

By Joyce Tarantino, Italian Wine Scholar Stretching close to 200 miles across the country from the Adriatic coast in the east almost to the Ligurian Sea in the west, from the fertile Po River valley...

By Joyce Tarantino, Italian Wine Scholar Home to the historic cities of Verona and Venice, the Veneto lies in the northeast of Italy, from the Dolomites on the border in the north with Austria, west...

Go a little north of Rome on the map and draw a straight line across Italy. Le Marche is just opposite, nestled between the Adriatic Sea and the Apennine Mountains. It shares a border Emilia Romagna...

Known as the Il Cuore Verde d’Italia  (the Green Heart of Italy), Umbria is tucked between Tuscany and Le Marche, north of Lazio. As its name implies, it is a forested and mountainous area, crossed...

Ah, Roma – the Caput Mondi. Now just imagine the wine world 2000 years ago. Roberto Paris tell us that “This was the biggest city of the world and the Romans were drinking wines from all over the...

Bordering the Adriatic in east-central Italy, Abruzzo has everything needed to make great wines. Proximity to the sea, cooling mountain air in the evenings, a dry and sunny climate, the rolling...

Sandwiched between Abruzzo and Puglia, on the Adriatic Sea, lies the newest province in Italy, Molise. It is the province of “seconds” -  it is the second smallest region in Italy, in land area and...