May 2, 2013 – Cortona, Tuscany Wine, Dine & Shine, Cortona’s premier wine tasting series kicked off the season in Piazza Repubblica featuring Podere Sapaio from Bolgheri, a region located near the sea on the Mediterranean side of Tuscany. Massimo Piccin of Podere Sapaio greeted everyone alongside Marco Molesini at the free wine tasting in front of the Molesini Wine Shop.  Featured wines in the Piazza poured by Massimo and...

I had the pleasure of joining my favorite Cortona winery Leuta for a barrel tasting with award winning sommelier Luca Gardini (voted World’s Best Sommelier in 2010), enologist Maurizio and of course owners Denis and Enzo. This tasting was very important, they were here to taste 4 different varieties from 54 different barrels in order to select the very best barrel of each variety to blend for their top wine, Nautilus. Each barrel was...

I recently visited Puglia for the first time.  Located down at the heel of Italy it is a magical land of rusty red earth, giant olive trees, Trulli and Primitivo wine. Primitivo is said to be the older cousin of Zinfandel but interestingly enough, after actual DNA testing, they were found to both be clones of a Croatian grape called Crljenak. It actually was a struggle to try to research wineries and schedule tastings in Puglia.  There seems to...

While I was up in the beautiful Trentino-Alto Adige region I had the opportunity to visit the Balter Winery located just outside of Rovereto in a small medieval castle 350 meters above sea level. Spectacular scenery from the vineyard with snow-capped Dolomiti in every direction, quite breathtaking to say the least. Now I’m quite the lover of all things bubbly, especially when it comes in the form of wine. I was enthusiastically VERY...

I have to confess that I’ve been in love with white wines from the Alto Adige region in northern Italy for some time.  When a good friend from Trentino invited me to go wine tasting there with him, I didn’t even hesitate.  I packed up the husband and dog and made the four hour trek to the beautiful region located just south of Austria in the midst of the Dolomiti where German is spoken as much as Italian. I had the absolute pleasure...