They were the best of times, they were...uh...the best of times. Let's just say good times were had in three + days the International Wine Tourism Conference FAM trip schedule of visiting wineries and restaurants, vineyards and hill towns, enotecas and museums. Eating and talking and laughing and drinking. And drinking some more. See for yourself in these two short video recaps of the Umbria on ...

Terroir, terroir. Perhaps the most overused word in conversing and writing about wine, bandied about with an abandon which has led to it having lost almost any real meaning. A word which I was determined to avoid--along with red wine stains on my shirt--during this past month of blogging about Umbria and her wines; alas, I was ultimately unsuccessful at both these endeavors. Just as a splotch ...

I have my share of character flaws, I’ll admit. But one thing I’ve always been quite proud of (pride, for example, is one of my character flaws) is my relative lack of materialism. I’ve never been an acquirer, collector, or hoarder. I loathe shopping and have moved around enough in my life to have pared down my personal possessions to what could be crammed into a reasonable suitcase. ...

We are fortunate to have a real live sommalier (also a guide, blogger, and friend) amongst our guest bloggers: Alessandra Mallozzi from Discovering Umbria. You may remember the lovely walk she proposed to us a few months ago, and she's back today to talk up one of her favorite Umbrian wines. “Life is too short to drink bad wines” declared Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe a couple of ...

The more I travel the world, the more I appreciate the beauty of Umbria. (I know, it seems like a hard sell—but it’s the truth.) And the more I travel Umbria, the more I appreciate the beauty of Assisi. Sure, there are other areas of Umbria which I hold particularly dear (the largely undiscovered Valnerina, for example), but Assisi is—despite the tourists, despite the souvenir shops, ...

If I could change one thing about Italy--wait, who am I kidding? I love living in Italy, but given the chance I would change roughly 14,000 things about it. But for argument’s sake, let’s choose one thing—it would be the ethnic food situation. Italy doesn’t do ethnic food. It doesn’t even do inter-regional food that well. If I go to my vegetable guy at the outdoor market and ask ...

There are wines that are meant to be consumed with gravitas. They require our full attention, want to be at center stage, and pout and sulk if we are distracted from their brooding power. They need the trappings: decanters, broad-bowled stemware, exact temperatures. These are Sagrantino from Montefalco. Then there are happy-go-lucky wines. They are light-hearted, easy-going, and just ...

Any conversation about Umbria and her wines must necessarily begin at the very heart of this region, both geographically and historically, which is to say at Sagrantino. This hearty dry red (and honeyed sweet) is made primarily (or exclusively, in the case of the DOCG) from the indigineous Sagrantino grape varietal—though indigineous is relative for a plant that has probably been growing in ...

If you think the closest you’re going to get to heaven in Orvieto is gazing at the Signorelli frescoes in the magnificent Duomo’s San Brizio Chapel, keep walking uphill. Yep, up the Corso, across the Piazza della Repubblica, and through a series of steep, narrow alleyways (if an older gent stops you with a “Psst, Signorina, do you want to see my Etruscan cave?” go ahead and take a ...