There’s a castle at the southern tip of Lake Garda that you can only reach on foot, across a drawbridge, over water on every side. Cars stop outside the gate. You walk in like everyone has for the last seven hundred years. The Scaligero Castle in Sirmione has stood since…
Here is a sentence I did not expect to write about a hotel in the middle of a city. They make their own wine. Not “they have a good wine list.” Not “the sommelier is very knowledgeable.” The family who owns Massimago Wine Suites also owns a working winery forty…
There are hotel spas and then there is the Terme della Valpolicella. Most hotel spas give you eucalyptus steam rooms, a swimming pool, and a list of treatments with names like “Serenity Journey” that involve warm stones and someone playing a flute somewhere in the background. The spa at Villa…
Most people who visit the Veneto never actually see the Veneto. They land at Venice Marco Polo airport, take a water taxi into the city, spend three days walking over bridges and eating near the Rialto, and then fly home. Which is wonderful, truly. Venice is extraordinary. But it’s also…
Of all the celebrities in this series, Drew Barrymore might be the most honest one. Sting spent years perfecting biodynamic farming before anyone was allowed near his Tuscan estate. Jay-Z turned his wine brand into a calculated, nine-figure business move. Andrea Bocelli was literally born into 200 years of winemaking…
There’s a specific look people arrive in Italy with. Not the “I’m on holiday” look. The “I must not mess this up” look. It shows up at restaurants first. Before the food. Before the wine. Before anyone has even opened a menu. They sit down and suddenly become extremely careful…
I have been living in Italy for years now. I drink Italian wine regularly, I write about it obsessively, and I genuinely believe it is some of the finest wine on earth. And I had absolutely no idea this happened until I started digging. In the spring of 1986, Italy…
There are wines you drink. And then there is Barolo — the kind of wine that doesn’t accept being ignored. You don’t open it on a random Tuesday. You don’t multitask with it. If you treat it like background wine, it responds accordingly: it shuts down and makes you work…
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