Puglia wine country runs the length of Italy’s heel, from the castle hills of the north to the red earth of Salento, with the sea never more than an hour away. It is where Primitivo and Negroamaro come from, where Italy bottled its first rosé, and where a night in a masseria among the olives … Read more
Sicily wine country is bigger and more varied than most first-time visitors expect: an island roughly the size of Vermont, with a volcano at one end, salt pans and old Marsala cellars at the other, and baroque hill towns in between. Etna gets the headlines, but Vittoria, Noto and the far west make wines just … Read more
Etna wine country wraps around the slopes of Europe’s most active volcano, and which side of the mountain you pick decides almost everything about your trip. The north is red-wine territory and the center of the revival that put Etna on American wine lists. The east faces the sea and makes the whites. The south … Read more
Rioja wine country runs for 100 kilometers along the Ebro, across 144 municipalities and three autonomous communities, and it is far less uniform than the label suggests. Cool limestone slopes sit under the Sierra de Cantabria at one end; warm, almost Mediterranean flats sit near Alfaro at the other. This guide covers how the three … Read more
Napa Valley wine country comes down to arithmetic, and it is the part first-timers get wrong: thirty-odd miles of valley floor, more than 500 wineries, and a day that realistically holds three of them. The hard part is access: most tasting rooms take reservations only, and the good ones fill weeks ahead. This guide covers … Read more
Bordeaux wine travel starts with a decision most guides skip: which side of the river. The Left Bank and the Right Bank are forty minutes apart, grow different grapes, and sell themselves in completely different ways — one through a classification written in 1855, the other through a village of limestone caves that reshuffles its … Read more
Tuscany wine country is not one region. It’s a Renaissance city ringed by half a dozen of them, each with its own grape, its own rulebook, and its own idea of what a good afternoon looks like. Chianti Classico begins forty minutes south of Florence. Bolgheri is a different climate on a different coast, two … Read more