The next morning we drove to Orvieto, a small hill town in Umbria that had been recommended by a number of people. It sits up on a volcanic hill that has been inhabited for at least three thousand years. It retains all of its medieval character due to an unusual agreement between the German and English armies in World War II. ...

Bergamo was great and we were really looking forward to Cinque Terre. Unfortunately, what we didn’t realize was — most of Western Europe had a three-day weekend and the UK had a whole week off and, you know what?  They all descended on the highway between Bergamo and Cinque Terre. We fly for twelve hours to get away from California ...

Day five and we’re in Verona. We’re here because the maître d’ at my favorite Italian restaurant in New York City is from Verona and said it’s a beautiful city and we had to see it.  Karen, of course, adores me and so was willing to go along with whatever I suggested (I typed that after she proof-read it if you ...

The first day in Venice, we just walked around all day and got a feel for the city. There are over 400 bridges, each linking what was once an island to the next island. The Venetians slowly filled in the gaps between the islands so that only the canals remained. We split up for lunch because Justin and Allison saw an ...

Fair warning to those looking for our normal wine posts… the first couple are just vacation posts for friends or for Karen and I when we get senile and can’t remember what we did when we were here… Danny finally graduated which means — Italy, here we come! We’ve been waiting to take this trip since he graduated from high school, ...

The next day we took a train to Siena to see the sights. We were a bit disappointed because we learned — with both Siena and Florence — that the cities are okay, they have a number of pretty spectacular churches, but the real things to see are the items in the museums and they take far longer than we ...

Wine tasting in Tuscany has been a decades-long goal of Karen’s and mine, so when we finally got to Tuscany we knew we’d be spending some time in a winery. The interesting part is that, in Tuscany, Chianti reigns supreme. But in our little corner of heaven — San Gimignano — a curious wine grape called Vernaccia is the queen (it ...

Lucca was a one day stop over between Cinque Terre and Tuscany, but it turned out to be a real find. It’s completely surrounded by medieval walls and the tops are wide enough for biking, which we did the morning we left. Our hotel was on the main piazza which took the shape of the Roman amphitheater that once stood there. ...

Why did we split “Reading Wine Labels” into two posts? Two reasons, one is practical – I hate writing novel length posts, and I suspect the audience likes reading them even less. The other has to do with content. Part 1 identifies virtually everything that is required to be on a wine label, or if present, needs to adhere to predefined ...

How do you read a wine label?  What are the real facts about the wine and what’s just marketing glitz?  Is there any way to ensure that a wine is good from the label on the bottle?  These are the most common questions asked by wine novices.  If you don’t have access to the wine maker or at least a ...