TOSCANA Of all the convoluted, impenetrable, byzantine, clarity-hostile, sense-taunting barriers to understanding that the wine world tends to construct, the whole ‘Montepulciano’ pre-fab may be the most gratuitously unhelpful. Years ago, it even almost derailed...

LIGURIA  Though arguably most associated with France, the Riviera - as concept, aspiration, and actuality - originates in Liguria, in northwestern Italy. The word itself is Italian for “coastline,” and was first applied to the...

CAMPANIA As we have learned from many visits here in IWC, when it comes to vino-spewing volcanoes, Mt. Etna in Sicily tends to attract the most oxygen, not just in terms of Italy, but Europe...

“Sardinia”, said DH Lawrence, “is something else.” The famous English author was so smitten with the island that, following a brief trip there in  January 1921, he composed the travelog “Sea and Sardinia”, which attempts...

Over The Volcano  “Two mountain chains traverse the republic roughly from north to south, forming between them a number of valleys and plateaux."  Thus begins Under The Volcano, Malcolm Lowry’s unforgettable account of sozzled oblivion....