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The Italian Abroad Wine Blog is a wine blog and diary where I share my thoughts, primarily about Italian wine and food, but also on wine, food, and travel in general. I founded Italyabroad.com in 2003 and have been living abroad for over 20 years. Coming from an Italian winemaking family, I was introduced to wine at a very early age. While my roots are in Italian wine, I appreciate and enjoy good wine from all over the world, alongside great food and the joys of travel. My posts often weave these passions together.
To help you better understand Italian wines, we've created a series of Italian wine regions maps that show DOC and DOCG wines, their origins and the grapes they are made of, including your favorite Italian wines. I’ve also written a post on the Italian wine appellation system explaining and demystifying the Italian wine classification system and what it really means for wine lovers and enthusiasts.
Additionally, I host a YouTube channel , where you can watch me taste some of our wines and answer your questions about Italian wines and grapes. From the meaning of DOC to what makes an orange wine, we cover it all.
I hope you enjoy reading this wine blog! Feel free to reach out with any questions.
Salute
Andrea
Unfortunately, when price becomes the determining factor driving our food choices, we are not saving money, we are slowing shutting down our bodies. And having a gluten intolerant in the family, I noticed that the “free from” range in supermarkets is getting bigger and bigger and even includes gluten free ice lollies, I wonder where the gluten comes from since they should only be made of water and fruit or at least, flavouring. I believe this tells us the direction we are heading to. Paying a premium to eat better quality food
We have been approached and asked to contribute as an expert on an article about storing wine and since we believe that storing wine deserves more attention, even more in an era where each kitchen comes with some sort of wine rack and as you will read below, the kitchen is the least suitable place to store wine, we thought of publishing the answer on our blog as well
The challenge, the modernization of the wine industry has nothing to do with the packaging but it is about cultivation methods; how to reduce wineries’ environmental impact and to adapt to a climate change that is already affecting them with more frequent extreme atmospheric phenomena that are making producing wine more and more challenging and are forcing them to rethink their wine making approach and traditions
I have launched a fundraising campaign through Kickstarter to save my grandparent’s olive grove in Abruzzo, Italy, with century old olive trees. I only rediscovered the olive grove last summer when going through old photographs and after days examining documents to remember where it was located, photographs and asking neighbours, i eventually found the olive grove. I have so many memories of me helping my grandparents collecting olives. The olive grove, now overgrown, and the olive trees have not been pruned for decades.
Imagine buying a bottle of wine and reading “It seriously harms health” written on the label. What would your reaction be? I would be seriously p****d off.
On the other side, we should not be too angry because according to a new study, within 5 years we will be able to drink something that look like wine and would make us feel like we are drinking alcohol, without any of the side effects. What we seem to forget is that wine has been drunk since 7000 BC; the problem is not the wine, alcohol is not evil, the problem is the people abusing it.
Unfortunately, too often we associate good food and quality ingredients with expensive, but it doesn’t have to this way. The cost difference between a good tomato tin and one that needs sugar to correct the acidity because the tomatoes were not fully ripen when picked is only a few pennies; a good bottle of extra virgin olive oil, even if you use as much as I do (I use it for everything), lasts a few weeks, which makes the daily cost way cheaper than an espresso or cappuccino and a good olive oil not only makes or breaks a dish but provide us with plenty of the healthy stuff that help us living better and longer
A few weeks ago we attended, as exhibitor, the Manchester Wine Festival. Standing behind the table, we could hear people’s comments, and noticed that they were attracted by the vegan wines, everyone wanted to taste them, they were always the first and sometime the only wines people would taste. There was a visible interest but it was due to a lack of knowledge, very few knew what a vegan wine was, in fact only one person knew what differentiate a vegan wine from a non vegan.
During the course we tasted 6 or 7 extra virgin olive oils, blind tasted, and not only we had to identify each oil characteristics but hidden amongst them, there were two faulty ones: one very evident and the other slightly, and a supermarket olive oil. Exactly like when tasting wine, everyone had a different nose and palate, so we all picked different aromas and characteristics, but I was able to spot the faulty oils, which made me very happy, my nose and palate are getting there, been training for years tasting wine.
Wine tasting is a great way to hone your wine appreciation skills and by comparing wines with a common theme you can really appreciate their subtle differences. A bit like with a science experiment, the idea is to keep as many wine factors constant as possible and then compare the one variable. Wine tastings don't need to be as serious or expensive as they sound either, set a budget and theme and each of your friends can bring a bottle to your next meet up.
I managed to finish the book, but the excitement had become pain, I wasn’t enjoying the story anymore and wanted to give up in more than one occasion. We all need food to live and a way or another, our taste changes, often evolves, but food for Italians is much more than a recipe. I was hoping the book would have not only followed his series, letting “Italians” doing the cooking and telling their stories, but also showed the other side of food for Italians
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