After the rain, Via Matteotti, Montalcino

Adventures In The World Of Wine And Adjacent Amusements take us to some amazing places. In our travels, we often rely on local guides or contacts to steer us around the tourist traps for a unique view of local culture. American Jed provides such insights in his blog Italy Wise, which chronicles a broad array of topics and experiences relating to his daily life as a full time resident in Italy. If you’re thinking of visiting or living in Italy for any length of time, or simply interested in Italian culture from an American’s perspective, this blog is packed with useful information.

I was pleased to see a recent post in Italy Wise, A Special View Of The Food and Wines of Umbria, featuring Jed’s interview with Elizabeth Wholey. Elizabeth is a Northern California native whose book Sustenance: Food Traditions In Italy’s Heartland is a well told story of Italian food and cooking. I met Elizabeth last year when renting La Quercia, a hilltop home in the Niccone Valley on the border of Umbria and Tuscany. She and cooking partner Paola Cesari of Amore Sapore provided an excellent on-site cooking class featuring regional foods of central Italy. You can subscribe to Elizabeth’s Umbria blog at The Wine Girls.

La Quercia at dusk.

Like Jed, Elizabeth lives in Italy and offers tours in Umbria that provide an insider’s view of local foods and products. She also hooked us up with Pino Teresi, perhaps one of the finest wine guides leading private tours and tastings in Tuscany. Two days with Pino provided a deeper understanding of two of Tuscany’s most prestigious wines, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, as well as Chianti Classico bearing the Black Rooster (Gallo Nero) produced in Greve and the surrounding area.

I hope you’ll subscribe to Italy Wise, get a copy of Sustenance (available on Amazon) and enjoy Italian foods, wines and culture.