T he first Sicilian wines I had in Palermo were in restaurants. I have memories of being in a place with family and they brought a bottle...

in search of Marsa Allah “ W here did you go? We were worried about you!” My Aunt Vitina thought something had happened to me out in th...

Love in the time of Catarratto T he front has been perched above the city for days now. Hot, humid, hovering. Stalled. All the while I hav...

A package arrived today. Sort of auspicious. A gift from a secret admirer? A promo puff piece from a P.R. company trying to sell me on wri...

H ave you ever wondered what it must be like to be someone else? In this case, that someone else being Lionello Marchesi, the globetrotting ...

Passing through a cloud of unknowing N otes from a journal, not about my grandfather, but my great grandfather. In Palermo. He died bef...

From the Archives while the Invisible Man prepares the bandages In 1984 Montalcino was a sleepy little hamlet S ometimes, it seems I d...

S o you make wine or you write or you bake and you think there is more. You think you want to take it from a hobby or an advanced passion to...

W ith one of my long standing friends, I was having one of those conversations. No filters. Carne cruda. Maybe it’s a guy thing, no maybe ...

Alessandro Masnaghetti R eaders familiar with these pages know I have a fondness for maps. One of my favorite links is Frank Jacob’s Stra...

Ceiling fresco - Casòn Hirschprunn, Margreid, Südtirol B ecause of the encounters I have had in the last month and with all the rush to ...

from the "when the going gets weird, the weird turn DOCG" dept... I can barely keep up with it. Can you imagine the Italian go...

From the "Let my people go" dept... I t is that time of the year, when they roll out Charlton Heston and the 10 Commandments epic...

from the "bringing Vinitaly to flyover country" dept. S even days in Italy. Seven wines. So it was my friend Paul diCarlo at Ji...

S o far, 2011 has become an extended road trip. Work related events have taken me on the road most of the year. Italy , New Orleans , New Yo...