T his week, I was re-organizing my wine collection. There were several cases of white and rosé wine that had stacked up in the utility room,...

R ecently, I stopped in to see an old friend and erstwhile client, an Italian restaurateur. We had a glass of Gavi together and caught up. H...

  I n memory of Luigi Pira and Dino Illuminati I was in the room next to my wine closet when I thought I heard the murmur of low voices. Th...

The Italy that Americans forget L ately I’ve taken to reading excerpts from people’s trips to Italy. Wine country, the cities, the fashionab...

I was taking a coffee break recently with a friend, catching up, and he remarked about some crappy restaurant service he’d recently gotten. ...

from the archives ... F orget anything you know about Basilicata and Southern Italy. Disregard anyone telling you this is the poorest reg...

T he other day, I listened in on an NPR TED Hour podcast about what the “ future you ” looks like. Who will you be in 5 years? In 20 years? ...

O k, here goes. I’ve been in a quandary lately. Don’t know why. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe the state of the country. Or the world. In any ev...

H ere’s the thing: Life, at any age, can be as rich or as impoverished as one can stand it to be. There, so much for my philosophy of late. ...

After all the jacks are in their boxes And the clowns have all gone to bed You can hear happiness staggering on down the street Fo...

A n old colleague of mine texted recently and told me about the death of a French wine producer we knew. We had gotten to know him over the ...

M y last paying gig in the wine trade was as a national ambassador for a venerable maker of Prosecco. One of the days I was out, working the...

Happy Days - Alessio in the kitchen at Jimmy's with Valeria Losi of Querciavalle S ad news here, Alessio Franceschetti passed away this ...

R ecently I returned to Italy, after an absence of four years – for me, the longest interlude in a generation. It couldn’t be helped. The...

  Shipping out for a short while. Back in a bit.  © written and photographed by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail i...