A Homecoming
My first wine trip was a homecoming. It was not just about tasting vintages or shaking hands with producers. It was about being back in Italy, the place where it all clicked for me. That trip brought me into a life I did not know I was ready for but had been circling around. Stepping into those vineyards, hearing Italian spoken in the cadence of the land, I realized I was not visiting a career. I was embracing one.
Why We Go
In the wine business, we get to travel often. Sometimes too often. There are the death marches, like the infamous ones across Spain where twenty-five of us hit six regions in a week. There are the focused ones, like Piemonte, where you drill deep into a single region. I have done them with twenty-five people, with four, solo, and most often with just one other person.
Solo trips are liberating. You move on your own terms, guided by instinct and appetite. Traveling with one other person, though, is usually the sweet spot. Unless they annoy you. And trust me, they do. People out of their routines tend to unravel with drinking, selfishness, and rudeness. I would say they know who they are, but they usually do not.
Traveling Companions
Over the years, my companions have shaped the journeys. I have gone with sommeliers sharp enough to catch the nuance in every pour, a Carnegie Mellon art history professor who saw vineyards as living canvases, and my best friend Jaime, a guy who knew every great tapas bar in Barcelona but refused to wear his seatbelt, letting the car scream at me the whole time.
But the most meaningful trips were with my son, Lorenzo. In Sicily, I got to show him the place where I spent the years from nineteen to twenty-one. The place where I first spread my own wings. Watching him at a lido in Sardinia, disappearing down the beach with kids his age, it struck me. I was not just giving him roots. I was giving him wings too, and the unspoken permission to use them. That has been one of my life’s quiet goals as a father.
The Trade Perspective
Going as a restaurant buyer, you are focused on the deal. As a distributor rep, you are watching for what will move. As an importer, you are seeing the long game, the people, the families, the legacy. But the constant is the behind the curtain access. When the trade travels, you do not just taste wines. You walk the rows, smell the stones, step into cellars, ask the questions that complete the picture you will later paint for your customers.
That is why I do it. So when I tell someone about a bottle, it is not secondhand. I have walked the land, I have eaten at the table, I have shaken the winemaker’s hand. It makes me honest.
Between Here and There
Not every moment happens in a vineyard. There is the people-watching at Autogrill espresso counters, racks of jamón hanging in a dirty Spanish gas station, sulfur springs from Saturnia to San Pellegrino. There was the lunch just off the ferry in Salina with the Colosi family, a perfect between here and there moment where the sea, the food, and the wine blurred into something bigger than all of us.
And then there was Isole e Olena. After a morning in the vineyards and cellar with Paolo, we sat in the kitchen, a table big enough for the four of us and him. His wife Marta was cooking, making sure everyone was comfortable. Stories were about to flow, maybe the best I ever heard. Marta, while pulling a Tuscan vegetable casserole from the oven, began. Paolo turned red as she spoke, knowing what was coming.
She said, once we had an American winemaker here to stage. Paolo believed in welcoming them to bring fresh ideas and techniques, not just to learn his. One day they went into Poggibonsi, leaving the American to rest. The phone rang. He answered. “Pronto.” The caller asked, “C’è Paolo?” The American, proud of his Italian, answered, “Non c’è, Paolo è morta in Poggibonsi.” Then he hung up. He thought he had nailed it. What he had said was that Paolo had died in Poggibonsi.
Paolo and Marta returned to a house in chaos. The answering machine was full. The phone would not stop ringing. A journalist in Japan was screaming, “Marta! Marta! What happened to Paolo?” Looking at Paolo, he was mortified. Why it embarrassed him so much, I will never know, but it was the story of the day. And I was there to hear it at their table.
Eating, Always Eating
Food is inseparable from enotourism. From winery lunches to street food detours, meals become the context for the wines, turning bottles into living memories. Even during a mad cow outbreak, I found myself saying yes to Bistecca Fiorentina with a glass of Avignonesi Desiderio, because sometimes the experience demands it.
Why It Matters
Enotourism is not just travel. It is how you connect a bottle to memory. It is why a glass of Etna Rosso can taste like volcanic rock under your feet, why a sip of Malvasia delle Lipari can carry the salt air of the Aeolian islands. For the trade, it is integrity. For enthusiasts, it is immersion. For anyone who loves food, wine, and culture, it is a reminder that behind every label is a family, a place, and a story.
After twenty-five years, I have learned this. Every trip is another homecoming. Another chance to feel like a student again. And maybe someday, I will even get to do one as a romantic duo. Until then, it is me, my people, and the road between vineyards.
Wine is meant to be traveled for.
