WINE TOUR PLANNING IN ITALY

Do you love all or some of these wines? Barolo, barbaresco, Amarone, Brunello, Chianti Classico, Super Tuscan Style Wines, Soave, Prosecco, Collio, Nobile di Montepulciano, Aglianico, Sagrantino, Taurasi and the emerging juicy Sicilian wines?

Have you always dreamed to visit Italy's stunning Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque cities?

Did you fall in love with the postcard images of the Tuscan country-side?

Does your moth start watering when you think of truffles, saffron, fresh home made pastas, crispy vegetables and savory meats and fish?

Well, then it's time you start planning your wine and food holiday in Italy. But where should you start?

If you want to do everything your self you should stock-up on printed guides and do plenty of web searching. I would privilege guides as the internet can be tricky. 

PICKING THE REGIONS

This is the part where things get tough. Italy has so much to see!!!!! If you have one week or less you should focus one one region/area only, especially if you have a wine and food focus. Here are the major areas you might want to visit and the way you can aggregate them well in one week:

- Northen: Venetia and Venice with Amarone, Soave, Prosecco and Collio

- Piedmont: Barolo and Barbaresco are musts for all wine lovers. Give piedmont space for cheese, chocolate in Turin and fine dining. It's a paradise. Depending on your available time, you might want to add in a two day stopover in Liguria (Cnqueterre, POrtofino, Genova)

- Tuscany: One week is barely enough to get a snapshot of the major points of interest: Florence, Siena, Chianti Classico, Brunello, Nobile di Montepulciano, San Gimignano with saffron and Vernaccia, the Super Tuscan wine region... never mind al the rest you should see...

- Rome and Central Italy: TO BE FINISHED

If you use trip advisor for your hotel reviews that's fine. Keep in mind that negative comments can always occur no and then, even in the best places. Also remember that there is quite a bit of nasty competition out there and that a lot of reviews will be false, both negative and positive. You should sign-up and check a traveler's profile before you decide if you will keep his-her comments in mind. Travelers that post only one or a few comments are likely to be false. If a traveler has less than 15-20 reviews and a poor profile do not keep that comment in to account, it's probably not real. Reviewers with complete profiles and may posts are probably real. Reading the profiles will also help you understand their affinity with your tastes, hence how much you should weigh their comment.

Forums can also be helpful, but again the same considerations as above apply.