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Continue reading →: All That Glitters is Bottega!I love visiting the Bottega stand at Vinitaly – it’s so glamorous! Besides, Prosecco makes me happy. This year was special: Bottega was celebrating 40 years of distilling and winemaking. Founded in 1977 near Treviso in the Veneto region, the company has continued to expand. Leaders in brand recognition, who…
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Continue reading →: It’s Good Friday: Do You Know Where Your Sepulchres Are?On Holy Thursday and Good Friday in Italy, it is tradition to visit the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus, but not just one… many! Usually, the magic number is seven – but as any old Italian lady will tell you, as long as it’s an odd number, you’re OK. (Yes, there’s…
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Continue reading →: Passion at VinitalyThere are many words to describe Italian wine. Much ink has been spilled, and some vino too, trying to find the right ones to communicate the complex and fascinating sensations associated with wine. But if there is one word that is highly overused to describe wine and winemaking in Italy,…
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Continue reading →: Young to Young, and Young to Old…Each year at Vinitaly, there are three important tastings sponsored by two famous food&wine journalists, Paolo Massobrio and Marco Gatti, of Il Golosario fame. The tastings are called Young to Young because they feature three young winemakers each day who present one of their wines to bloggers. I have had…
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Continue reading →: A Rare OpportunityToday I had the rare opportunity to taste 19 rare wines made from little known indigenous grapes. Since I decided to focus during this Vinitaly 2017 on lesser known Italian wines and wine regions, this was the perfect tasting for me! I have to admit, I had not heard of…
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Continue reading →: Va, pensiero! A Chorus of Italian WineSince Vinitaly kicks off each year with the Wine Spectator-sponsored event, Opera Wine, I thought it would be appropriate to choose an operatic soundtrack for this post. Crank up the volume, because the chorus we’re talking about is Verdi’s famed Va, pensiero!, a quiet storm. Many voices, and glasses, raised…
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Continue reading →: Mimosa Time!And no, I am not talking Sunday Brunch! The real thing – the flowers – are given to women here in Italy on March 8, International Women’s Day. Oh, that’s not celebrated where you live? Well, it should be! Ever wonder why March is Women’s History Month? Hint: the event…
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Continue reading →: Back for MoreHit ’em with the one-two… Having tried the Chianti DOCG new releases on Sunday, Monday it was the Gallo Nero’s turn. Chianti Classico unveiled its Anteprima vintages at the old train station, now a congress center, Stazione Leopolda in Florence. Not hard to notice the old train station structure, a…
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Continue reading →: Chianti is For LoversOr at least that is the message the producers wanted to send on this Saint Valentine’s Day, when surely an extra bottle or two was uncorked to celebrate! Because this week of Anteprime Toscane – the new wine releases in Tuscany – coincided with that most romantic of holidays, and…
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Continue reading →: Wine&Siena, Wine&FriendsStill reflecting on last weekend’s event in Siena. The fun thing about these wine events is that you see old friends and make new ones. I haven’t been to a wine event yet where I haven’t met someone new or run into someone I wish I spent more time with.…
Suzanne Branciforte
has one foot firmly planted on either continent
is New York born and Harvard educated
is Italian and American and Italian-American
has resided on the Italian Riviera for the past 15 years
has a Masters degree and a Ph.D. from UCLA
is a writer, translator and interpreter
interpreted for the President of the Bundesbank and Nobel Prize winning economists and authors
is the author of the international best-selling textbook Parliamo italiano!
has lived extensively in California, France and Italy
knows that good wine doesn’t grow in ugly places
is convinced that living is your greatest work of art
Suzanne Branciforte's Italian Grapevine 