In Italy, wine is not simply a beverage. It’s culture, history, storytelling, family memories, landscapes, art, and much more. Wine is one of the most authentic connections to your heritage and land.
Unfortunately, not everybody in the world feels the same. As much as a foreigner may be a lover of Italian wines, they are likely to often feel overwhelmed by all of this. Sometimes, even the passion of Italians when they speak about wine can feel a bit much.
I get it. As a wine writer and journalist who has been covering the Italian wine world for over two decades, I have observed many tourists grappling with long, complicated wine lists, struggling to make sense of food pairings, and confused when visiting a winery or buying wine in a local shop. The fear of being ripped off is always lurking, and this unpleasant feeling can ruin even the most promising experience.
I'm always trying to put myself in people's shoes, so at a certain point I thought: wouldn't a book that explained a little bit of ground-to-ground stuff be useful, so as to help even the most clueless tourist get by on their own?
That’s why I wrote “Sip Easy - The Relaxed Traveler’s Guide To Navigate Italian Wine With Confidence”.
It’s not the nth Italian wine and/or tourist guide, but a book full of solutions to the most frequent problems a foreign visitor faces (or complains about) when they arrive in Italy, plus tips & tricks to get out of trouble at restaurants, wineries and wine shops. A method to find the most consistent wine of a place (or for a meal), a handy guide to help travelers enjoy Italian wines and get the most out of their Italian experience.
In short, it is not an educational book; it’s a helpful companion. To make the reading less boring as possible, I even put in, here and there, some comic strips.
However, it is not a joke either: its 10 chapters range from “Common Tourists’ Complaints (And How To Avoid Them” to “Overcoming Wine Anxiety”, from “Italian Wine Drinking Culture Secrets” to “Your Emergency Wine Phrasebook”. And so on.
The book is available on Amazon; if you buy it I’d be curious to know your opinion.