Wine and Spirits Travel

It had been a long time since I’d slept in a twin bed, but I had been so tired from the previous day of travel that it didn’t matter. With the shutters shut and the alarm off, my friend Tracy and I had even slept until 9:30 at Locanda Don Serafino . We dressed and packed up quickly and headed downstairs for a great European breakfast of breads, muffins, yogurt and cheese. Unfortunately, we forgot we weren’t in Starbucks when it came to ordering coffee and just asked for “lattes,” forgetting to specify “café” before it. We enjoyed the glasses of warm milk before playing it safe and requesting cappuccinos! We had a bit of time and went for a short walk in Ragusa Ibla before Francesco Ferreri picked us up and took us to the Valle Dell’Acate winery.  The drive seemed a lot more interesting after a good night’s sleep and we identified the almond, orange and olive trees along the way, as well as the green houses filled with tomatoes. It was starting to warm up and it was

I have been lucky enough to travel around the world, but I never had the opportunity to visit any of the places my family came from.  That list is longer than you may think since each of my grandparents was born in a different country. When the opportunity to visit Sicily came up, I was thrilled to be able to cross one of those places off my list. The trip was organized by Rebecca Hopkins, whom I had met while at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic . She works for Folio Wines and put together a trip for me with three of Sicily’s top wine producers, Valledell’Acate , Tasca d’Almerita and Donnafugata . The itinerary had us on eight planes and in the car quite a bit, but the positive side of that was that I would get to see a lot of the land my grandfather’s family was from. It was a rough start to the trip as the cab I ordered didn’t show up and I came as close as one could get (the plane door about to close) to missing my plane. Had I been at a larger airport, there proba