LUXURY CULINARY AND WINE TRAVEL
Trips Planned Around the Table.
Trips built around the meal you will still be talking about a year later, the wine country you have been meaning to see, the table only locals know about. I am not a sommelier. I am a traveler who genuinely loves wine and food, and who does the research so you taste what is actually worth tasting.
For travelers who want their food and wine trip to include places most advisors do not send people, the hidden gems and off-the-beaten-path itineraries pair naturally with culinary travel.
WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE
The Meal Is the Journey.
A morning at the market in a Tuscan hill town, picking out what dinner will become. A long lunch in Burgundy that turns into the afternoon, then somehow into a tasting in a stone cellar that was not on the itinerary. The cooking class with the grandmother in Slovenia who does not speak much English and does not need to. The dinner at the table you would not have known to book, the one the locals fill on a Tuesday.
This is travel where the food and the wine are not extras to fit around the sightseeing. They are the reason you went. The places, the regions, the seasons are chosen for what is on the table.
HOW I PLAN IT
The Research You Do Not See.
I am not a sommelier, and I am not pretending to be one. What I am is a traveler with 63 countries of perspective, a real love for wine and the table, and the time to do the work most people will not.
That work looks like this. Checking who is currently in the kitchen at a restaurant before I book it, because chefs move and a place is only as good as who is cooking that month. Knowing which wineries welcome guests warmly and which ones are running a transactional tasting line. Asking the right questions to find the small producer down the road instead of the famous label on the highway. Building relationships over years with the hotels, guides, and shopkeepers who quietly turn a trip from good into the one you remember.
A small example. On a Bordeaux river cruise I visited Blaye, a town I was not sure about at first. Then I walked into La Petite Cave, met the owner, and spent an hour learning about a side of the town I would have completely missed. I have been talking about going back ever since. That is what this work is. Knowing the shop, knowing the person, knowing which detour is worth taking.
Working with Charity was a treat. She planned the perfect Italy vacation, customized for us. Every detail was handled, and all we had to do was show up and enjoy. Can’t wait to work with her again.
Ray M. · Tuscany and Piedmont wine trip
REGIONS I KNOW BEST
Where I Have Been, and Where I Can Take You.
These are the wine and culinary regions I have walked, tasted, and planned in. Old World and New World, classic and unexpected. Each one is here because I have been there myself.
OLD WORLD
France
Burgundy cellars, Champagne mornings, Alsace tasting rooms, the Bordeaux river cruise route that taught me how much there is to learn between the famous chateaux. The country that built my understanding of what wine travel can be.
Italy
Piedmont, Tuscany, and beyond. The regions where the wine and the table are inseparable, and where a meal can quietly become the whole point of the trip.
Slovenia
The wine country most travelers never reach, and the reason I became a Slovenia specialist. Small producers, alpine vineyards, and a hospitality style that feels almost lost elsewhere.
Spain and Portugal
Rioja afternoons, San Sebastian pintxos that go late into the night, the Douro Valley climbing out of the river. Old World wine with a slower rhythm.
NEW WORLD
Chile
The Andes on the horizon, vineyards in their own world, and a wine country that surprised me in the best way. The kind of trip that changes what you thought wine travel had to look like.
Pacific Northwest
Walla Walla, Red Mountain, and Lake Chelan, which I am visiting next. American wine country that holds its own anywhere, without the Napa price tag or the pretense.
California
Paso Robles, Healdsburg, and the Sonoma Coast. Wineries that quietly outperform their better-known neighbors, and the rest of California’s coast and valleys as the trips call for it.
HOW WE WORK TOGETHER
From the First Conversation to the First Sip.
01 We Talk
A real conversation about how you travel, what you love at the table, the wines you reach for and the ones you have been curious about. The trip you have been quietly planning in your head.
02 I Design
A custom itinerary built around the meal, the cellar, the morning at the market. Stays chosen for the breakfast as much as the bed. Logistics handled so you arrive ready to taste.
03 You Travel
You go. You eat. You drink. I am in your pocket the entire way if anything comes up.
04 We Do It Again
Most of my culinary and wine clients come back. Once we have done one region, the next is always easier. I already know what you love.
Where Should We Eat Next?
If there is a region you have been thinking about, or a meal you cannot stop talking about, or a wine country you have been meaning to see, let us start there.