Italy’s famous wine fair, Vinitaly, will take place in Verona from April 8-12 this year, and will continue the constant growth in the event. More than 4,000 exhibitors will be on display as part of a program with Italian wine tastings, meetings and seminars on Italian wine. Tickets can be purchased online, taking advantage of a discount, and cost 35 euros for a day or 70 euros for the whole four days.

It’s often difficult to get accommodation for the fair, so book early and take a look at the Veronafiere site for accommodation in Verona (at the time of Vinitaly it can cost between 125 and 160 euros for a double room). The Pro Loco site also has some good information on hotels, restaurants and Verona city events, if you’re still lucid after all that wine tasting!

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Whether famous or not, apples are a traditional Italian product, with the most well known being the apples of Trentino-Alto Adige in Italy’s north. An old Italian food festival is being revived though, at Casalnoceto, between Alessandria and Pavia, where the apple was once king.

At the eastern border of Piedmont, the festival or ‘sagra‘ of the ‘pom di moj’ (in Italian dialect), is being held to celebrate the method that was once invented to preserve apples. The ‘moj’ method was one where healthy apples were washed, placed in a demijohn with a large neck, and covered with a slightly alcoholic wine and vinegar. They were kept there for about 40 days and then were taken out towards the end of March to be eaten at the traditional spring festival.

The apple festival of Casalnoceto takes place on Sunday, March 21st, starting at 9:30 am and going all day. You can taste the bitter-sweet local apples and discover this relatively unknown but beautiful part of Italy. Casalnoceto is located about 100 km east of Turin, and only 75 km from Milan, making it a great option for a day tour from Milan. For more information on the town, see the Piemonte in dettaglio site.

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An unusual Italian food festival celebrating polenta will take place at Castel di Tora, Rieti in the region of Lazio. The ‘sagra‘ will take place on February 21st at the gates to the historic town centre where an enormous copper pot will be heated and an expert polenta stirrer will continually turn the polenta in the pot. The traditional way of making polenta is in a large copper saucepan with a handle, and it’s generally hot, hard work to continually stir it.

The polenta from Castel di Tora is generally served with herring sauce, tuna, codfish and anchovies. Other features of the polenta festival include the opportunity to taste other traditional products from the region, including bruschetta with extra virgin olive oil from Sabina, and the world famous “spaghetti all’amatriciana”.

The town not only provides the polenta party but also a historical renactment and fashion parade of medieval times. In the afternoon, a parade of medieval costumes takes place around the streets of the town, and then medieval jousting and fighting tournaments are conducted by masquerading actors. Castel di Tora is one of 16 towns in Italy that is part of a cultural polenta association (the Associazione Culturale dei “Polentari d’Italia”), which celebrates the cultural significance and history of Italy’s unsung traditional cuisine - polenta.

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There are many culinary tours of Italy that you can do, to enjoy the traditional Italian products in different regions, and today we give you a few names of companies that might help in planning your Italy by taste itinerary. Especially in terms of wine, Italy and Europe in general is behind in the open cellar door movement and tastings, although Italian wine benefits from various village tasting festivals.

Check out the Turismo del Vino site for news on where to go, where to stay and the various wine tasting in Italy events that are on. Other organisations organising wine tasting tours are Nunc Est Bibendum, and if you’re interested in wine tasting in Rome and surrounds, see the Tasting Rome website.

While Italy is part of the old world wine culture, there is plenty of romance to be had in wine tasting in the country’s old cellars and tavernas. You just have to have some front, a few connections and make yourself a calendar of Italy’s wine and food festivals - it’s well worth it.

Photo | Nebtour

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The Tuscan olive oil festival of Cetona, in Val di Chiana takes place this weekend from December 5 to 7 after many days of hard work to finish the olive harvest for this year. The extra virgin olive oil festival involves the oil produced from “chianine” olives, the name also given to Tuscany’s famous “chianina” beef.

The festival includes tours through the olive groves, the town’s historic olive presses, and the town centre where you can conduct tastings of the olive oil and traditional products of the area.

Tastings include bruschetta, cabbage, soup, beans and chick peas, with recipes based on various types of olive oil. The festival is open from 10am to 10pm and the local restaurants all feature traditional dishes using the local olive oil.

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The best Italian olive oil does not just come from central and southern Italy. While you may be used to seeing the olive groves across the hills of Tuscany and Umbria, there is a pocket in northern Italy that makes excellent olive oil, too. We’ve already see the limoncello from Lake Garda, and today we take a look at another Italian food festival, with the lake’s olive oil production.

The Lake Garda olive oil festival is taking place, called “L’olio, il lago e la tradizione”, which celebrates the olive oil making tradition and industry of the lake. The festival features the oil of Castelletto di Brenzone and involves tours of the olive groves and olive pressing facilities, concluding on November 25th with olive oil tastings and an olive race for children. For more information, see the olive oil event brochure.

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The Italian truffle festival at Sant-Angelo in Vado (Pesaro) has encountered an unusual problem this year, in the form of champion sports star Valentino Rossi. The truffle festival has reached its 46th edition, and the logo of this year’s festival features the number “46″ written in yellow.

The only problem is that the number is also Valentino Rossi’s race number, and the festival organisers were warned against using it in the festival logo. Correspondence between the legal studio of Podrini and Benedetti, who are charged with protecting the Rossi brand, suggests that legal action requiring compensation has been undertaken.

The local mayor is absolutely stupified, as you can imagine. Settimio Bravi says: “I’m very upset by this behaviour. We haven’t copied anyone. We are celebrating 46 years of the festival and I therefore have to use that number. I couldn’t write ‘45 + 1′ or ‘47 - 1′. Otherwise it will be thought that Valentino Rossi has bought the number 46 the world over and no-one can use it.” He continues:

Continue reading: Valentino Rossi legal action against truffle festival

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Each year Autumn, the season which is like a door between summer and winter, brings its own delights to the table; from chestnuts and mushrooms to apples and grapes. So those of you who love the flavours of Autumn will be glad to know that in October the small village of Marradi (up in the hills around the city of Florence) will host a chestnut festival. Surrounded by thick woods, the village is famous for its delicious chestnuts throughout the north of Italy, but the big news is that for the next four weekends, the village can also be reached on board lovely steam trains leaving every Sunday from Rimini, Bologna and Florence. Once there visitors will have the chance to attend the Italian food festival and taste such delicious dishes as tortelli stuffed with chestnuts, chestnut cake, chestnut jam and, of course, tons of roast chestnuts. But don’t worry, if you should prefer something different, you can always have polenta with mushrooms and exquisite grilled meat and all of this accompanied by fabulous Tuscany wine. For more information you can call the following phone numbers: 0546.22715; 0546.22177; 055.440311

Photo | Flickr

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The Italian food festival you’ve all been waiting is nearly here, with Eurochocolate starting on October 16 in the home town of Baci Perugina. Every year, Perugia in Umbria hosts the chocolate festival, and this year opening the festival are food artists Matteo Ragni and Paolo Ulian.

The event lasts until October 25th and will include the usual tastings, events, exhibitions and general indulgence. This is one where the chocoholics will have to detox afterwards. October 12th is Chocoday and functions as the chocolate industry trade fair.

Producers, traders, patisseries, chocolatiers and chocolate lovers will be able to meet and share their cocoa secrets, and the public also gets the chance to visit the workshops and laboratories of chocolate makers during the first edition of the Cioccolaterie Aperte event. For details of Eurochocolate, where to stay, and what’s on in Europe’s most famous chocolate festival, see the Eurochocolate site.

Source | Gustoblog.it

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The town of Bra in Piedmont, famous for its Italian cheese and the Slow Food movement, is currently hosting the Slow Food Cheese Italian food festival. Autum in Italy is THE season for food festivals, so you’d best get your calendar planned.

Bra is famous for Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement and the world’s first University of Gastromic Sciences. The cheese festival sees the town’s historic centre turned into a cheese market, in a space more than 3,000 metres square.

The Italian cheese festival hosts over 160 stalls with cheeses coming from around the world to represent their country. The cheese hall hosts some of the world’s most prized cheeses, with more than 130 varieties on display. If you’re going, make sure you taste your cheese with some great Italian wine - we recommend a nebbiolo from the Langhe.

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The Italian Bread Festival in Rome starts today and is called the “festa del Pane Casereccio” locally, otherwise known as “bruschetta”. It will take place over the weekend from 6pm this evening in Piazza Tommaso Frasconi. It will finish with a pyrotechnics display on Sunday (we have visions of flaming bread flying past crowds) and is all to celebrate the patron saint of the area, San Tommaso da Villanova.

“Pane Casereccio” from Genzano follows a tradition of homemade Italian bread, baked in wood fired ovens. Its history dates back to the 1800’s but since the 1940’s it has achieved a huge reputation in Rome and Italy as one of the best Italian breads. Its fame comes from the various tools used to make it and the bread making secrets passed from one generation to the next.

Pane Casereccio can be used to accompany just about any dish, but it is best known for its use as bruschetta. Eaten plain and just dressed with a little olive oil also makes for a perfect Italian snack. The festival includes tastings, guided tours, kids events and a Slow Food tasting seminar, though perhaps the highlight is the “grande bruschettata” or bruschetta feast. See LazioFeste and the Pane Casereccio festival for more details.

Photo | Flickr

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