Italian Food Lovers

On the road again … with Academia Barilla. Join us as we travel to Venice, Parma, Rome and Sicily. 

It’s that time of year again. What time you ask? Time to start planning your next trip to Italy, of course.We all know that the Italian peninsula is home to an infinite number of things to see and do and taste. But why make it hard on yourself, when you can let Academia Barilla and their team of Italian food, wine and culture experts plan your trip for you. Join us for a behind the scenes tour of your favorite region in Italy, or allow us to introduce you to someplace new.

Speaking of new, we have designed two new tours for 2009: Venice, Parma, Rome: A Trio of Italian History and Sicily for Food Lovers. 

If you have never been Italy or just breezed through on your last whirlwind tour of Europe, we invite you to get to know three of Italy’s most spectacular cities – Venice, Rome, and Parma. You will begin your adventure in Venice, where a local guide will show you around the local markets and introduce you to some of the city’s incredible craftsmen Read more…

In the mid 1980’s, long before the release of the blockbuster film Sideways, GreatEveryDayItalianWines.com’s founder and wine expert Gary Grunner was part of a small group of wine representatives and educators traveling all over New York State by car, train, bus and plane — selling, doing staff seminars, hosting wine dinners, fund raisers, teaching classes and talking wine all along the way.

It all started in 1982 when Gary fell in love with Italy while on a college exchange student program. As he recalls “It truly was a life changing experience. Not only did I develop a love for Italian wines, food and soccer from the contagious passion of my professors, but I also met a young Italian girl who later became my wife“.

Twenty-six years later Gary has homes both in New York and Italy and spends 10 hours a day immersed in the food and wine scene. He loves to share his passion of food and wine with people and he’s the first to talk about a new wine find, a new wine gadget, a chefs new restaurant and a great wine vacation.

Gary’s websites GreatEveryDayItalianWines.com and GreatEveryDayWines.com reach out and engage people on both sides of the wine world: the eager buyer and the enthusiastic seller.
Both websites provide innovative wine cards and other exciting tools to learn about wines, while Gary’s wine articles appear in a local New York restaurant magazine or on dishdujourmagazine.com. Gary is also in the midst of completing two books on wine and one on food that should be in print in 2009. We all look forward to it!

In the meanwhile, we invite you to explore GreatEveryDayItalianWines.com, where you can also find a wide range of information not only on Italian wines, but also on wineries, wine shops and restaurants, wine books, and more.

A special section of the website is dedicated to “Turismo del Vino in Italy” (Wine Tourism in Italy) and this month features Academia Barilla’s Culinary School as a must-do for those how plan to travel to Italy to learn about Italian food, engage in culinary and gastronomy classes and, of course, to learn also about Italian wines and wine and food pairing!

A full list of culinary and gastronomy courses, complete with cooking classes and gourmet tours of the Italian Food Valley, are listed at the Academia Barilla page on GreatEverydayItalianWines, and we will be soon blogging more in details about it.

For more information about the Academia Barilla Culinary School and this year’s calendar of culinary tours, cooking classes and culinary learning vacations, please contact Academia Barilla by phone in the US at +1 866 772.2233, in Italy at +39 0521 264060, or by email at academiabarillaculinary@barilla-usa.com.