I'm heading back to "wine country". This should be a familiar theme in the near future to those readers of our wine blog because I am not alone in this endeavor. In fact all six of my fellow wine bloggers [wine supervisors] as well as a dozen of our top wine consultants will be traveling to the vineyards of France and Italy in the next few weeks.

Shayne Hebert, Ken Amendola and Jim Greeley will be traveling to France to visit producers in the Rhone Valley and Burgundy. Atanas Nechkov, Bill Stobbs and yours truly will be traveling to Italy to visit producers in Piedmont and Tuscany. Marie Griffin decided she didn't want to travel with the boys so she will be off to France shopping in Paris as well as visiting wine makers in the Loire and Rhone Valleys [wish we were together, Marie]. This should make for some interesting reading, especially if you have grown tired of reading some of our recent articles about cat food and duck fat.

On the Italian tour we will be visiting some great estates whose wines are imported by Jonathan Shiekman, owner of Margate Wine & Spirits Company. I will be reporting back on Fattoria Querciarossa, Tenuta Casuccio Tarletti and Tenuta Poggio Il Castellare, as well as some estates we do not yet have in our stores. I will also be staying on a few extra days with our main wine buyer, Brad Lewis, to visit some lesser known estates like Altesino, Castello Di Bossi, Falesco and Tignanello.

It would be hard to say what I am most looking forward to but if pressed it would have to be my visit to the picturesque hillside town of Montalcino. We have appointments scheduled at two classic estates; Poggio Il Castellare and Altesino.  Montalcino has several great vintages [2006, 2007, 2010] that will be in our stores in the coming months and years [for the 2010]. I look forward to reporting back on as many vintages that I'm allowed to taste.

Please stay tuned as I'm sure there will be a plethora of news for you.

Paul Quaglini, SE Florida Wine Supervisor

 Follow me on Twitter @abcwinepaulq