Mchel’…ma tu addò stae?

Literally: Michael where are you? (In the dialect of Bari)

Lecce May be the "Coolest" City in Italia

I am not sure if my very dear friends in Puglia are asking that question today as so many magical things are unfolding in this amazing region at the beginning of the busy season, but I am most certainly wondering why I am here and not there this week typing this blog over a caffe’ at Bar La Nave. It is Apulia Week on my very good friend Jeremy Parzen’s outstanding wine blog Do Bianchi and he will be sharing some of the best information available on what is happening in the exploding wine world of Apulia. As for me, I am missing my second home; a place where I have spent almost a year of my life since 2008 and along with one of the most ambitious and talented people I have ever met, Antonello Losito, founded the most successful tour company to date in Puglia: Southern Visions Travel.  Antonello and I worked together for Backroads in 2006. While working for one of the most successful American tour companies Antonello and I became fast friends, in many ways because we believed we could do more than just take people on well-organized cycling trips through Italy. We truly believed and continue to believe that seeing a country for better or worse through the eyes of the locals, and in the culture of the native habits is the best way to authentically and hopefully even soulfully understand a place.

In the wine world sense of place and all things that go with it are referred to as terroir. Yes, wine friends I know I am oversimplifying so just keep reading my story and we can argue semantics over a bottle of bourgueil at my house later. Travel is basically the same recipe and the terroir of travel is why I am in the game in the first place. The place, people, soil, climate, cuisine, religion, common and divergent ethos(es), and even the time of day that people typically have sex are all part of the algorithm that calculates terroir. I have been asked on so many occasions, “if you love Puglia so much then why the hell did you sell your part of the company?”  This blog today is my attempt to answer this involved and very personal decision I made in August of 2010. Today I will share reasons that only some, and perhaps none of my readers, friends, or family know about why I chose to part ways with something that was very much like an incompletely nurtured child. For the sake of the reader who prefers to stop after this paragraph I will say it was an Obi Wan decision. I knew that if I removed myself from the job that I could become a more powerful ally than Puglia, Southern Visions, Antonello, or my family ever imagined… [Read more...]