Food & Wine

Basilicata is a region of simple flavours rooted in a predominantly agricultural and pastoral culture. In Matera, bakers still use mother yeast and ancient durum wheat varieties to make the pane di Matera IGP, a bread with a thick crust and distinctive shapes. In Venosa, a town of Roman origin, some of Southern Italy’s finest wines are produced, with the native Aglianico grape variety absorbing the volcanic region’s minerals. In the mountains above Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa, truffle hunters set off before dawn with their dogs. And in every village, the food is rooted in what the land gives: lamb, wild mushrooms, dried peppers, sausages, pasta, sheep’s cheeses aged in caves.

Puglia boasts some of the oldest olive groves in the world around Fasano and Ostuni. The mozzarella and burrata of the Murge area are made fresh every morning. Altamura’s bread, baked in wood-fired stone ovens, has PDO status and a cult following across Italy. Along the coast, from the masserie of the Tavoliere to the fishing ports of Gallipoli and Otranto, the seafood arrives at the table hours after it left the sea. And in the Valle d’Itria, cellars hidden beneath the trulli are quietly producing some of Italy’s most interesting natural wines.