Hope you had a really good end of 2011 drinking plenty of excellent wine, hopefully Italian, like I did and a fantastic start for the 2012. At Italyabroad.com last year plenty has happened, starting with the launch of our brand new website just before Christmas that according to the feedbacks received so far, has been well received. We are still working on it and adding more content but we are doing our best to finish as soon as possible. We also helped our friends at Grapepedia to launch their grape encyclopaedia and in return, they let us use it in our grape section.

The last couple of months we also added two more producers, Giovanni Avanzi from the Lugana area and Tenuta San Jacopo from the Chianti Colli Aretini area, if you haven’t tried them yet do, you will not be disappointed, and a few more that have already been selected will be added in the next few weeks with all our “old” friends still with us, we want to be your source of Italian wine and food stocking all the finest Italy has to offer.

I am also pleased to introduce another wine we made (we do not grow the grapes, we let our producers to do that, but we “created” the blend that makes it) that we are very proud of called Abruzzese because made in Abruzzo, hope you like it like we do. We have done a few tastings before and after and the feedbacks received were all very good, so after Presuntuoso , please welcome the Abruzzese. These are our very own wines, our everyday wines that we put our name on and I can guarantee you, you will not be disappointed.

We have also received compliment for our Franciacorta and Panettone from Arturo Barone, a wine writer who has also published a book on Italian wines and that made us really proud. His son bought them and emailed us the compliments from his father.

I will you keep you posted on what is happening at Italyabroad.com but for now, I wish you all the best for the coming year with plenty of Italian wine and food.