I’ve made peace with the fact that I plan holidays differently to most people. While friends are scrolling through beach photos or comparing flight prices, I’m usually three tabs deep into a region’s grape varieties or googling what’s actually in season at a particular market in October. Call it a professional hazard of being a travel writer with a serious soft spot for food, but I genuinely believe the tastiest way to plan a trip is to let the food and wine culture pick the destination for you, not the other way around.

Here’s the thing: almost every unforgettable meal I’ve had abroad wasn’t an accident. It happened because I was somewhere that takes its food and wine seriously enough to build an entire culture around it, generations of it, in fact. When a region has spent centuries perfecting a grape variety or a regional dish, you feel it the