Gustatory Travel Experiences!

I am about 90% complete in writing the initial draft of my wine book entitled Wine Sense(s), and am excited to start sharing some extracts with you.  Today I am featuring how to indulge in culinary excursions to further your wine education.  One reason for featuring this topic is that it provides a fun way to learn more about food and wine.  Another is that the proprietor, On the Road Culinary Adventures, is offering an upcoming 10-day Mediterranean culinary cruise which looks fantastic, so if you are looking to get away for a few weeks this September, you should check this out.

This section is extracted from Chapter 20:  Further Wine Education, under the section Guided Gustatory Tours.  (Please note that this is draft material and may contain grammatical and other errors.)

Guided Gustatory Tours

Continued reading and research using the resources described above provides an ongoing improvement in our cognitive wine knowledge which is critical to improving wine drinking enjoyment and appreciation.  But that on its own is not pleasurable unless you actually do some wine drinking along the way!

Earlier in the book, we discussed a number of different methods to gain wine drinking experience as part of our everyday existence.  But there exist some other avenues for concentrated and intensive wine education which comprises eating and drinking great wines in great locations.  More and more food and wine tours are being organized to provide ‘extreme’ gustatory experiences embodied as vacations.  These can be in duration from several days to several weeks or longer.  They usually involve traveling to a place relevant to the food and wine that will be discussed and consumed.  Many occur in exotic places such as Tuscany or Provence or take place on cruise ships featuring ‘intensive’ cooking or wine tasting courses that are great fun and great education.
While you can select your own destinations and visit different wineries and partake in different tasting experiences, having an expert aware of the region, its food and wine styles, and with access to the best venues and instructors can be a real help; both in terms of what you learn and how enjoyable it is.  You can query online or visit a travel agent find out more about these types of wine educational tours and vacations to start to search for and plan available options.
I am not going to provide links or names as I am more familiar with the growth of this concept for ‘extreme gustatory vacations’ than I am knowledgeable with the increasing number of providers in this space.  You can easily find out more by looking online or talking with a travel agent.  However, I will use one provider I am familiar with and can recommend to illustrate the services and options available.  On the Road Culinary Adventures (www.ontheroadculinaryadventures.com/) combines a love of food and wine with a love of travel to provide culinary travel adventures.  These include several-day events hosted in the US and longer overseas trips, including cruises.
On the Road Culinary Adventures combine a relaxing vacation experience which focuses on teaching you more about food and wine through providing a tremendous culinary experience complimented by increasing your cognitive knowledge through lectures, instruction by guest chefs, and a hands-on teaching experience where you are preparing the food and the meals under the tutelage of culinary experts.  I know the owners from having worked together with them in the corporate world, and know they have exquisite taste and knowledge when it comes to food and wine and a passion to share that with others.
Gustatory vacations can provide intense and in-depth experiences in a relaxing environment.  You should come back from this type of experience with deeper knowledge and increased abilities to recreate similar events at home and share with friends.  A gustatory vacation also increases your visibility of what is possible and heightens your expectations of how to be involved and even host similar events in the future.
Visit the fish market with the Executive Chef of the Quest in Kusadasi, Turkey followed by a cooking demo with lunch

 

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013.  Steve Shipley
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Twitter:  Steve Shipley @shipleyaust;   InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

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