Last week I was in Oxford, UK to participate in the FT Oxford Literary Festival. I was there with my great friend Marc Millon, a wine, food and travel writer who is also hugely passionate and knowledgable about our territory, Le Langhe. We were both invited by the Festival organisers Sally Dunsmore and Tony Byrne to take part in wonderful event, “Wine and Life in Le Langhe, Terra di Barolo: a Conversation and Wine Tasting”. This was held in the splendid and historic hall of University College, as part of a series of food and drink events organised by Oxford Gastronomica, the food, drink and culture studies organisation that is part of the Oxford School of Hospitality Management.

To be in Oxford, talking about my land and my wines, while tasting them with an interested and knowledgeable audience, was for me a very important and emotional moment. It was a great honour to be able to tell the story of my own work and life alongside the story of my family, my grandfather and my great-grandfather, in such a place of great culture and fame. Luisa and our sons Edoardo and Vasco were there and I felt that it was an important and fitting recognition of all the hard work and toil that had been carried on before me by the past generations of the Fontana family.

Thank you to Marc, Sally, Tony, Don, and Louise