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Small Group Private Tour Specialist

Plan your Italy adventure with the small group private tour specialist. Escape overtourism and discover the back roads and authentic small towns with us. Kathy and Vernon create your perfect trip, with off-the-beaten path destinations, activities from walks and bike rides to city tours and shopping, and expert-led culinary adventures.

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Food and Wine

Any tour of Italy is incomplete without indulging in the amazing food and wine. But to truly appreciate It requires an understanding of the regional history, culture and geography. All become part of your adventure with Kathy, chef, food blogger, and Certified Italian Wine Professional, and Vernon, mountain guide, MS in European Literature and avid history enthusiast.

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Your Unique Adventure

Not all private trips are custom. Most tour companies don't have the flexibility to deviate from their set itineraries, so there are always compromises. With Kathy and Vernon, your adventure will be as unique as you are, and your itinerary will be personally designed us to meet the desires and varied interests of your group.

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The ItaliaOutdoors Difference


Truly Personalized Service and a Custom Plan for Every Trip

Kathy and Vernon

NO MIDDLEMEN

You communicate directly with Vernon and Kathy. We know your dreams for an Italy adventure, we’ll have it ready for you when you arrive.

No Group Too Small

SMALL FOOTPRINT

Our small footprint allows us to travel like locals and enjoy spontaneous adventures as we explore the path less traveled.

 

Custom Plan

UNIQUE ITINERARY

Each tour itinerary is unique and serves as a framework for an exceptional journey, where a thoughtful plan adjusts to your pace.

 

Authenticity

KNOWLEDGE

We focus on just a few select tours to provide an exceptional level of regional knowledge and an unforgettable authentic experience.

Travel after COVID-19: How do you wish to travel in Italy when we are able to return? In a small private group of your family and friends? Plenty of outdoor explorations? Off the beaten track destinations far from tourist crowds? Private cooking classes, wine tours, small intimate hotels? That's how we've been traveling for ten years. Plan your adventure in Italy with Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine, the custom tour specialist.

Customize Your Adventure - Food - Wine - Walk - Hike - Bike

With Italy's "Best Local Guide 2013"

Read about our tours in Adventure Cyclist August 2015

Our passion is creating intimate, personalized active food and wine adventures that explore an authentic Italy
- its outdoor beauty, its hidden back roads, its small family producers, its traditional wines, at your preferred pace.
Tell Me More!

The Merotto Winery is located in the heart of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG production zone, known for its famous quality proseccos. In these Alpine foothills,  the vineyards of Giovanni Merotto are located in a ring of hills surrounding Col San Martino, an ancient Lombard city north of Treviso. Merotto owns 12 hectares of vineyards in this area, and rents another six, for a total annual production of about 2.3 tons of grapes. In addition, he purchases additional grapes from another 25 local growers, who are constantly subjected to inspections to insure their grapes achieve the quality levels Merotto requires.

merotto winery custom bike tours italy
Merotto WInery


I tasted two of the Merotto Proseccos on a recent visit to their production facility in Farra di Soligo as I researched wineries for our Italiaoutdoors Bike and Wine tours. The first, the Bareta, is a Brut Prosecco Superiore DOCG, made from 100% Giera grapes (the official ‘new’ name for the prosecco grape.) From the vineyards in Col San Martino, this wine is a straw yellow, with small pearlage and persistent sparkle. It’s perfume is fruity, with apple, peach and pear. A fresh and well-balanced flavor, intense with a long finish.

merotto prosecco private walking tours italy
Merotto Prosecco

 

My second taste was of their flagship Prosecco, the Cuvee del Fondatore Graziano Merotto. This founder’s cuvee “is the result of over 40 years of experience matured by Graziano Merotto among his precious vineyards.” From the hills surrounding their production facility in Farra di Soligo, this wine is also produced exclusively with Giera grapes, with an extensive period of on-skin maceration. Straw yellow, with fine bubbles and a touch of foam, it has a fruity nose with both stone fruits as well as citrus notes. A very pleasant fresh taste, with a great balance and a nice mineral finish. Again, a long lasting finish.

Both are perfect aperitif wines, and pair well with fish and shellfish dishes, as well as spring vegetable first courses, such as the local white asparagus.