Many Januarys are depressing for a lot of people. Wine Trail Traveler owners, Terry and Kathy Sullivan won’t find time for depression to settle in this year. They are rolling out a new companion website the first week of January and then participating in a blogger/media FAM trip to Italy that includes presenting at the International Wine Tourism Conference.

They have been working on the companion website food.WineTrailTraveler.com since August 2011. Now the site is ready to launch and will focus on cheese, vinegar and oils including olive oil and grape seed oil. There is a relationship between all of these and wine from process of making, ingredients for cooking and pairing with wines. Kathy began a batch of red wine vinegar yesterday made from a Petite Sirah they bottled last year. Earlier they tried to make mozzarella cheese however it turn out the consistency of peanut butter. Terry gave Kathy a cheesemaking kit for Christmas and they will continue to try making cheeses throughout the year.

They are already researching the places the FAM trip to Italy will visit. Along with the research comes pre-writing. The couple will write over ten articles and twenty plus blog entries prior to, during and after the trip. Although some of the articles will appear in the travel section of the Wine Trail Traveler website prior to the trip, the winery visits articles will be published during February, another very busy month.

The blogger/media FAM trip includes participation in the International Wine Tourism Conference. Terry and Kathy will split up to attend different sessions and write articles and blog entries about the presentations. They have developed a section on their WineTrailTraveler.com website for the International Wine Tourism Conference taking place in Perugia, Italy. Terry is excited about presenting at the conference. In his former thirty plus year career as a teacher he had made presentations at national, regional and state conferences. Terry and Kathy have visited and written about 750 wineries since late 2006. They have acquired many ideas about wine tourism.

A very busy January with a trip to Italy will certainly keep them on their toes. What a wonderful start to 2012.

Cheers,
Terry