Italy & Ancient Isles Wine Cruise
Hosted by Paul Wagner
Rome to Istanbul for 12 Nights on Oceania Marina
October 4 to 16, 2025
877-651-7447
Everyone thank you for joining us for this little tidbit about a very exciting Cruise aboard the oceanana marina in the Mediterranean of October of 2025 we are so fortunate to have with us Paul Wagner who is not only our senior adviser for wine tourism for Expedia
Wine club cruises but also an author an educator and someone who always has the most magnificent stories about wine and history wherever you go I’m excited that you’re going to talk a little bit about this destination and the wines that we might experience yeah absolutely this is this
Is a cruise after my own heart because I teach a class at Napa College on the history and culture of wine and and this is the history and culture of the ancient world so uh we start in Rome uh and we get to talk about not only Rome
But the atrans those of you who think that the Roman Arch that rounded Arch is the classic symbol of Roman architecture you’re right but they stole it from the atrus um and of course the atesin give us the name of one of the world’s great wine regions Tuscany so we start in Rome
Maybe we’ll drink some Tuscan wine maybe we’ll drink some ferum which was the wine that plenty of the elders said was the greatest wine in the world uh and then we’ll go from Rome down to Salerno where we can access Pompei uh and herculanum Pompei one of the things
That’s wonderful about walking through the ancient city of pomp to see how many different wine bars there were these people liked to drink uh and so there there are tons of wine bars and we’ll drink wines from Southern Italy at that point then we go across to palmo if if
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean is the sea in the center of the world that’s literally what the name means Medi Tera Tera is the Earth medy the middle so the middle of the Earth this is the sea in the middle of the world Italy is that is that lightning rod that
Strikes right down through the heart of the Mediterranean and every culture that has ever peopled the Mediterranean has passed through there and palmo is that little point at the end of the exclamation point where it really got I mean there were Normans there were Vikings in palmo um in the year 1000
Palmo was the largest city in Europe so we go from we will taste fabulous wines from palmo some of them made from a grape the Arabs called zibo uh which is Moscato stunning stuff then we go from palmo to Veta Malta and of course I hope
That we’re going to be able to taste some of the commandaria wines in Malta they’re not great wines but when was the last time you had a wine that was made to the recipes of the Crusaders of a thousand years ago um it’s it’s a stunning experience even if the wine is
Interesting as we say in our wine tasting circles and then from there we go to cre C’s fabulous fabulous location with its whole its own world in terms of wine and of course the home to King Minos um and the minitar and the Maze will try not to lose too many tourists
In there in the in the Labyrinth as they wander through looking for the man with the of a bowl and then we hit the coast of turkey uh turkey if you really look at where turkey where wine came from it came from Eastern Turkey I mean that is
The original Garden of Eden the Caucasus and that’s where man first domesticated so many of the the plants that we that we eat today including grapes and so we’re going to be tasting wines made from from grap varieties that are probably older than anywhere else
Um in the world from there we go on to Santorini and the ancient Greeks said the greatest wine in the world came from Santorini today they’re making one of the greatest white wines in the world AO so we’ll drink that um and then we end up going to ismir Ephesus the Ancient
Temple of Diana there and on to Istanbul which was the capital of the Roman Empire for a thousand years when Rome fell that wasn’t n the Roman Empire the Roman Empire by that time had moved to Constantinople it was there for a thousand years uh fabulous wines
Fabulous food and in every one of these places and on board the marina we’ll be eating foods that will show off some of these various cultures as well man I’m looking forward to this I I’ve been begging to do this cruise for a long time and we finally got it
KK well I’m excited too and I hope all of you will join us October of 2025 it is the perfect time of the year to be in that part of the world and of course I look forward to experiencing those wines with you all so Paul thank you so much
For taking the time to talk us through the wines and salute salute my pleasure thanks