There are legendary hotels in Italy that need no introduction. Le Sirenuse in Positano. Il Pellicano in Porto Ercole. Grand Hotel Timeo in Sicily. And Villa d’Este in Lake Como. The grand old lady of the lake was built in 1568, giving Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio a rather lovely summer residence and letting holidaymakers in on the fun ever since it opened as a hotel in 1873. Unsurprisingly, it became a popular place for the European aristocracy to summer , and has remained popular ever since.
As befits such a stately setting, the wine list is more like an encyclopaedia, with 3,500 labels and more than 80,000 bottles in the cellar. The sommelier is on a mission to make his collection the finest in the world – at present, his main rivals are the Ritz in Paris and the wonderful, three-Michelin-starred Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence, where in 2016 I ate a meal I still often dream about.