:P

Italians make arguably the best food and certainly it's my favorite (by far). I'd say it might be tied with France overall though. For me I also quite like many Portuguese dishes and consider the food made in that country, superb. But I'm sorry, Italy is very low down on the list for wine. It just doesn't have enough body. There are some nice Italian wines, but I believe as a whole, that the country is very overrated for wine. Usually by people who don't know anything about wine. A lot of people like Italian wine. But then again, a lot of people also drink white Zinfandel. Italy is certainly above Greece, but France is the KING. And not like Budweiser is the KING of Beer ( it's just the piss of beer). Honorable mention to Spain, Portugal, California (note I didn't use "USA") and Australia. Oh, and if we have to start on another tangent, Belgium is the supreme ruler of Beer. They only make one crap beer in Belgium and thankfully for the Belgians, they probably export it all outside the country. Stella Artois. Worse than piss.

I just had a decent bottle of Chianti for late lunch yesterday in fact. It was 10 years old and I've had it for some 7 or 8 year. For desert I had a 6 year old bottle of Niagara Riesling Icewine - no one makes Icewine like Canada make it. The Germans can go suck it long and hard if they think their Eiswein even comes close. Though Germany does have some great wines, especially in the regions that overlap in character with Alsatian wine (France along the German border).

I'm from Portugal and consider it as much my home as I do Canada, not only because I've spent a lot of time there. Not so much time in Italy, but while I was there I had plenty of wine, food and of course cafe. Here are the places I spent some time in: Verona, Venice Florence, Rome, Pescara, Chieti. I only used the word "espresso" because "coffee" in North America is pretty much a watery tea-like drink.

I have, personally, three different Bialetti "machinetas" at home - my oldest one I've had for perhaps 15 years.



You mean football.

Back to coffee. Yes, the ultimate pressure and temperature control is going to make for an amazing cup, however even a modest home quality machine is going to produce much better coffee than any French Press or drip machine. The worst place around here you'll have coffee is at a restaurant or coffee shop where they don't know how to prime the machine. At home, unless the machine is broken, you'll usually have better. In Italy and Portugal it doesn't matter where you are, the coffee is always going to be good and served properly.

Oh, Italy also has many other areas where its populace excels. Historical art, architecture and of course furniture, interior design, shoes and of course clothing/fashion. You can't have it all.