A Journey Through Faith & the Vine
Where the bell tower meets the vineyard.
Every village holds a secret. We find it.
About the Hosts
Jake & Maureen — Your Guides Through Italy
We are a pair of unapologetic obsessives — both with a lifelong devotion to the architecture of Italian Catholicism, and both convinced that a village's soul is most honestly read in its wine. Together, we make Vintage Vagabonds.
With over three decades of wine expertise, a WSET Level III certification, and years spent working alongside the serious collectors at Zachys in Scarsdale, Jake brings genuine authority to every enoteca and cantina we visit. This is not a casual vacation blog. It is a document of discovery.
We will spend 90-day seasons living inside single Italian regions — starting in sun-scorched Puglia, working northward along the Appian Way as the years unfold — before returning home to edit and release what we've found. The result is a travel show built for the curious, the learned, and the armchair vagabond who wants the real Italy without the tourist script.
Weekly Dossiers
Field notes on faith, fermentation, and the forgotten corners of Italy.
Puglia • Wine • Field Notes
There is a wine made in this limestone heel of Italy that carries within it the ancient stubbornness of the land itself. We walked vine rows that predate the unification of Italy, shared a table with a winemaker whose family has never left this valley, and stood inside a 14th-century chapel so small that only four souls can pray at once.
Architecture • Faith
The dome was impossible until it wasn't. Standing beneath it, neck craned upward, you understand something about the Italian willingness to begin without knowing the end.
Food • Siena • Culture
Every small Italian city has one shop that functions as unofficial civic altar. In Siena, it is this place — the bicycle out front unchanged for forty years.
“In Italy, every village is a theology. The church explains the wine, and the wine explains the people. You simply have to stay long enough to read both.”— Jake, Host & Lead Vagabond
Featured Episodes
Each episode explores one village: its church, its wine, its table. 12–15 minutes of careful attention.
Ep. 01
Puglia
Whitewashed trulli, a baroque church that stops time, and a native grape variety the world forgot. We didn't.
Ep. 02
Valle d'Itria
The valley floor spills out below the old city walls. A bianco DOC and a centuries-old confraternity tell the same story.
Ep. 03
Puglia
Beyond the postcard image, a Gothic façade hides frescoes that survived the Saracens. The negroamaro in the glass is just as resilient.
