Breaking the routine of everyday life, exploring new places, discovering the intimate connection between your soul and the world: all this happens thanks to the emotions and the sensations that you feel during your trip. Your senses, indeed, will be your most precious adventure companions, because they will allow you to turn your trip into a stimulating experience.

A destination that can tempt your palate

Let taste guide you in the choice of the destination for your next holiday: well, Puglia will not disappoint you from this point of view! This region of the South of Italy is perfect if you would like to live unique sensory experiences with an authentic taste! Set off to discover wine and good food in Puglia!

The tradition of gastronomy in Puglia has very ancient origins: you can still taste the genuine plates that long time ago the housewives used to prepare with the products of the earth (and of the sea!). It was a poor cuisine, made of simple ingredients, but so tasteful that even today you cannot do without it.

Even before the taste, the typical Apulian products will capture your sight with the harmony of the colours of nature and your nose with the fragrant smells coming from bakeries and kitchens. Let us go together to discover the secrets about wine and food in Puglia!

Puglia coast to coast: the smell of the sea at the table

Puglia is a peninsula surrounded by two seas, the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea. Whether you are on one or on the other coastline, you will have the opportunity to let you delight by the treasures that Poseidon has to offer.

Fresh fish is at the base of several recipes of the local tradition, which preserve its genuine taste and, actually, enhance it. In a tour characterised by wine and good food in Puglia, as we propose you at Slow Active Tours in the tour Puglia flavours by bike, you can start from Polignano a Mare, birthplace of Domenico Modugno, where you can enjoy a stunning landscape over the Adriatic Sea and taste a good fish soup.

Through a rich gastronomic itinerary in the Apulian hinterland, you will get, then, to the Ionic coastline, in Salento. In the “Beautiful City”, Gallipoli, you will have the possibility to taste delightful raw seafood, mussels, clams and sea urchins! Here, the food specialty of the poor tradition is the “scapece”: it is a plate made with fried small fishes marinated in bread, saffron and vinegar. You can find it during the patron celebrations and in the food stands in Gallipoli old town, but it is only for strong palates and stomachs!

Cycling along the “Milk Way” of Puglia

You cannot really say that you have fully lived your food experience in Puglia if you have not dived (metaphorically, you mean) into the milk of the local typical mozzarellas. Our tour includes a taste experience in Gioia del Colle, in the province of Bari. This pretty town boasts a really enviable historic and cultural heritage: you cannot miss he beautiful Norman-Swabian Castle, the Church of San Pietro and the suggestive old town. However, what will remain fixed the most in your mind of this trip is the unique taste of the mozzarella fiordilatte from Gioia del Colle: a true pleasure!

The Apulian dairy tradition is very varied and every area boasts its own specialties. In particular, in the province of Bari you will have the possibility to taste excellent cow cheeses and not only, such as the fresh “giuncata” made with mixed milk and without the addition of salt. This soft cheese, perfect for a light dinner, owes its name to the basket of reeds within which it is put. In Salento, instead, the tastiest sheep and goat cheeses are more common, because these cute little animals manage to find tufts of fresh grass even in the rockiest fields of Salento red land and it is not rare, during a hiking or cycling tour, to find a flock that invades the path you are following!

During the organisation of your trip through the food experiences in Puglia, you can plan cheese tastings and not only: rely on Slow Active Tours to do not miss anything!

The suggestions of wheat: from the golden fields to the bakery

Cycling throughout the hinterland of this region of the South of Italy, you will have the possibility to enjoy the view of wide golden fields, enhanced by the typical dry-stone walls and by the ancient rural buildings: trulli, in the provinces of Bari and Taranto, and pajare, in Salento.

Puglia still preserves its ancestral rural soul: the poor products of the earth have always been the main source of income of the inhabitants of this region, becoming the principal ingredients of tasty simple recipes, but substantial.

Among the treasures of the gastronomy of Puglia, wheat has a role of primacy in the local food. In particular, here a fine variety, the ancient wheat Senatore Cappelli, is still produced; it is considered the “father” of the durum wheat with exceptional nutritive qualities and a high protein value and is perfect for an organic cultivation.

Among the typical bakery products, we must mention the frise, to be tasted after being softened in water and seasoned as you like (the classical dressage includes a little olive oil and fresh tomatoes). Taralli, on the other hand, in their thousand variations with fennel seeds, pizza flavour, turmeric, raisins and onions, turnips etc. etc., are perfect to be tasted with some wine, perhaps for an aperitif.

And how about the bread? Soft and fragrant, the Apulian bread is really unique! There are many typical regional recipes: the bread of Altamura is very famous, such as the pucce from Lecce, ready to welcome tiers and tiers of filling. To discover more about the good food in Lecce, read our article Smart guide of Lecce: art and flavours by bike.

Oil and wine: nectar from heaven

The true yellow gold in Puglia is the olive oil and the olive tree is the true symbol of this land: it, indeed, not only represents a very precious resource for the Apulian economy and cuisine, but has also an important landscape value. The Apulian olive oil tradition dates back to very ancient times, as evidenced by the millenary olive trees, which amaze with their majestic trunks, and the hypogeum oil mills.

Plan a guided tour in these underground sites which preserve the secrets of a craft that, even though evolved, has never been abandoned. And do not forget to taste the extra-virgin olive oil that is produced here in Puglia.

In the tour of the delights for the palate that Puglia has to offer, the accompanying of a good wine (or, better, of good wines!) cannot miss. Full-bodied and embracing wine, you can taste, for example, Primitivo in the provinces of Bari and Taranto. In Salento, instead, you cannot miss the velvety notes of Salice Salentino and the bitter aftertaste of a good Negroamaro, or the intense and woody Susumaniello: we can organize for you a taste experience of different types of wines.

Dulcis in fundo

Treat yourself to some little sins of gluttony during your gastronomic tour in Puglia thanks to the great offer of sweets, from the bocconotto to the pasticciotto, from the mandorla riccia to the biscuit from Ceglie. Sweet among sweets, honey finds here in Puglia a great productive tradition, thanks to the presence of a great variety of ideal flowerings: the beekeeper who won the award “Miele del Sindaco 2019” is from Melendugno, a village between Lecce and the sea.

Immerse yourself into the tasty world of good food and wine in Puglia and become protagonist taking part to a cooking class or a workshop, that we will help you to plan.

Rely on Slow Active Tours for your journey through the emotions of Puglia!