“It was luck,” according to Axel Heinz, the winemaker at Ornellaia, that accounted for the extraordinarily rapid ascent of Ornellaia in the eyes of the world. “It was lucky that Mario Incisa della Rocchetta [owner of Sassicaia] planted Bordeaux varieties when [in the 1940s] and where he did [Bolgheri].

The most widely recognized Cypriot wine, the sweet dessert wine Commandaria, is the main player in Cyprus’ play for global recognition. An amber-colored dessert wine comprised of Mavro and Xynisteri grapes, it is made today essentially as it was thousands of years ago—grapes are sundried a week after harvesting to concentrate sugars, and taken down to Limassol for a minimum of two years of oak barrel aging.

Chianti is Italy’s most famous wine, and Chianti Classico is, by general consensus, its best Chianti. The region, located in the heart of the Chianti-producing zone in Tuscany, is the oldest and most prestigious area for Chianti.

Lebanon has a troubled modern history and has become almost synonymous with conflict. But it is also thought to be the oldest site of wine production in the world, wines having been exported from the region to Egypt in the third millennium BC.

Puglia’s vineyards cover 110,000ha (hectares), a fraction less than Bordeaux – figures likely soon to be reversed as the EU is subsidizing expansion in the former and retraction in the latter. Of these, 65,000ha are vinified by cantine sociali (cooperatives), so it was fitting that two of the Best Wine group were co-ops while three were family-owned estates.

The real turning point in the French gastronomy was the arrival from Italy of a plump fourteen-year old girl named Catherine de Medici. She came to Paris in 1533 to become the queen of Henry II. It was not she who revolutionized the tastes of France; it was her retinue of chefs, pastry makers, and gardeners, the finest from Florence. To realize what an impact this made, it is necessary to examine the culinary accomplishments of France’s neighbor.

Native to North America, the pecan is a member of the hickory family and closely related to the walnut. Its original botanical name was Hicoria pecan but was changed to Carya illinoinensis in the late seventeenth century. Fur traders brought the pecan to the Atlantic coast from Illinois, calling them Illinois nuts, hence the latin classification of illinoinensis.

You’ve seen it on menus, you’ve read it in recipes, but with its French name and “chef-y” connotations, it may still be a bit intimidating: crème fraiche.

Pronounced “krem fresh,” it is lightly fermented heavy cream. It is kind of like sour cream, but not as thick as and sharper than sour, with a slightly nutty flavor and a silky, rich texture. The French discovered it long ago. As cheese guru Steven Jenkins told the New York Times: “It’s one of the most extraordinary substances in the world of dairy, of gastronomy. To compare it to American sour cream is to compare Spam to foie gras.”

Five hundred years ago, in 1510, a thirsty Norman monk named Bernardo Vincelli created a digestif, which he handed down to generations of his brothers at the Benedictine Abbey of Fécamp. The recipe for which was lost in 1789, when the Norman Benedictine monks fled their cloisters during the French Revolution.

One thing you can’t help noticing during a visit to Spain’s Ribera del Duero region is the tremendous amount of money that has been poured into the area in recent years. The landscape is dotted with grand structures that every so often house wineries. An estimated 80 percent of the area’s vineyards have been planted over the past 20 years.