At MacNay Travel & Wine we organise unforgettable food and wine trips in Italy.
Our customers meet the best Italian winemakers and explore Italy’s most beautiful and important wine regions. We combine wine and food with the outdoors. This means our wine trips usually include some walking or cycling, and our walking and cycling trips are very wine-focussed.
Whether you’re the wine lover or wine professional who enjoys the outdoors, or the keen walker or cyclist who likes wine and food, a MacNay Travel & Wine itinerary is made for you.
You can book one of our self-guided walking or cycling itineraries, or join a small-group guided trip. Guided trips as a minimum have an optional (optional) walking or cycling component.
We invite you to book a MacNay Travel & Wine trip and go further.
We are the founders and owners of the company. We first met at an Oxford college in 2004, where we were training to be Italian walking tour guides, a job we have done in some form or other ever since.
We are both fluent English and Italian speakers.
James grew up in East Sussex, studied humanities and holds British and Italian passports.
He entered the tourism industry as a walking tour guide, and from there into the wine and food trade.
In 2016 James laid the foundations of a new business alongside his and Cinzia’s UK shop, Cuculo. That was the start of the first MacNay Travel & Wine itinerary, Heart of the Italian Alps.
Alongside other wine qualifications, he possesses the prestigious Italian Wine Ambassador, top scoring in his class. Only 35% of applicants are successful and there are fewer than 500 IWA’s in the world.
James loves speaking and writing about Italian wine, and Italy in general.
📸 Nigel Morley.
Cinzia’s family is from Piemonte, but she was raised in the high Alps of the Valle d’Aosta. Cinzia grew up wearing skis and raced to a high level in her youth. Retail and customer service is in her blood, because her parents owned a hardware store, but she is never happier than bombing down a black run at full speed.
Her deep connection to her Alpine region inspired our first self-guided wine and walking itinerary, which we call Heart of the Italian Alps.
Cinzia studied Forestry and Environmental Science at the Università degli studi di Torino, where she wrote a thesis on the wild red squirrel population of the Gran Paradiso National Park.
As well as a Natural Scientist, ski-racer and walking guide, Cinzia is an accomplished cook and has a lifelong passion for cheese. That passion was born at her local weekly market, where she would go with her mother, and the cheese seller would sneak her a chunk of parmesan. It led her to build, at Cuculo Cheese & Wine, one of the best cheesemongers in the South East of England.
In 2022 Cinzia and her family moved back to Italy. They live in the lovely Piedmont town of Torre Pellice. Torre Pellice not far from the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato wine areas, and the coty of Turin; though it is closer to the French border than any of those. In June 2025 she started the path to became a Master Cheese Taster, by passing the first level at ONAF, the Italian organisation for Masters of Cheese.
Our shop in East Sussex is at the heart of our local community. We took over what was Heathfield Deli in 2010, with the clear aim to build a business which best represents our interests of cheese and wine. Over the years, we added seating and have served countless glasses of wine and our famous taglieri deli boards – and of course hosted many tastings.
You can hop over to our website here.
MTW customers on accompanied trips are treated to Cinzia’s legendary picnics. Head over to Substack to view and subscribe to Cinzia’s Recipes. There are free and paid subscriptions, and the weekly recipes include wine pairing suggestions by James.
The most famous of all the Barolo MGAs.
Rolling hills, mountains, wine and gastronomy, from the Appenines to the Adriatic coast.
One of Europe’s great cities
One of few growers in the Pinerolese DOC of Piemonte
One of the world’s great gastronomic towns.
An exquisite coastal village which gives its name to its own peninsular.
Pretty Alpine town with stunning views of the Monte Rosa glacier.
