King Charles will be returning to Italy this April, confirming his decades long love for Italy

King Charles III love for Italy, especially our art, wine, oil, food, culture and hospitality, has continued for decades and he will be returning to Italy in April (his 18th visit). Buckingham Palace has announced that His Majesty, King Charles III, accompanied by his wife, Queen Camilla, will be making an official visit to Italy in April. Their Majesties agenda currently includes a meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican, for the Jubilee Year, as well as with Italian State figures, and then a stop in Ravenna. Prior to the official visit, a dinner was held at Highgrove Estate, in honor of the relations between Italy and the United Kingdom. The special guest was the Italian-American actor, Stanley Tucci. There is no official confirmation yet, but it is quite likely that King Charles, who was an ecologist even before it existed, an agricultural entrepreneur, champion of the environment, fine gourmet, great lover of Italian food and wine (as well as a historic supporter of Slow Food, Carlo Petrini’s friend, and sommelier ad honorem from the Fondazione Italiana Sommelier di Franco Ricci), will also stop in Tuscany. He is deeply linked to Tuscany due to the strong connection that has always united the English people and Tuscany (from the Grand Tour to Chiantishire), and the great friendships with the Florentine Frescobaldi family as well as other leading Italian wine families.
According to the British national broadcaster BBC, the Highgrove Estate in Gloucestershire hosted a formal dinner to announce the official visit to our country. The Italian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Inigo Lambertini, and special guest Stanley Tucci, a famous American actor of Italian origin, attended the dinner. Tucci, who gave a speech at the dinner, is famous in Great Britain for having presented “Searching for Italy”, a program on the BBC that celebrates Italian food and culture. Chef Francesco Mazzei prepared the formal dinner, using local ingredients to cook an Italian, seasonal menu. Mixologist Alessandro Palazzi prepared the drinks using Italian flavors and herbs grown at Highgrove.
King Charles III has always taken agricultural issues to heart. He produces organic foods, is a breeder and a wine producer at his Highgrove Estate in Gloucestershire, where he produces the line of products, Duchy Organic - including fruit, cured meats, eggs and jams - which are sold in Waitrose supermarkets throughout Great Britain. He also supports English farmers, through“ The Prince’s Countryside Fund”, launched in 2010, as Prince of Wales, to support farming families in the United Kingdom. King Charles has been a lover of Italy and its wine, agricultural and food heritage for decades, as the many episodes WineNews has reported over the years confirm. The Windsor family and the Frescobaldi family’s historic friendship and relations with the English Crown dates back seven hundred years. The Frescobaldis have been their historic supplier of wine and oil. Thanks to the personal relationship Bona and Vittorio Frescobaldi enjoy with the Royal House, they were among the very few Italian guests at William, son of Charles, and Kate Middleton’s wedding, to whom they donated Brunello di Montalcino Riserva di Castelgiocondo, in memory of Charles ’ visit to Tuscany in 1986.
King Charles III's bond with Italian wine flourished in the 1980s, and became even stronger in 2017, when, as Prince of Wales, together with Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall and former president of the United Kingdom Vineyards Association, he personally met many Italian wine’s leading names at Villa Michelangelo in Florence. The future King of England met Jacopo Biondi Santi, at that time at the helm of the Tenuta Greppo Biondi Santi in Montalcino and his Estate in Scansano in Maremma Toscana Castello di Montepò, Giovanni Manetti (Fontodi), in Chianti Classico, the Antinori family, Vittorio Moretti, owner of the Moretti group (which includes Bellavista, Contadi Castaldi, in Franciacorta, Sella & Mosca in Sardinia and Teruzzi, in San Gimignano), as well as, obviously, the Frescobaldi family. The meeting was organized by Franco Ricci, owner of the Fondazione Italiana Sommelier (FIS), and on that occasion he delivered the diploma of Honorary Sommelier to Carlo and Camilla. King Charles has always been a friend of Italian wine, its food and its agriculture. He learned about Italian agriculture through the invaluable work of Carlin Petrini, founder of Slow Food. Petrini was aware of Charles’s sensitivity on agricultural issues and therefore invited him to the Salone del Gusto in 2004, and accompanied Charles of England to visit the Banca del Vino where the future King fell in love with the Slow Food project, and became an enthusiastic promoter of it in England. Thus was forged a close friendship with Petrini, whom Charles encountered various times over the years, and again in Florence in 2017, at the Magazzini del Sale of the late Fabio Picchi, where Petrini told Charles about the value of artisan products from the areas hit by the recent earthquake. There are various stories, such as in 2009 when Prince Charles entrusted the starred chef and delicatessen owner, Massimo Spigaroli, of the Antica Corte Pallavicina, with his pigs of ancient English breeds, to understand their potential. King Charles III is a lover of Italian wine, focused on environmental issues, and traditional as well as innovative agriculture. In May 2022, he opened up to green genetics by announcing that “the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill will develop the potential of new technologies to promote efficient and sustainable agriculture and food production”.
Known for his great love of art and history, King Charles will definitely visit the wonders of Rome, during his next trip to Italy as well as the treasures of Ravenna, acknowledged UNESCO site for the art and mosaics of Galla Placidia, and famous for Dante’s tomb. The famous English poet, Lord Byron, also stayed in Ravenna, and the museum in Palazzo Guiccioli has been dedicated to him. This will be the fourth visit abroad for the King of England, following the cancer diagnosis last year, and the first trip to Italy - after many in the past as Prince of Wales - in his role as Head of State and successor to the throne of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Charles and Camilla will also be celebrating, in Italy, their twentieth wedding anniversary. And, undoubtedly some wine producers will pay homage donating a bottle of wine created specifically for the special occasion.