Joseph Walker, Director, Chameleon Travel Shop
Chameleon Travel Shop’s small group Italy tours follow wines tied to Caesar, Pliny the Elder and Milo of Croton.
POMPANO BEACH, FL, UNITED STATES, November 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Chameleon Travel Shop has revealed the ancient grape lineages behind its Italy programs, starting with a red vine growing inside a Roman amphitheater that its director says is almost certainly the variety Pliny the Elder knew. The boutique company builds small group and private Italy tours for travelers who want the history in the glass explained, not just poured. Joseph Walker, the Italy travel expert who leads Chameleon Travel Shop, made the case during a new podcast appearance tied to his debut book, Buried Italy.
Joseph Walker walked through the research on Book Club with the Italian Wine Podcast with host Richard Hough. The grape is Piedirosso, grown by a family that farms vines and citrus inside the second century B.C. amphitheater at Cuma, which Walker says predates the arena at Pompeii by almost a century. He links it to Columbina, the variety tied to Pliny the Elder, the Roman fleet commander who sailed toward the erupting Vesuvius and died on the beach near Castellammare di Stabia.
“It’s almost impossible, I think, to take a wine and to totally separate it from its history and the story,” Walker said during his appearance on the Italian Wine Podcast.
That is not how most visitors drink in Italy. Tourism accounts for nearly a fifth of the Italian economy, the Italy travel expert noted, yet most wine tastings sold to travelers stop at the label and never reach the civilizations that planted the vines. Travelers seeking a wine and history tour in Italy often leave with a pleasant pour and no story.
The Bay of Naples alone holds several such stories. Walker points to Falernian, the wine of choice for Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony and Cicero, and to Lago Lucrino, a lake whose name traces back to the lucrative oyster farms that fed Roman tables.
Farther south, the Buried Italy Series uses Cirò wine to introduce travelers to Milo of Croton, who reigned as the Greek world’s top Olympic champion for two decades and collected Cirò as his prize after victories. On the Sicily program, groups taste the island’s historic wines, eat ricotta salata the Greeks brought about 2,600 years ago and trace the citrus and eggplant that arrived with Arab settlers.
The Italy travel expert also corrects a favorite legend. Aglianico is often said to have reached Cuma with Greek colonists, but Walker says it is a native Italic grape the Greeks cultivated once they arrived and drank for 27 or 28 centuries.
When Walker described drinking Aglianico over the Bay of Naples as Saharan dust turned the sunset crimson, Hough answered: “What a picture you painted there. I was getting goosebumps just listening to that.”
Five Buried Italy Series programs pair Italy’s famous monuments with sites most visitors never reach, and groups average about 10 travelers. Programs run $3,000 to $5,000 per person, with time left to sit in a piazza with a glass.
“You should always mix in at least half of your program with some of these off-the-beaten-path places that have a real history,” Walker said.
Joseph Walker arrived in Italy at 19 as a U.S. Navy operations specialist, handed cash and told to stay out of trouble in Gaeta for a few days. He served aboard the USS Belknap, flagship of the Sixth Fleet, and at the NATO base in Naples, where a rumor sent him diving into the submerged Roman harbor of Portus Julius. He has since consulted on documentaries for the BBC, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel.
Chameleon Travel Shop has guided more than 2,000 travelers and generated more than $20 million in revenue over 11 years, with its own team on the ground in Italy. Its growth with U.S. travel advisors has drawn coverage from Travel Research Online.
Buried Italy is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback and digital editions, a book Walker calls a gentle nudge toward the Italy beneath the surface.
Readers can explore Buried Italy Series wine and history tours and claim a chapter cut from Buried Italy on the town behind Narnia, plus seven Italian places only relationships can open, at www.italianhistorywithjoseph.com/vinitaly.
About Chameleon Travel Shop
Chameleon Travel Shop is a boutique Italy travel company that designs small group and private tailor-made tours connecting archaeology, regional wine and food and Italian-American heritage. Directed by Italy travel expert Joseph Walker, the company runs the Buried Italy Series across southern Italy and Sicily for culturally curious travelers who want to understand Italy rather than tour it. Chameleon Travel Shop employs its own staff in Italy and partners with travel advisors who need a proven Italy specialist.
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