The Fountain of Youth restores beauty and vitality. The Fountains of Wayne forever restores our affection for Stacy’s mom. But Italy’s newest fountain has turned water into wine.
The fontana del vino, as Italians call it, is located at the Dora Sarchese Vineyard in Caldari di Ortona, a town in Abruzzo, Italy, about 150 miles east of Rome.
Erected to refresh pilgrims along the Cammino di San Tommaso, a popular pilgrimage route where thousands of Italians walk 150 miles from Rome to Ortona to visit the remains of the St. Thomas, the wine fountain, available to anyone and everyone 24/7, works like a push-button drinking fountain of red wine.
But don’t get any ideas of throwing makeshift free wine parties, the vineyard’s already said the fountain’s not a place for “drunkards” or “louts.”
The concept of a “wine fountain,” surprisingly, isn’t new. Inspiration for the fountain came from a similar red wine fountain along Spain’s Camino de Santiago. In fact, the Ortona fountain isn’t even the first in Italy to offer wine, though it is the country’s first designated “wine fountain” because wine will be accessible all day every day—the way all wine should be.
Tom is a travel writer, part-time hitchhiker, and he’s currently trying to imitate Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? but with more sunscreen and jorts.