Stanley Tucci under fire for sparking negative wine tourism

A new TV series by Hollywood actor Stanley Tucci explores the food and drink of Italy, but does the fame it brings to Italian cities have a darker side? Hollywood actor Stanley Tucci released a new television series in May dedicated to exploring the food and drink of Italy. The five-part series shown on National Geographic sees him visit Tuscany, Lombardy, Trentino, Alto Adige, Abruzzo and Lazio, meeting up with Italian cowboys, fishermen and cheese makers to highlight “the beauty and richness of Italian culture.” Tucci has long been vocal about his love for Italian food and wine, once posting a video to his 5.6 million Instagram followers of himself admiring a two-storey-high, glass floored Sicily wine cellar containing around 5,000 bottles. Captioning his post: “Heaven in a Sicilian wine cellar” Tucci went on to speak to camera, saying: “Extraordinary. So beautifully constructed, with raw iron and glass” before revealing that “actually, we snuck into here. We should go.”

"Disrespectful and obnoxious"

However, not everyone thinks that Tucci’s television shows have had a positive impact on Italian communities. “Please encourage your audience to be courteous when visiting another country,” commented @aimee.m.ramsay on the actor’s Instagram post. “We had to move out of our beloved home on santo spirito in Firenze due to the overwhelming numbers of disrespectful, obnoxious tourists piling up on our doorstep from 10am for overpriced wine doled out of that overhyped wine window you made so famous. Wine glasses on our steps, garbage, cigarettes. It became unbearable for our family.”

Wine windows

Traditional wine windows or ‘buchette del vino’ (little wine holes) have long been a part of Italian culture, with the first written record of wine windows being used in Florence dating back to 1634. According to the Buchette del Vino Association, as of February 2025 there were 161 wine windows within Florence’s old city walls and a further 27 just outside, while a further 111 have reportedly been removed over the centuries. The concept has also travelled across the Atlantic, with a wine window installed in New York City's Times Square in June 2025. Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, claims that the window will be “a draw for both tourists and New Yorkers” – according to one estimate, Times Square already receives an average of 460,000 visitors a day. Stanley Tucci has been credited with reviving an interest in these windows through his previous TV travel series Searching for Italy. Undoubtedly, there has been an uptick in tourism to some parts of Italy as a result of the television series, with fans seeking out local curiosities they have seen on the show such as the wine windows. In the case of Florence and many other cities, this will have inevitably have injected cash into the local economy, helping vendors and hospitality venue owners to prosper in a time when many are spending less on going out to eat and drink.

Over tourism

Balancing fears about over-tourism with the needs of local trade has always been a delicate dance. In August 2024 Pierre Hurmic, the mayor of Bordeaux, pushed for a complete ban on cruise ships docking in the city centre, claiming they spoil the “beauty” of the location, spewing out pollution and hoards of tourists. “More and more people in Bordeaux are being disturbed by the arrival of cruise ships in the city centre, and it’s becoming increasingly unpleasant,” Hurmic told local news agency AFP. However, Patrick Seguin, president of the Bordeaux-Gironde Chamber of Commerce and Industry warned that moving the docking site “would have heavy consequences for Bordeaux trade” and said that wineries, restaurants and bars would likely see losses if cruise operators decide to scratch Bordeaux off their itineraries.