Strapped for cash as it seeks to avoid falling victim to the European debt crisis, Italy’s parliament is debating a controversial measure that will force church-owned properties to pay property taxes.

Americans are drinking an increasing amount of sparkling wine. U.S. sparkling wine sales continued to increase at a higher rate than table wine brands for the third straight year in 2011 and now amount to about 5 percent of the U.S. wine market.

Imports from France still lead the sparkling wine category, but Italian sparkling wine exports are on the increase, having risen by 36 percent in 2011.

With this abnormaly mild winter we are having here in the east coast, I'm getting an early hankering for somthing light, aromatic and frizzy for that nice little scratching of the back of the throat. And I'm not talking about a cola with its high fructose corn syrup. But, something healthy, refreshing and from mother's nature's bounty...I'm talking about having some Prosecco.

“These things are boring as heck if you’re alone, unless you make friends as soon as you get here,” said my very new friend, Greg, at the fifth annual New York Wine Expo last Saturday. Greg and his bubbly wife, Charmaine, (“like Champagne, but with a different beginning,”) had adopted me at the Magner’s Irish Cider tasting station.

The New York Wine Expo is a three-day exposition catering to both the general public and the trade in the nation's hub.

 Italian automaker Fiat is opposed to any sort of car incentives to help boost Italy's slumping domestic market, Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said on Tuesday at a press conference at the Geneva car show.

The first hearing of the criminal investigation into the Costa Concordia's shipwreck was held in a theater Saturday instead of a courthouse because of high demand, with angry survivors seeking compensation, justice and the truth.

Coca Cola the US soft drinks company, confirmed it would renegotiate a contract with a local juice supplier in the south of Italy for the production of Fanta, reversing a recent decision that raised concerns by local authorities and farmers over the economic fallout for the area.