Southern beauty

Here he is, Giorgio the cheesemaker, come to rescue my burrata.

To make the Pugliese specialty you need a pair of strong but nimble hands and a certain deftness in your wrist. I am equipped with neither. Giorgio watches as I take the milk, thickened with heat and acid whey, stretching it in my hands before peeling off a chunk to fill with a spoonful of stracciatella – those creamy, torn-up pieces of mozzarella that ooze lasciviously as soon as you pierce them. My big, clumsy fingers fumble with the opening of the burrata, struggling to twist it closed. This is when the cheesemaker takes my hands in his and, like some kind of Italian Patrick Swayze in Ghost, guides me through each movement. Stretch, pull, dollop, twist. He takes my burrata and plonks it into a bowl of water to cool. That’s lunch, everybody.

You can swim at Polignano a Mare, sip natural wine at vineyards outside Lecce and taste olive oil harvested from 3000-year-old trees planted by the Romans.

This small, family-run dairy farm just a short drive from Alberobello, a town in the middle of Puglia famous for its conical-shaped cottages, is fairly indicative