While on a recent trip to Italy in search of new items to bring to Central Market,  I was the guest of a most unusual man. To protect his identity, I will not name him. However, I can tell you that he is an avid Foodie in the truest sense.

Known for his philanthropy and benevolent actions in the area of Bologna, he is also an aficionado of his region's history and its contributions to the world of food and wine.

While visiting his unassuming 24-room villa in the countryside just outside Bologna, I was first treated to the most remarkable Italian sparkling wine I have ever tasted.

Named "Testarossa", it was a wine of incredible finesse with pinhead-sized bubbles that seemed to flow endlessly in the glass. With nuances of grass, grapefruit and citrus fruit, it finished with only the slightest hints of yeast and toast. The overall, off-dry flavor stood in direct contrast to the often cloyingly sweet profiles one often finds in the sparkling wines of Italy. This was a mere hint of what my gracious host was about to reveal was housed in this vacation villa.

He explained the villa was used rarely, even though it was crammed with a world traveler's collection of 50 years of globe-trotting.)

Imagine a collection of  24,000 bottles of wines. In it were oenophiles' dreams, including every vintage of Chateau Lafite Rothschild dating back to the late 1800's.

Tiny rooms packed wine treasures from floor-to-ceiling, in sizes ranging from standard 750 mls to one enormous bottle that holds the equivalent of 80 standard bottles of champagne.

I asked if security was an issue. Turns out the entrances to many of the rooms were downsized after being filled so that if anyone should ever try to make off with the wines they would have to carry them out with only a bottle in each hand to fit through the narrow exits.

There was whimsy mixed with the serious. The oldest vintage I saw was a bottle dated 1713. Romanee-Conti's, Chateau D' yEquem, Amarones, Ports, Madeiras were all well represented. A world map marked out every country he had visited. There were only three countries he has yet to visit.

His passions were not limited only to wine. I was led on a tour of eight more rooms and on to another floor above a staircase with magnums flanking each step.

Therein was a collection of over 65,000 menus spanning the world of food from coronations, weddings and festivals. It included menus from Papal visits. Plus three sets of menus from the Titanic's fateful voyage. Every Michelin restaraunt was included. Picture stacks upon stacks upon drawers upon cabinets upon walls lined with menus. In many of the rooms, even the ceilings had to covered with menus to accommodate the collection.

This was a memorial to the food and wine of the world's greatest chefs spanning decades.

Other rooms (yes, there were more...and more...) housed more than 2,400 Nativity sets from all around the world. (Some medieval.) From primitive art to those of iconographic gilt, artist, craftsmen and primitiveists were all represented. Most notable to me were Krakowian examples and a remarkably futuristic nativity set by Frank Loyd Wright.

This was my first night in Bologna and the hunt for great foods had only begun. I'll write more later of the finds that were to follow, but what a wonderful and inspiring evening this was to introduce to the one of the great food meccas in the world that is Bologna.