TRUFFLE JOLAIS GOOD SHUFFLE SHOW CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVA NEXT OF SOFT MOSELLE PUMPKIN

Depending on your view, truffles are either strange and insanely expensive balls of fungus , or fabulous gourmet morsels. The Tuscan village of San Miniato thinks the latter. It has a yearly festival devoted to the white version (Nov 10-25; see sanminiatopromozione.it). Heading to the USA for Thanksgiving (Nov 22) as a British tourist is like sneaking back into a party 235 years after you’ve been chucked out for bad behaviour. Still, few autumn food-related celebrations have the pizzazz. A week at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston (whose restaurant, oaklongbarkitchen.com, has a Thanksgiving menu; $65/£49), leaving Heathrow on Nov 18, costs from £1,117pp (virginholidays.co.uk). Germany doesn’t like wine. Only beer. Right? Nein. South-easterly Deutschland will also will be alive with viticultural hurrahs in the coming weeks. The pretty Rhineland town of Cochem, on the River Moselle, will keep its Federweissenfest of flowery whites and music bands going until Nov 11; see romantic-germany.info. Beaujolais nouveau is another feted French wine, and it is eulogised every November in the village of Beaujeu, near Lyon –at Les Sarmentelles (Nov 14-18; sarmentelles.com). When is an autumn wine festival not an autumn wine festival? When it’s the Habits de Lumiere (habitsdelumiere. epernay.fr), and it’s held in the last month of the year

(Dec 14-16). Which is winter. But then, this is a tribute to champagne, with gourmet evenings, fireworks and light shows, in the regional capital Epernay. And who is going to tell the Champagne region what to do? Exactement. A few random facts about Conwy. It’s on the north coast of Wales. It has a magnificent castle, which Edward I constructed in a snarky bit of empire building between 1283 and 1289. It has an annual food-and-music bonanza, known as the Gwledd Conwy Feast (conwyfeast.co.uk), which is set for Oct 26-28. You should go.