Parma Golosa Gourmet Tours
Parma Golosa Gourmet Tours
5
About
We will share with you the products that have founded Italy's world renowned culinary culture. It is a chance truly enhance your taste experience and enjoy these amazing delicacies. Incredible products that take years to age: like Parmigiano Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma, and Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Reggio Emilia are artisanally produced according to age-old traditions from the area of Parma.
Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.


5.0
5.0 of 5 bubbles172 reviews
Excellent
155
Very good
10
Average
3
Poor
3
Terrible
1

Mark C
Peapack8 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Apr 2024 • Family
An absolutely excellent your. Highly recommend. Our kind, thorough and professional guide, Lidia toured and instructed us on the production of Parmagiana Reggiano cheese, Prosciutto Crudo di Parma and other cured meat variants and aged balsamic vinegar.

We had an engaging and instructive day (oh, and tasty as well!). These products are misunderstood and marketed in such a way that can be confusing. The real process are clearly and very carefully produced on such a way to make them uniquely different and so far much more superior.

Go with Parmagalosa and do not look back. If you are fortunate enough to be paired with Lidia as your guide, your private tour will be second to none.
Written April 28, 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Wana W
Zagreb, Croatia36 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Dec 2019
Our group of three met with Davide in the end of December. Although our tour took place on a Sunday in the dead of the season, Davide guided on a splendid trip of how prosciutto and culatello are made. His knowledge and passion about food was incredible. We have not only learned so much, but most importantly we tasted all the good stuff that we encountered. And more. Davide had some good tips about sightseeing and dinner afterwards, that we happily embraced.
If you're visiting Emilia, do not miss one of tours that Parma Golosa offers!
Written January 4, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

GGsBus
North Carolina9 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Just two weeks ago we were in Parma, Italy, and wow did we have a wonderful adventure on a tour of local food specialities. I am speaking of cheese, Parma ham and balsamic vinegar. Our tour was arranged by ParmaGalosa and it was great. We went around 9 am to a cheese factory and had a first hand experience with Parmigiano Reggiano being made, and a taste as well. From there we headed to a Parma ham factory just as the fresh hams were being unloaded from the delivery truck. Lunch at a local winery consisted of samplings of the products we saw in production as well as other local items and wines. After lunch we had a marvelous experience learning about the making of "traditonal" balsamic vinegar. An absolutely super day. My husband said it ranked very high on his list of favorite Italian experiences, and mine, too.
Written October 18, 2007
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

TLHTooter
Tallahassee323 contributions
2.0 of 5 bubbles
Oct 2011 • Couples
Our guide, Sarah, was absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately, although the Agency promised me that the guide would ride along in my car, they didn't inform Sarah. She had another tour following ours, so it was necessary for me to hang onto her bumper through city traffic to follow to the cheese farm. They also neglected to tell her that we chose not to do the balsamic tasting (6 Euros apiece for about 6 drops of vinegar) so we ended up doing the tasting and were forced to pay the additional 12 Euros). That concluded the tour - and at that point we were left to find our way back to our hotel in Parma (with verbal instructions), abandoned in a vineyard on a dirt road some 20+ miles out in the countryside, with only a rough idea of where we were or had been. We did make it back, but only because we brought our GPS with Italy maps.

The is pricy for 2 people - 160 Euros for up to 4 people). They said that they would try to pair us up with another couple (making our portion 80 Euros) but that didn't happen - despite that there was another English speaking couple with a different guide from the Agency which was attending the same attractions as us. We could have been paird-up.

Re. the tour: Sarah was fantastic! She was extremely knowledgeable about every aspect of the places we visited, and was really passionate about sharing all of this with us. We really enjoyed her.

Stop #1 - cheese production: we give this a 5 our of 5! Really enjoyable and informative.
Stop #2 - prosciutto production we give this a 2. It probably would have deserved a 5 if anyone had actually been involved with the production that day. Basically all you saw were hams, hanging at various ages of drying (plus a good description by Sarah of what we would have seen, had anyone actually been working. My advice is to verify that someone is actually working on the day that you visit. The video on their website certainly implies that you will see workers salting the hams, etc.
Stop #3 - lunch. We give this a 4.5. It was very nice, but just a bit on the pricy side.
Stop #4 - vinegar production. This gets a 3. Not a lot of excitement watching vinegar that has been sitting in a cask for the past 30 years.

We definitely give a 5 to our guide, Sarah. The overall tour would have received a higher rating if it weren't for the major issues given above.
Written October 15, 2011
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Theresa R
San Diego, CA2 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Jan 2013 • Couples
Our tour with Parmagolosa was to be the highlight of our trip to Italy the week after Christmas. My wife and I booked a rental car in advance and left early for the tour to meet up at 8:45AM. We had terrible luck trying to find our way around which I do not blame on Parmagolosa. Needless to say, after 30 minutes into our drive we found ourselves further away from Parma than when we started driving. We pulled into a hotel to use their phone so we could describe our predicament and notify the tour guide that we would be late. We were told that there was no way we could make it in time as we were two hours away and it was already past 7AM.

We're not ones to write reviews, especially the negative variety, but our hopes for attending our highly anticipated tour were smashed at a time when we were genuinely distraught and lost. As an organization built on customer service, Parmagolosa did not go out of their way to help us out when we were in need. They likely have great tours and no doubt you have read the positive reviews, but my wife and I will forever be reminded of the poor customer service we experienced with Parmagolosa whenever we come across Parmesan Cheese or Parma Ham.

As a young couple with lots of jet-setting young friends, Parmagolosa will come up in every conversation with family and friends as my wife and I describe the one negative experience of our trip to Italy.

PS, driving in Italy isn't that bad - Next time we'll have GPS to correct our wrong turns and we will take note of the automatic speed cameras as we are rushing to our destination!
Written January 5, 2013
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Dear Theresa, we apologize for the failure of your tour on December 29th and for your disappointement that you express in your rewiew. However we would like to clarify some aspects that better define responsibility for what happened: you called your guide to announce your delay at 07:50 am from an hotel in Reggello, 30 km south of Florence, more than 200 km from Parma where you planned to make a gastronomic tour with us. At this point was impossibile for you to assist Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese production that start and finishes in first morning. We must inform you that, our company policy, we guide our customers in REAL companies that, during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, have a short time and are open only in the morning. Thus, in agreement with the guide, you have decided to renunce the tour, even though she had offered to give you another chance on 30 or 31. Needless to say, this negative review is painful for us: Parmagolosa tries to satisfy its customers and to meet their needs. So we are surprised of your negative judgment, in particular on our customer service: if you were able to get to Parma we would have been able to help you better. However, we want to reiterate that for non-tour of 29th december you will not be charged anything and you pay nothing. Hoping to have you as our guest the next time, we greet you Parma Golosa Gourmet Tours Staff ps We do not believe that in San Diego there are cheese producer that can compete with our Parmigiano-Reggiano!
Written January 11, 2013
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.

toskar
Coffs Harbour23 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Sep 2011 • Couples
Sara was the tour guide that Parma Golosa organised for us. We were given very good directions for the car so we could meet up with our tour guide at the farm that makes Parmigiano Reggiano. Sara explained the production while we watched the workers handling the cheese at different stages of the process. Afterwards we did a cheese tasting and bought some to take with us. We then followed her in our car to a place that produces Parma Ham, where Sara explained the process though all the different stages and all the things that contributes to making it so special. We timed it well, because we got to see the workers actually salting the fresh meat. The next stop was to learn about the complex prouction of Modena balsamic vinegar. After tastings we bought a bottle to take back with us to Australia. Then it was off to the vineyard and a quick look at the complex before having lunch there on the verandah.The food was excellent and nicely rounded off a wonderful tour. We had different wines from the vineyard, local pasta, salami and all the products we saw during our tour and more. We left the vineyard with bottles of wine to savour during our following week in Tuscany. This tour was one of the highlights of our three weeks in Italy. We learnt so much and now look at these products through different eyes. I think having Sara as a guide made it very special. She has a very good command of English and was very good at communicating her knowledge, passion and the respect that these products are held in the Italian tradition. We recommed this Parma Golosa tour if you are travelling in this region.
Written November 16, 2011
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

sprach80
Munising, Marshall Islands8 contributions
3.0 of 5 bubbles
Aug 2015 • Family

We, a family of 2 adults and 2 young children, booked a private tour to visit Parmegeano cheese and prosciutto factories with a car, chauffer and a tour guide. We chose this option over something like Italian Day because we did not think our children would enjoy a 9 hour excursion.

We began the tour at 8am from Parma Station and ended at a vineyard for lunch around 11:30am. The lunch consisted of a plate of cold cuts, cheeses ravioli, and desserts. At 1:30pm we were back at Parma Station.

For this experience of 5.5 hours we had the privilege of paying over EUR 500. The tour guide provided some elementary information about cheese and prosciutto that could have been easily read in a pamphlet. She was not all that enthusiastic or entertaining. The factories visited were "factories" - we saw workers processing food with machines, not artisans.

All in all, we felt that experience was worth maybe 50% of what we paid. We probably could have got a similar experience by joining a tour sponsored by Bologna Tourist Center for EUR 48 pp.

We sent a note about our experience to the manager/owner shortly after the excursion and have not received any response at all. But she was very responsive in booking our tour - clearly a case of good salesmanship in pre-sale enthusiasm and post-sale indifference.

Written August 22, 2015
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Jeff M
Geneva, IL73 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Based on positive reviews in TripAdvisor, we booked a tour with Parma Golosa via email for our one day visit to Parma in mid-June 2009. My wife and I liked that the tour could be customized and it would be a more personal tour rather than with a large group. On the morning of our tour, Nick from Parma Golosa arrived at our hotel at the scheduled time and we departed in our (small but cozy) rented Fiat 500. Nick directed us first to a Parmigiano Reggiano plant, where we witnessed the cheese being made, and also walked the aging room where all the wheels of cheese were stored. We then were able to taste samples of their 12 month, 24 month and 30 month aged parmesan. Next, we drove to the Conti Prosciutto di Parma production facility, where we saw thousands of ham shanks aging in the cold storage units and were told about the different types of prosciutto. Our next stop was the highlight of our tour (and possibly week), which was lunch at the Marcello vineyard. We sat out on their veranda and the table was laid out with pickled peppers, onions, mushrooms and fresh bread. We started with some prosciutto and a white sparkling wine, and then had a large plate of salami, lardo, coppa and parmigiano reggiano coupled with a bottle of the vineyard's award winning Lambrusco wine. The wine was fantastic, and went perfectly with the meal. We ended up buying a couple bottles to take home with us. After lunch, we went to a traditional balsamic vinegar vineyard and facility run by the Medici family, and were able to taste some incredible balsamic vinegar of varying ages, all quality controlled by the DOC similar to the Parmigiano Reggiano and the Prosciutto di Parma that we had tried earlier. We then returned to our hotel in downtown Parma about 4pm. Nick, our tour guide, was very informative and had a great sense of humor. It was a very enjoyable day spent with him, and we wished we had devoted more than one day to the wonderful city Parma.
Written July 5, 2009
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

ADC711
San Diego, CA22 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jun 2016 • Couples
We did the "Classic Complete Experience" to visit producers of Parmigiano Cheese, Prosciutto and Traditional Balsamic Vinegar. While the tour itself would have been a good experience, Davide (our guide) made the tour an extraordinary trip. He is incredibly knowledgeable, fluently answers all of our many questions in English! In fact, the other tour guides were simply following Davide's footsteps. Davide knows the product well, so he was able to demonstrate many crucial steps of the production process while the other tour guides simply talk rather than show the process. I'm so pleased to witness his wonderful relationship with the various producers and shop owners. So, if you can, then ask for Davide for an unforgettable tour.
Written June 13, 2016
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Marcos_traveller
Rio de Janeiro, RJ716 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Nov 2013 • Couples
We had a great experience with Parma Golosa, was better than we expected and all we can ask from a gastronomic tour. We visited not only the local production of a Parmegianno cheese, Parma ham and aceto balsamico, with the opportunity to have a true food critic and journalist as a guide - Davide, who was very attentive to even take us to a supermarket, where he showed us some details of the foods that would go unnoticed.

The only downside was the lunch - which was optional - and was not special at all, despite being in a castle with beautiful views. We would certainly prefer an option of great food.

Overall, totally recommend. Thank you, Davide!
Written December 7, 2013
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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