Our purpose for this trip was to see if this was an area we’d want to live in, when we retire in Italy. We love Tuscany, but wanted to see what the northern part of Italy was like and if it was significantly cooler weather. We also knew that while the majority of the world thinks of Tuscany when they think of Italian wine, the Italians think of Piemonte, the region in the northeast corner of the country where the wonderful world of Barolo, Barbaresco, Dolcetto, Barbera, Nebbilo and others to name a few, could be found.
We stayed at an Airbnb that was in a small area called Panerole. It is literally one road with a few buildings on it. We did tastings at four very different wineries during our time there. We spaced them out so we didn’t get sloshed with multiple wine tastings in one day. We had our own rental car and drove ourselves around the area, which is necessary due to the terrain of the area. We found the towns were spaced out by a few miles with populations of only 1,000 people or so. This isn’t very walkable or a place that is easy to take public transportation.
Our first vineyard we toured was Azienda Agricola Franco Conterno. We learned during our time there the name “Conterno” is quite popular in the area and there are a variety of vineyard you could visit with that name. I found a blog which documented their positive experience there, so we went for it. The tasting was approximately 20 euros and was booked a few weeks in advance. Reservations closer to the trip are possible, as we booked one with a day or so’s notice.
Back to Franco Conterno, per their website, it said the tasting was four or five wines. We drove to the remote location, pushed the button to open the gates to the property and parked. The location was absolutely stunning. A portion of their farmhouse is used as an agriturismo, meaning you can stay on property.
We were the only two visitors there for the tasting, we were offered to do the tasting inside or outside. Inside was beautiful, but didn’t compare with the views from the covered patio outside. We spent some quality time getting to know one of their two sweet dogs on property prior to the tasting.
We were greeted by a very nice woman, who’s name I didn’t write down unfortunately, who asked us if we had particular wines we would like to taste. We gave her the freedom to choose what she liked best. The four or five variety tasting ended up being nine. With a phenomenal cheese plate to go with it. I would have paid the fee for the cheese alone! We thoroughly enjoyed the wines. We sampled and she described some varieties we’ve never had before, such as Nas Cetta and Nas Punta. We enjoyed both. We ended up purchasing a few bottles from her. We also got the best tourist suggestions from the host as well. She provided a farm to visit where the family made excellent sheep’s cheese, she gave us two different hazelnut places to try to, one who specializes in hazelnut chocolates and one was more Nutella style creams. More on those later.
Below is the handwritten document the Franco Conterno employee wrote for us about her suggestions off places to visit for cheese and hazelnuts in the region.
Another winery we visited was the winery approximately 60 feet from our AirBnb, Azienda Agricola Vietto. I think I counted 45 or so steps before we were greeted by the owner of the winery Silvia. She was very sweet and explained how her family came into the land where they began producing wine. Similar to Franco Conterno, she didn’t limit the tastings to the number of wines offered when the reservation was booked via e-mail. Again, we were the only two people there for the tasting. It doesn’t get better than being spoiled with being the only folks in the tasting. We also bought a few bottles from her, we specifically liked her Barolo. Let’s say she was very generous with pricing for both the bottles and the tasting. We’d absolutely go out of our way to visit her again if we were back in the area.
When in San Diego, we frequently order G.D. Vajra’s Dolcetto D’Alba and figured it would be fun to do a tasting there, as it was only twenty minutes from where we were staying. Unfortunately, this was the worst tasting of the trip. Impersonal is a good way to describe it. I felt like we were herded cattle. They were just going through the steps and really didn’t make it a memorable experience. While not all larger producers may do this, moving forward, we’re going to stay away from doing formal tastings at large producers like this. Antinori is beautiful and we’d likely go back for the architecture. Avignonesi is also beautiful and had a better experiences as well. G.D. Vajra was simply a major let down.
Our last winery we visited was Castello di Verduno. This was a winery in the middle.of a town, attached to a beautiful hotel. We were suggested to go inside the hotel to admire the interior, but we felt a bit weird doing it. We were greeted by a gentleman who took us to our own room for the tasting. He talked about the vineyards and the family before facilitating the tasting. Again, like the other smaller vineyards, he personalized things and went off script to make it a memorable experience for us. He offered items that weren’t frequent poured for tastings. Again, we bought some bottles to bring home as well.
This leads us to another point when visiting regions like this. We realized we’d need to bring or ship all of this wine home and we didn’t come prepared. Just outside the town of Barolo is a company that specializes in shipping wine. We stopped by to get quotes for a case and it was in the $200 range to send back to California. Hard no there. We ended up buying an empty box and the styrofoam inserts for a case of red and a half case of bubbles. (Somebody HAD to have bubbles.) We ended up spending $25 or so for the boxes and ended up checking them as luggage for the flights home. From this experience, we kept some of those boxes and home and bought a wine check bag, which is a padded wheeled bag that perfectly fits a boxed case of red wine with the styrofoam. We bring that empty (or with a few bottles as gifts) to Europe, so we can fill it up and bring it back to mitigate shipping/boxing issues.
Novello:
Novello is one of the nine towns where Barolo can officially be grown and produced. It can’t be more than a half mile long by a quarter mile wide. It’s a beautiful quaint town on a hill. Prior to our trip, I read about a restaurant called Ant that is in Novello. It was described as a dining experience as much as an amazing dinner. Obviously, we had to go. I made reservations knowing very little about what we were getting into. The night of our reservation, we arrived early and saw the beautiful wall and doors adoring the front of the entrance to the restaurant.
There were only two other couples waiting out front for the one seating for the night. Eventually, we found our way in and down to the restaurant. It was such an amazing place to walk into. There were maybe seven tables maximum in the restaurant. The room filled up with all of our fellow diners for the service. I believe there were a total of 14 people there for dinner.
The owner came up and identified us as English speakers and began to explain the process for the dinner. He explained, “Tonight will be a blind tasting. We are going to prepare food for you, bring it to you and you’ll eat it. Once we come by to collect that course’s plate, we’ll let you know what the plate was.” I’ve heard of the dinners where you’re actually blindfolded, but this was a different style that I’ve never experienced or heard of. We were immediately excited about what the night had in store for us. The owner asked us if we were going to be interested in any wine with dinner. We told him yes, and he nodded and walked away.
After the first course, the owner asked us to get out of our chairs and follow him. He walked us down a few stairs into another room, which could easily be described as a cave, with a window looking up to the walkway where we had just entered the restaurant 20 or so minutes ago. Wine bottles adorned the floor, some were stacked on top of each other and some were just laid any where they would stay still. He asked us about the wine we’ve had on our trip so far and what kind of wine we liked. He listed to us, then described two wines he thought we might like. We chose one he described, then he turned and led us back up to our table. We never saw the bottle, didn’t get a price, didn’t know what the producer was, we just knew he was taking care of us. He came back with a Nas Cetta that went perfect with the meal. Both us us talked about how minimal but wonderful of an experience it was picking out the wine with him was. We went through the 8-10 or so courses of dinner and loved everything. We obviously took pictures and while Allie could probably re-describe every dish, I can’t and won’t try. Plus, I’m sure it changes all the time with the seasons and half of the fun was not knowing what was coming next! Oh yeah, the the whole experience was around $150 total. Silly money for what we just had.
If you’re in the area and appreciate a dining experience, we highly recommend Ant.
Another spot in Novello we went to, that rivaled Ant was Langotto Ristorante. We made reservations online after not having a place lined up for dinner for one night. It had good reviews online, so we figured we’d give it a chance. God are we glad we did. We arrived early (as most Italians eat later) and were one of the few people in the restaurant. Over the next few hours the place was packed. Being seated in the restaurant, the French influence of the chef was immediately apparent. The white table clothes, the aprons worn by the staff, the precision of little acts, like pouring water, setting out utensils and placing plates was reminiscent of three Michelin star venues. Not something you see in rural Italy often.
We were told by somebody we talked to about Langotto that the couple who owns the place are Italian, but they studied cooking in France and brought their knowledge back home to Novello. The balance of the two was an amazing experience. The food was nothing short of phenomenal. Everything was perfect. There were amuse bouche, palate cleansers, pre-dessert dessert, after dessert dessert. My kinda place! I still have a hard time identifying if I could only go back to one restaurant, whether I would chooser this place or Ant.
La Morra:
One of the places we were told about during our Franco Conterno tasting was Cogno, which is the shop that specializes in homemade hazelnut chocolates. Near the edge of La Morra and about 150 feet down a side street was an entrance in the wall for vehicles to pull into. If you looked inside that courtyard a door had the logo of the hazelnut shop. We went up to the door and tried to open it. It was locked. No signs, no hours, just a locked door. There was a buzzer on the wall. We pushed the buzzer and a nice lady came and opened the door for us. She was wearing the obligatory white cooking jacket and white cooking hat and was actively packaging chocolates. I began to try to talk to her to see if she spoke English. She did not. I asked if she was open, which she said she was and invited us inside. She explained everything she had for sale in Italian, which I was able to understand most. She then started reaching over on drying racks and began to provide us with samples of the chocolates she was making. Obviously, we enjoyed all of the treats and ended up spending $30 or so with her. Again, another spot that if you’re in the area, it’s a must visit.
We headed out to the other place suggested by Franco Conterno who made his own Nutella with hazelnuts. While on the drive to the facility, we saw a sign for Pasta D’Alba, a local pasta producer where you could go and purchase freshly dried packaged pasta from the producer at the facility. We thought that would be fun, so we took the 200 yard detour. We found the entrance to the place in the small business park and we walked inside. We were greeted by a nice young lady who was the daughter of the owners of the company. She spoke great English and explained this is where the pasta was made and if we wanted to buy something, she’d be happy to take us to their warehouse where we could pick through their offerings. She said it was a two minute drive from the production facility and we could follow her. We took her up on her offer and went to the warehouse. She guided us through a good chunk of what they offered. We need up buying 15 or so packets of locally made pasta for around two dollars a package. What a steal!
We finally made it up to the hazelnut butter (Nutella) producer. This was another experience where the owner didn’t speak much English but was able to relay the necessary info for me to know what he was talking about. He didn’t have samples laid out, but as rural as he was, I’m sure he doesn’t get a ton of visitors, so I can’t blame him. We ended up buying quite a few jars from him, as well as a bag of roasted hazelnuts, which were ridiculous. Once we finally tried his products when we got home to San Diego, we immediately wished we bought more.
The last of the Franco Conterno locations we visited was a bit longer of a drive, approximately 45 minutes or so from where we were staying. This outing took us to the city of Murazzano, which is an area known for agriculture and farming. Our destination was “Il Forletto” a family owned cheese making shop. We arrived slightly earlier than our scheduled appointment, which the producer was easy to communicate with via What’s App. Unfortunately, we ended up waking her up from a nap, as she is getting up early to milk the sheep and do all the work necessary to make the cheese. She walked us through the barn where the special regional sheep were hanging out at the moment. She described how she has a good chunk of the sheep that are left, as they are trying to repopulate this breed, which is specific to the area. I believe she said she had 300 of 1000 of these specific sheep that are left, or something to that effect.
The sheep eventually ran out of the barn, as they are scared of people and have free rein on the farm. She then walked us into the area where she makes the cheese and showed us the cheese she made the day before. We then proceeded into the store area, where we sat down and tried the cheeses she already had prepared for us. She was a great host and was very friendly. We traded stories about traveling and she told us about her experiences when she spent a significant amount of time in India traveling. We ended up not buying anything, as it was close to the end of our trip and we aren’t allowed to bring fresh cheese back into the states.
Alba: We had some good food in Alba, but nothing like the dinners we had in Novello. There is one piece of information to share that absolutely cannot be missed. Enrieto Gelato.
I think we’re both on the same page when we say this was the best gelato we’ve ever had. We’ve had our share of gelato. We even paid for a tasting at the world gelato festival championships in Florence. Enrieto’s still wins. He makes his gelato with milk and honey. That’s it. It’s small batch, about the size of a gallon paint can. Some reviews online complain about the price, they say it’s like $14 for gelato. It’s not. If you want the gelato with everything you could ever put on top of it, then maybe. We paid $4 or $5 for a cup of gelato with pistachio cream. The gelato was ridiculous as was the pistachio cream. We were both absolutely amazed. We made it a point to go back to Alba specifically for that gelato during our trip.
