Farmhouse Living while Eating and Drinking through the Piedmont Region, Italy
We picked up our rental car in Milano and drove 2 hours west toward the Piedmont region. I’m not much for traditional Tuscan wines but have always been drawn to Barberas so Piedmont has always been on my list. Piedmont is mostly known for its wines (Barbera, Barbaresco, Dolcetto, and Nebiolos) and also white and black truffles (tortuffi). I was sold.
The funny thing we learned is that there aren’t differences in the wines Barbera, Barbaresco, and Nebiolos in terms of how we think of different varietals being different grapes. It’s strictly where the vines are grown and how long the wine is aged for.
When we as Americans think of Asti, we think of overly sugary Asti sparkling wine but here when you say Asti, people only think of Barberas d’Asti, where the crème de la crème of Barbera is grown but also the everyday drinking wine of the area.
Unlike California wine country though, Piedmont takes some planning. The region covers a fairly large area, so it can take some time driving around to get from place to place and most of the wineries aren’t walk ins. I would highly recommend making reservations weeks in advance, as most of the wineries don’t check email religiously. It’s also worth noting that wine tastings are much longer events. At some wineries, they allow you to try as many as you want- sometimes up to 10 accompanied by generous pours, making it difficult to visit more than 1 or 2 a day.
As Mati is the unofficial wine buyer of the family, I left it up to him to figure out which wineries we would visit and I would figure out where to stay. We came across an amazing website called Agriturismo.it with a significant list of farm villas that operate as bed and breakfasts.
Staying at a farm villa also allows you to stay central to the wineries compared to options of staying in some of the larger towns such as Asti or Alba.
We stayed at a farmhouse called Dimora Cortese, a 19th century home in Castagnole Della Lanze, 20 km from Alba for 90 Euros a night including breakfast!
The hotel has 4 rooms, we were in the Inverano room, a spacious room large enough for a sitting area and private patio area.
We only made it to breakfast once, since we were still full from dinners 2 of the three mornings. But the breakfast spread was exceptional- meats, cheeses, yogurt, blood orange juice, cereals, and chocolate cakes.
With the help of our favorite wine store owner on Cape Cod, Heather Tarter, we came up with a great menu of options to eat and drink our way through the Piedmont region:
La Spinetta in Castagnole Della Lanze
Funny enough, we shared a tasting with 2 gentlemen, one of which has a house in Orleans, on the Cape! Much to the wine tasting lead’s annoyance, we spent more time discussing Cape Cod than the wine- but we really enjoyed it nonetheless!
Dinner at Bovio, La Mora d’Alba
We had a lighter breakfast and lunch in preparation for an enjoyable dinner at Bovio. About a 30- minute drive away through the rolling green hills of vines dotted with bright magenta rose bushes along the road, we passed hilltop towns, the church always being the focal point of the hilltop towns. The view of the valley from the restaurant was worthy a stop without even taking the food into account. Mati scouted the wine book, a 30 page bible to find a bottle for the evening. The Piedmont region is a very meat heavy region, with a lot of veal, lamb, and goat filling menu pages.
We started with a fried zucchini flower stuffed with veal. Zucchini flowers are probably one of my favorite things to cook with in the summer so I was already in love with this restaurant. From there, we ordered veal tartare with parmesan, covered with black truffles, warm quail salad, with quail eggs, and black truffles.
Our primi piatti courses, the pasta course was just as good. Tortelli filled with artichoke and rabbit in a foie gras sauce and duck filled cannelloni covered in black truffles. For our Segundo piatti, I got a small lake fish over creamed potatoes and Mati got veal. Although not stuffed, we did forgo dessert.
Cerreto Winery, Alba
Cerreto was my favorite winery we visited. Their vineyard is large enough that they also offer wine trekking as an activity which if I hadn’t spent the last week climbing I would certainly have needed this to offset the pasta and wine I’ve been consuming. We tried at least 8 wines here. All were fantastic.
L’aromatario, Nieve
We received this lunch recommendation from the Tasting Room staff. He told us not to miss the ravioli filled with meat. We drove to the tiny hilltop town of Nieve not far from Alba and found L’aromatario. A small restaurant with exposed brick and rows and rows of bottles of wine. He wasn’t wrong about the ravioli. Served in a napkin, the pillows were perfect. Throughout our experience in the region, the food is very meat heavy, but never heavy in sauce when serving pasta making the focal point of the pasta about the fillings. Mati had egg pasta with a sausage ragu that changed my mind about how I feel about egg pasta. We then shared a main entrée of beef cheek, slow cooked in a Barbaresco sauce.
“Braida” Winery, Asti
“Braida” Winery was a fun experience- and can only be described as an eccentric winery. With wine names for their Barberas that translate to “cheeky girl”, “old woman with a bird beak”, and literally “big dick” you can tell it’s not a traditional winery. They did, however, create a more conservative Barbera for the Vatican not too long ago called La Bigotta, translated to a “pius woman that pretends to be more religious than she actually is”. We’re still laughing about this visit, but we loved it and are excited to drink more Braida Barbera when we return stateside.
Guido Restaurant, Serralunga D’alba
Located on the property of a vineyard and vineyard hotel called Hotel le Casa dei Conti Miraflore was a dressy affair. The restaurant is known for its agnolotti, made by the owners grandmother. More meat pillows? YES PLEASE!
It was probably our favorite pasta dish we had in the region. The restaurant was pri-fixe, offering you a couple of options depending on how many courses you wanted. We went for 3, plus dessert.
Before you go judging us, unlike in the US, all dishes are the same size, and much smaller making 3 courses manageable without leaving you too full. The meal was spaced out perfectly, and even though we dined for 3 hours, we had a great time. Wine is never rushed in Italy the way it is in New York. I started with the poached egg with green peas and black truffles. The egg oozed one of the most orange yolks I’ve ever seen.
Mati started with the typical Piedmontese beef carpaccio. We both got the meat-filled agnolotti. We wished we could order some to go it was so good. For our third course, served table side, we split a slow-cooked leg of lamb dish. We finished the meal with a bite of cheese, pistachio cream, and cream filled meringues dusted with chocolate.
We loved this region and hope to come back again- just to taste those fantastic meat pillows! Lake Como here we come!
