Red Wine and White Truffles

On the gourmet trail in Piemonte

People who like to eat good, rather traditional food and to drink full-bodied red wine, like very much to visit the Piemonte region in Northern Italy in the autumn. The best time for the greedy (or discerning) gourmet is from the end of October through the beginning of December. That’s when the best fresh white truffles (tartufi bianchi) are available and it’s also a good time to visit some of the many excellent and mostly friendly vineyards that produce some of the best red wines in the world.

How to get there
From southern Germany, you have to drive through Switzerland, either via Luzern and through the Gotthard tunnel or via Bern, Montreux, through the Grand-Saint-Bernard tunnel and then south through the Aosta valley. Both routes take about 8 hours from Mannheim or Heidelberg. The Aosta route is more picturesque, but is not highway for part of the way, the Gotthard route can sometimes be prone to traffic jams. A couple of times in recent years, we have flown to Turin (Torino), hired a car and then had the wine we bought sent back to Germany by a trucking company. (Revelli in the industrial area down the hill from the pretty hill town of La Morra is one local possibilty but vineyards can usually recommend their favorites).

The weather
In autumn, Piemonte is usually cool, clear, sparkling in autumnal sunshine with great views of the Alps in the distance although in the evenings there can be some fog from the Po valley. Some years, there can be a surprising amount of snow in late November or December.

Where to stay
Round about but not necessarily actually in the city of Alba is a very good place to stay. For several years, we were based in La Morra, staying either at Villa Carita on the via Roma or else at the Hotel Corte Gondina, also on the via Roma, but slightly more in the center of the village.

I picked up a leaflet advertising the Albergo dell’ Agenzia in Pollenzo which looks very nice in the brochure and seriously grand on its own website (www.albergoagenzia.it). If you are feeling rich and in need of pampering, the Relais San Maurizio in Santo Stefano Belbo, (www.relaissanmaurizio.info), which is part of the always reliable Relais et Châteaux network is almost certainly extremely pleasant and comfortable.

On our latest visit we stayed in Barolo, in a very friendly bed and breakfast place called La Giolitta (www.lagiolitta.it). Our hostess Danielle and her family were friendly and it was fun staying right in the center of Barolo. We had to park our car in a square about 5 - 10 minutes' walk away, there wasn't a carpark. In fact, the one time we tried to drive to the door to drop off some heavy shopping we got into some difficulties in the narrow streets and the one-way system.

Where to eat
Ristorante Belvedere on the main square in La Morra, piazza Castello (www.belvederelamorra.it) used to be a lovely large, family-style restaurant serving good local dishes to large families and groups. Eating there used to feel a bit like being at a wedding party but we haven’t eaten there for a couple of years, since the restaurant changed owners.

The old owners of Belvedere are now at Ristorante Bovio (www.ristorantebovio.it), down the hill and slightly out of the village at Via Alba, 17bis. The new restaurant serves all the favorite local dishes featuring such delights as carne crudo or more formally La battuta di fassone piemontese (the most amazing steak tartare ever) or a specialty from Belvedere days, a whole egg gently cooked on a bed of spinach inside a ravioli topped with white truffle (Uovo in pasta con tartufo bianco) or a vegetable called cardo topped with fonduta cheese and white truffle. Apparently cardo is called cardoon in English and Cardy in German but I have never seen this delicious vegetable outside of Italy or Spain.

I always like Locanda del Borgo Antico in Barolo. Last time we visited, we sat in the main dining room which we found noisy - ask for a table in one of the smaller rooms if possible. Their "Plin" - tiny delicate ravioli stuffed with castelmagno cheese were my favorite dish on our recent visit. We also tried a new (for us) restaurant, Ristorante La Rei which is in a hotel called Boscareto Resort & Spa in Serralunga d'Alba. We had heard excellent things about their new Japanese chef, trained in Piemonte, and the food was indeed excellent, as were the wines. Our whole table ordered the truffle menu, which was perhaps not our best idea of the day, we all found it too much food, too rich, in retrospect three dishes from the à la carte menu would have been a better idea.

On a good day, Cesare Giaccone, formerly in Fontanafredda, now in a new restaurant also in Serralunga where he apparently only serves wines from Fontanafredda, is one of the world’s top chefs but he can be moody and he also has a tendancy to move to a new location every year or so. I once ate the best roast goat in the world in his restaurant. It was snowing outside, the baby goat was roasting gently on a spit on an open fire in the corner of the dining room, and it was hard, at least for a couple of hours, to find anything at all wrong with the world, or my place in it. Cesare is an artist, a genius, and his cooking can be more interesting and inventive than anyone else’s in the area. He also makes the best vinegar ever, which is available in good local food shops.

Some years ago, one of my favorite restaurants in the world was a family-owned and run restaurant called Da Guido in Costigliole d’Asti and then sadly, the entirely charming and delightful eponymous Guido, having passed his alloted three score plus ten years, died and the restaurant closed. His wife Lidia still makes her famous agnolotti, the best tiny stuffed ravioli in the world, for the restaurants that two of her sons have opened since their father’s death. The better of the two is located in the Relais San Maurizio (www.relaissanmaurizio.info) in Santo Stefano Belbo, some distance from La Morra but well worth the drive from La Morra (preferably by taxi so you can sample the delicious wines). The other, called Guido Ristorante Pollenzo, is located in Pollenzo (www.guidoristorante.it). Piero, the host here, knows a lot about wine (he used to be sommelier in his father’s restaurant) so you are sure of getting very good advice about which wines to choose.

Barbaresco, as well as being probably my favorite red wine, is also a charming village. Visit the Cantina Sociale dei Produttori del Barbaresco and smile when they tell you that unfortunately they have no wine left to sell you. You can usually buy it in a good wine store though. Directly across from the Cantina is a very nice country restaurant, an excellent place to sample perfect carne crudo and some of the best pasta dishes I have ever eaten, the perfect lunchtime treat with a glass of Dolcetto. If the restaurant in the center of Barbaresco is full, which sometimes happens (we never think to reserve, partly because we don’t remember its name, we always just turn up) then the ristorante Vecchio Tre Stelle, a bit outside of town on the Strada Tre Stelle is a good alternative, it's slightly like an American countryhouse inn in style, which is a bit odd in the depths of the Italian countryside but the food is very good. On cold days, there's a cozy fire in the restaurant.

The wines
Barolo is the traditional great wine of Piemonte, made from the nebbiolo grape. Until a few years ago, Barolo was a difficult wine, full of tannin, taking ten+ years to age and become delicous and sometimes much longer, or even never. Then some years ago a few winemakers started to make Barolo a new way, aging the wine in smaller barriques - fine if you want your wine to taste like French wood but not a real Barolo sniff the traditionalists like the late, and great Bartolo Mascarello, the arch-traditionalist, winemaker and intellectual, sitting in his book-lined study to welcome guests when his health no longer permitted hard work in the vineyard or the cantina. Bartolo Mascarello died in 2005 but his daughter Maria Teresa carries on her father’s tradition. The Cantina Mascarello Bartolo is on the via Roma in Barolo and Maria Teresa is happy to welcome guests.

Enzo Boglietti in La Morra (www.enzoboglietti.com) makes fantastic Barolos in the newer style, but he also makes great Dolcetto d'Alba and Barbera wines, both considerably cheaper than Barolo, and both made to be drunk relatively young (although if you forget them in your wine cellar for five or more years they will still be good). Enzo Boglietti seems to live in a happy muddle with loads of children, his wife, the dog, and he has a dreamy air, seeming almost like a hippie, but he is a genius, a creator of great wines. And unlike some other Piemontese wine geniuses (Angelo Gaja for one – just try ringing his door bell and wait to be laughed at) Enzo Boglietti always seems happy to chat with visitors and sell them a few bottles or a few dozen. Barbera used to be a joke, the Piemonte wine that no-one would drink but thanks to some younger growers like Boglietti it now has a deservedly high reputation.

Another wine grower we always visit is Pecchenino in Dogliani (www.langhe.net/pecchenino). The Pecchenino brothers are always happy to talk, their Dolcetto (now known as Dolcetto di Dogliani rather than d’Alba as it used to be) is great, and also a great buy, and they also make a good Barbera as well as some other wines including a couple of whites, which some people like (personally I don’t think Piemonte is a white wine region although an Arneis from Bruno Giacosa in Neive (www.brunogiacosa.it) is fairly drinkable and lots of people like it a lot).

We also visited and bought wines from Mauro Veglio in La Morra (www.mauroveglio.com).

Barbaresco is made from the Nebbiolo grape, that same grape that produces Barolo but the taste is not the same; the difference has been likened to the difference between Bach (Barolo) and Beethoven (Barbaresco). The Nebbiolo grapes used to produce Barbaresco are grown in the area around the small towns of Barbaresco and Neive while Barolo of course is grown in and near Barolo. Bruno Rocca in Barbaresco is one producer we like, while on a good year Giuseppe Cortese, slightly out of town on the strada Rabaja produces amazing wines. This year for the first time we visited Azienda Agricola Fontanabianca in Neive. There’s a little bit of guesswork in tasting a wine mid-morning that needs several years to develop its best taste but we liked what we tasted enough to buy a couple of cases.

So how did we choose which growers to visit? It helps if you have an Italian friend, as we do, who is passionate about wine and keen to talk to the growers, or if you speak at least some Italian (most Italians are very kind, and forgiving of foreigners like me attempting to murder their language). A big help is an Italian wine guide called Gambero Rosso, sometimes referred to as the Italian wine Bible, a large tome which classifies Italian wines (I never counted but apparently more than 14,000 are listed). Tre Bicchieri (three wine glasses) from the Gambero Rosso means a very good wine and two glasses is not at all bad either. The Gambero Rosso lists addresses and phone numbers of vineyards so you can call to make an appointment, which is usually wiser than just turning up. If you don’t feel up to visiting the wine growers and talking to them, then there are excellent wine shops for instance in La Morra and Alba.

After three or four days, it’s probably time to load your car with all the good things you bought and go home. Every year, we talk about making time to go hiking in the hills, or maybe visiting a couple of churches, or even stopping over for a night or two in Torino, but somehow we end up doing the total, intensive food and wine experience and nothing else. E basta, as my Italian friends might say.