The sun rises quite late here at the moment, around 7.45am, and the fog (nebbia) doesn’t lift until around 10.30am. So there is no need to rush the start of the day.
After we enjoyed our late breakfast here this morning, we headed towards Alba, taking a detour to the small village of Treiso. While it is quite cute, it is not a patch on the villages we have stayed in so far. Apparently artists and painters come here to be inspired by the scenery.
However, there were two surprising things that we discovered about Trieso while we were there.
This is a model, I think, representing and asteroid (13494) that was discovered in 1985 and named after the village. There is not much information about it on the plaque or on the internet, but it is the first time we’d ever seen anything like that before.
Then there was this bust, which Mick said closely resembled the waiter we had serve our lunch yesterday, which in fact represented Publius Helvius Pertinax. Does his name ring a bell? – not with us either. He was born very near here in 126AD, the son of a freed slave timber merchant, and went on to become the Roman Emperor. The notes about him said that despite him being much loved, he was killed by some Pretorian guards when he was 66 years old. Luckily he was so loved!
Our visit here was quite short; we continued on to Alba – a much bigger place with a population of more than 30,000. This is the town that is famous for wines, but especially Barbera d’Alba, and of course for white truffles. It holds an annual White Truffle Fair, around this time of the year, but not today thank goodness or we wouldn’t have found a park.
I had suggested to Mick that we should have a go at putting some petrol in our hire car as a practice for tomorrow; we must return the car to Turin Airport by 11.30am with a full fuel tank. We were both glad that we did as we were fumbling at the pump and trying to translate the instructions with limited success until the man in the office came out and explained how to work it. So, tomorrow when we have to top it up – we should have no troubles.
Anyway, Alba was much prettier than I had imagined. There were lots of banners in the streets, probably to do with the Truffle Fair.
We wandered along the streets in search of a winery I wanted to visit – Pio Cesare – but we never found it. I am sure we have had a wine from there during our time in Italy and I just liked the name. On our search though, we passed a clothing shop that was having a huge sale and we both left with a ‘little something’ from here to remember our stay. Mick will model his tomorrow.
But of course, we needed to try some local wines. There are almost 300 wineries here that cultivate an area of 700 hectares of land. Not to be sneezed at!
The young woman working in this shop heard us talking and came out to chat with us – she could speak perfect English which is always helpful. We both tasted some of the wines here, including a Pinot Noir – something rare here, but we left with a bottle of the 2020 Barbera d’Alba Superiore. Mick really liked the Barbaresco wines here as well, but I had to remind him that we are heading to France tomorrow and that it was probably not a good idea.
I had read that the confectionary group Ferrero is based here, but must admit we did not see any of its products on display. The products people were interested in selling were wines, truffle-flavoured products, beautiful glass containers for storing and displaying truffles, expensive shaving devices for truffles (etc. etc.), and hazelnuts.
These trees were used to separate two outside dining areas for different restaurants in Alba.
I would love the middle one!
We decided on skipping lunch today – our breakfasts are late and larger than we would normally eat, and instead to save ourselves for something at one of the local restaurants in Barbaresco. Of course, there were still some wines to be tasted.
As it turned out, there were very few people out tonight. In fact, we were the only ones. Mick had booked Barbaresco out for us. He is so sentimental!!!!
We only had one glass of wine here – they were closing in 30 minutes. Not that we wanted any more – it was quite ordinary.
We then returned to our favourite stop – Nonsolovino – the people working here have been so nice to us over the last three days. Mick had decided he wanted to buy a 2016 Barolo to take home to Australia, but before that we had a couple of glasses of wine, plus a cheese and meat platter.
While we were there Mick spotted a young woman who had just her lips enlarged. He thought he could impersonate her.
Tomorrow we need to be up earlier and on the road by around 9am. We have a big day ahead of us. Our final destination is Annecy, France at around 7pm.
We have really loved our time (almost 2 weeks) in the Piedmont region, and we both have learnt a lot about the wines from this area, which was the purpose of our trip. We feel that we “lucked in” with the locations where we based ourselves for our time here.
Mick’s overall, and simplistic conclusion, about the red wines from here – Barolo and Barbareso and Nebbiolo – all made from the same grapes – Nebbiolo – his favourite though is the straight Nebbiolo wine.
But, his opinion might change, it has before, perhaps with some more tastings another time when he is not suffering from a chest infection
I liked them all, but my favourite was Barbera d’Alba.
Jane and Mick's Holiday Adventures 