For the third time Piet joined his friends of the
infamous wine tasting society “Het Derde Glas” on their annual trip, with
Piemonte in northwestern Italy as destination. Logistically this was a bit
more complicated than northern France due to the distance, so the group was split in two: Paul (with
his rather large company car) and Frits drove down, while Jochem, Sybren and
Piet flew to Milan and picked up a rental car. They got to the scenic town of
Neive to set up base camp for the next 2 days in an Agriturismo, and then settled
down outside, at a restaurant for dinner. The weather was perfect, and the
first Piemontese wines were tasted. The support vehicle arrived in time for
starters, and we got the first lessons about Nebbiolo and Barbera (which are
grapes) and Barolo and Barbaresco (that are high quality wines, made of
Nebbiolo grapes).
The next morning we started our sampling program at the Tenuto Langasco
winery. The owner just spoke Italian, and we managed to visit his cellars and
taste a few of his wines before we discovered a common language: French. From that
moment the conversation improved a lot! Next stop was Marchiese Alfieri, where
we were received by an English speaking hostess in a beautiful hilltop castle.
A professional tasting was set up, and followed by a tour around the impressive
property. As we were running way behind schedule we needed a quick lunch, and
were guided to Portocamero, where the ancestors of the new Argentinean pope
originate from. His portrait was prominent in the square, where we sat down for
an interesting lunch of microwave heated, tinned ravioli. At least it provided
a solid lining for the afternoon....
Cantina Sant’ Agatha was just a
few kilometres down the road, and luckily the lady of the house was Austrian,
so we could discuss oak barrels in quite some detail in both English and
German. The last winery of the day was Villa Giada, where the owner impressed
us with his English, until his mobile rang. He answered “pronto mamma”, and
then we knew who was pulling the strings. Mamma spoke even better English,
after a year in the States (probably in the 50-ies). They opened all their
wines, and we left with the largest purchase of the trip, including wine
made of "Gamba di Pernice (foot of the partridge)” grapes. Keeping our sanity throughout the day
was managed by spitting out most of the wine, many “sputacchiere” were filled!
Back in Neive it was straight on to dinner, in Luna nel Pozzo, the only other
restaurant in town. The atmosphere was out-of-season dead, the waiter looked like a
retired mobster, but the food (and company!) was very good.
The village of Neive, seen from the Agriturismo
View from Tenuto Langasco winery
Neive at sunset
In the morning it was full on
again, with a quick stop at Barbaresco village, where the main winery Gaja does not receive visitors, as they are just too well off. Despite our in-depth navigation preparations (Google Earth, Google
Streetview, a TomTom, a GPS and regular maps) we were defeated by the Italian
address system. Ca del Baio was in the correct village, but somewhere
completely different. The next winery, Guido Porro, was even in an entirely
different town. And the Italians had some issues with our pronunciation of
“Porro”, which made asking for directions interesting (“aahh Porrrro”). Guido
was pulled out of the field by his wife, and they turned out to be another
Italian-only hand-and-feet communication job, but we managed to taste and buy.
Lunch was in Guido’s town Serralungo, on an outside terrace overlooking the
hills, where every available square meters was planted with grapevines. After
lunch we visited Ruggeri Corsini; here the owner had to drag his ill wife out
of bed, as he was too busy planting young vines. Despite her illness the lady
had a lot of energy, and we probably would have spend a whole day being
lectured if she had been at full health. The last address turned out to be quite efficient, and also had very good and expensive Barolo’s on offer. By that time
the car’s suspension (and our budgets?) were under strain, and we checked in to
an Agriturismo, in La Morra. This was a brand new building, obviously renovated
with great effort, but little common sense. They had lots of dust-gathering
knick-knacks in the rooms and a small elevator as only access to the first
floor. We went for dinner in Bovio, an upmarket restaurant with many well
dressed foreigners ordering large bottles of expensive wine, so we fitted right
in! The food was excellent, and after a refreshing walk back it was time for
bed. Four of us entered the lift, that made some movement and noise, and when
the doors opened a minute later we were still on the ground floor. After this the lift did not move anymore, and probably the fact that the owner indicated a
three persons maximum had something to do with this. In the end we had to enter the first floor through two of the guest rooms, and the emergency exit. The next morning the lift
load was reduced to two people only!
The centre of Barbaresco village
Ready for another wine tasting, at Ca del Baio
View from Guido Porro's house
La Morra village, in the centre of the Barolo area
The weather had completely
turned around; it was cold with a slight drizzle, after 2 days of sunshine and
shorts. The cars parted ways; Paul and Frits drove back to The Netherlands with
all the treasure and Piet, Jochem and Sybren went to Milan, whilst the drizzle
turned into pouring rain, which didn’t stop for the rest of the day. For some
reason Milan has two airports, Malpensa (Sybren’s departure) and Linate (Jochem
and Piet). Milan’s town centre is right in the middle of the two, so the opportunity was
used to visit the Piazza del Duomo, with
the famous white cathedral. The real end of the trip will
only be in a few weeks time, when the bottles have been divided, and a first
Barolo tasting has taken place. And most expedition members are running out of
Champagne, so there might be another trip on the horizon this year....
Milan, the Piazza del Duomo in the pouring rain
