We started our tour of
Piedmont (Piedmonte) at Serralunga d' Alba, province of Cuneo, Italy. The castle, around which the town stands, dates back to 1357, after its founder Pietrino Falleto was granted a fiefdom in 1340 from the marquises of Saluzzo. Cuneo is in Piedmont, which lies in the foothills of the Alps with its borders with France and Switzerland, and is famous for its fine Barolos.
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| The steep road up into town. |
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| Towering walls |
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| Castle ramparts |
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| View of church tower from castle ramparts. |
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| The exclusive villages of Barolo. |
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| Halfway up the hill from Baudana to Serralunga d'Alba. |
We stayed at
Antico Podere Tota Virginia in the town of Baudana, down the road from Serralunga d'Alba.
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| East facing front of Antico Podere Tota Virginia - our hotel. |
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| West facing breakfast table at hotel. Town of Castiglione Falleto is on the opposite hill. |
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| Wines at first night's dinner at hotel. We had earlier enjoyed a Giacosa Extra Brut Spumante magnum before dinner. |
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| Ricardo Baltrocco, the boss and our breakfast OMO at Tota Virginia. |
We had dinner on second day at
Cascina Schiavenza, perched on top of Serralunga d'Alba's lower battlements.
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| Schiavenza...in the first lights of the morning after. |
Ristorante Bovio, La Morra, another hill side restaurant further up the hill from Renato Ratti, was where we had our farewell-to-Piedmont dinner, before departing the next morning for Bolgheri.
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| Bovio....spectacular views while sipping spumante ....! |
Both had great food and commanding views of their surrounding countryside!
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| Italy with Piedmont at the north-east, and Tuscany slightly further south. |
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| Piedmont and its wine regions |
The Barolo wine makers we visited in Piedmont:
Luciano Sandrone has vineyards in Barolo, Castiglione Falleto, Monforte d'Alba, Novello, Serralunga d'Alba and Vezza d'Alba.
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| Luciano Sandrone, the owner of Azienda Agricola Luciano Sandrone - hosting us to lunch. He is the best and most gracious host we had pleasure to meet in the whole tour. Under his hand is the notebook for his autograph. |
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| Traditional thin-sliced roast veal with chilled tuna sauce & Russian salad, accompanied by Dolchetto d'Alba 2011. |
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| Traditional stuffed ravoili accompanied by Nebbiolo d'Alba Valmaggiore 2010. |
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| Liver pate in caramelized onion sauce accompanied by Barbera d'Alba 2011. |
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| Luciano's first vineyards at Cannubi Boschis. The Barolo Cannubi Boschis is the flagship wine that earned Luciano his early success - getting 100 points from Robert Parker. |
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| Luca Sandrone (with arm in plaster cast) showing how he selects the grapes for wine in the Nebboilo vineyards in Valmaggiore, Roero. Because its outside Barolo, the wines made here are called Nebbiolo d'Alba. |
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| Sandrone reserve wines (past years' vintages) - not for sale. They reserve these older vintages for their special restaurant customers who will need older vintages to compliment their food offerings. |
Aldo Conterno (who passed away in 2012) was dubbed as "King of Barolo" in Italy. Poderi Aldo Conterno is situated in Montefort d'Alba where its prized Bussia Soprano vineyards are located.
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| Poderi Aldo Conterno at Montefort d'Alba. |
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| Giacomo Conterno, co-owner of Poderi Aldo Conterno showing us around the cellars.. |
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| The wines of Aldo Conterno we tasted with Giacomo. Gran Bussia is the top label. |
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| Giacomo Conterno at wine tasting. |
Bruno Giacosa is one of our top favourite Barolos. Well-rated vineyards Falleto in Barolo and Asili & Rabaja in Barbaresco. We visited its cantina in nearby village of Neive.
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| Bruno Giacosa's Azienda Agricola Falleto winery. |
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| Winemaker Francesco talks about the weather affecting this wine we were tasting. |
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| The wines of Bruno Giacosa. The RED label Barolo and Barbaresco are their flagship wines. |
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| Francesco showing us the malolactic tanks. |
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| Francesco explaining Giacosa's cellaring philosophy. |
Tenuta Cavallotto started out as a producer of grapes to other winemakers. Due to an unexpected disruption to its distribution routes many years ago, the family started making its own wines and achieved great success. This was told to us by Alan Manley.
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| Guiseppe Cavallottto, co-owner of Tenuta Cavallotto, with Alan Manley. Rare photo of Guiseppe as he does not appreciate having his picture taken. |
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| The "bowl" in the south-east facing valley that's growing the San Guiseppe Riserva vines. Alan explained that the "bowl" helps to moderate the temperatures both in summer and winter. |
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| Rare concrete tanks. |
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| Wines we tasted. Their Riserva San Guiseppe is their top wine, and Guiseppe was very gracious to open for us a bottle of the 2004 vintage from his private cellar! |
Azienda Agriole Azelia, started by Lorenzo Scavino in 1920s - present owner Luigi, has 16 hectares in Barolo, and produces 80,000 bottles per year on average.
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| The wines of Azelia. Its located in heart of the Langhe region in Castiglione Falleto. |
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| Lorenzo Scavino (son of owner Luigi) our host at tasting. |
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| Lorenzo explaining the winery's vinification process. |
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| Cellars |
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| Reserved wines cellars - Not for sale. |
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| Azelia vines located next to Tota Virginia. The grapes goes into their signature Barolo San Rocco. |
Renato Ratti produces around 150,000 bottles from its 100 acres of vineyards. We were taken through an extensive tour including its tanks, processes and cellars, by Livio, a member of their experienced winemaker team. It's located in La Morra.
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| Impressive reception of Renato Ratti. |
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| Livio our guide providing insights to their wines at the tastings. |
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| The Barolos - with the Marcenasco as their top label. |
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| Wines we tasted at Renoto Ratti. |
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| 2004 is a very good year for Barolos. |
After covering the above 6 winemakers and spending 3 nights in Piedmont, we headed out to
Tuscany (Toscana). The first town we stayed over was Bibbona, province of Livorno, Tuscany.
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| Tuscany and its wine regions |
It's an ancient town and the hotel we spent the night in was equally old, the
La Laconda di Villa Toscana Hotel. When we arrived at the door, there was a note pinned to it. We had to call a number and wait for the manager to deliver the keys, and then he leaves the whole building to us till next morning!
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| Our hotel in Bibbona, province of Livorno. |
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| My room without lights (before sun sets). Sleeping alone is this 'ancient' room was something I would not instinctively undertake to do! |
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| Ricardo the manager, who brought us the keys to Villa Toscana. |
In the morning there was a power disruption and the water pump stopped. Some of us had to use the bottled water provided in the rooms for washing off the soap! The trip was soon rectified - otherwise we would not have any hot breakfast!
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| Same room with all the lights turned on! |
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| Steep stone stairs with very narrow steps. Residents in the old days must have smaller shoes! |
The second night in Tuscany was spent in
Antico Borgo San Lorenzo in the vicinity of the historic town of Ponggibonsi. San Gimignano, the ancient and very touristy Etruscan town is a "stone's throw away" - where the movie Twilight was filmed.
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| Entrance to San Lorenzo farmhouse residence. |
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| The buildings were built up from the frame of a 800 year old church - see old walls below. |
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| Steps leading to door of our apartment with 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms & a kitchen. |
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| Our room windows! Not much to see outside in the old days! |
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| Al fresco dining in the courtyard. |
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| Wines of the evening - brunello, super tuscan, chianti.... |
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| Two T-bone steaks. |
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| Vin Santo |
The Tuscan wine makers we visited:
San Giusto a Rentannano stands on an old monastery established in 1136. Its name is of
Etruscan origin. It's walls were largely destroyed when Siena attacked the Florentine battlements in the 1390s, and has been re-built. The current owners are the Cignale family. One of their signature wines are the Vin Santo which are only produced in exceptional years - last vintage in early 2000s.
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| San Guisto front driveway to office & cellars. |
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| Bettina (Mrs Cignale) our gracious host pointing to Montalcino (of Brunello fame) - on the hill to the right about 60km away. |
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| Wine barrels in underground cellars. |
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| Reserved bottles - Not for sale. |
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| The deepest cellars with now-blocked escape tunnel. They used to keep some wines in there but no longer do so because their labels got destroyed by the excessive humidity. |
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| Bettina bringing us through their wines at the tastings. |
San Guisto is located in Gaiole in Chianti, Province of Siena, which is the start of the 190 km annual road bicycle race to the Piazza del Campo in Siena - the
Strade Bianche.
Tenuta San Guido produces the famous Super Tuscan wine
Sassicaia. It is located in
Bolgheri, Province of Livorno. Our guide Nicola hosted us in a new designer steel-structured cellar and reception building. Unfortunately we did not get to see its vineyards or its processing / malolactic tanks and which we were told were in separate buildings.
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| The signature wines we tasted - Sassicaia being the top premium Super Tuscan, and La Difese at entry level. |
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| Modern cellar of glass and steel. Only 2 most recent vintages are barreled here. |
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| Nicola our guide speaking passionately about Sassicaia and its wines. |
Tenuta San Guido is named after San Guido della Gherardesca who lived in 13th Century. Its owner Marchese Mario Incisa della Rochetta (died in 1983) was married to Clarice della Gherardesca. Interestingly, Mario's cousin Antinori (of Ornellaia fame, and another also of Tignanello fame) was married to Clarice's older sister, Carlotta. So its all in the family!
Fonterutoli was interesting. It's located in the province of Siena. We had to pay five euros for 4 sips of their wines in their enoteca, which were on tap. We were late for our appointment and so presumedly, had missed the appointed time for the tour of their vineyards and processing tanks.
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| The winery's enoteca. Their top labels are the Siepi, a super tuscan, and the Chianti Classico, Castello Fonterutoli. |
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| The bar which dispenses the wine after payment. |
To sum up, the only exclusively Super Tuscan winemaker we covered was Sassicaia.
In addition to the winemakers, vineyards, and towns we stayed in, we also visited the following towns for meals:
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| Gate into Bolgheri castle. |
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| Family coat of arms of ancient noble Gherardesca family, who owned the castle since the 1200s. |
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| La Taverna del Pittore, our dinner restaurant within Bolgheri castle. |
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| Renato carving up our second T-bone steak. |
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