Below are some notes from our recent trip to the Piedmont area in Italy from June 5-14, 2004.

After a long journey through Newark we finally arrived in Milan to spend a day and night before leaving for the Piedmont area. We stayed at the Four Seasons in Milan and I have nothing much to say other than it was a fantastic hotel in a great area of the city. Milan is a shopper’s paradise and I was fully ready to wreak havoc. Unfortunately we were there on a Sunday and very little was open in way of stores and restaurants. Fortunately we knew we would be back at the end of the week.

Off the next morning via train to Tortona where Claudio, our tour guide, was to pick us up to start our tour. The only people on the tour were Mr. Winetex, myself and a friend of ours so the tour was going to be very personalized. After an awesome welcome lunch we went to the Andrea Oberto and Cordero di Montezemolo Wineries. Tastings at these wineries were one-on-one with the owners and/or winemakers so they took quite a bit of time. The tastings included in-depth detail about the wineries.

Over the course of the week we visited some nice castles, a cheese and sausage factory, went truffle-hunting with a professional truffle hunter and his dogs and had a cooking lesson with professional chefs.

During this time we stayed a few days in Alba and then moved to a country estate, Cascina Orsolina , outside of Asti in an area called Conclave. It appears that this estate is affiliated with a restaurant in NYC. Our room was the one in the left side photo. Very nice!

My thoughts on the wines we tasted and drank during dinners
These wines including Dolcettos, Barberas, Barbarescos, and Barolos taste dramatically better in Italy. I wonder about what transport does to these wines because before this trip I had few wines from this region that I thought were really good.

I really liked the Barbarescos and Barolos – from what the winemakers were saying they are able to make much higher quality wines with modern winemaking equipment than in the past. However, don’t expect much from the region in 2002 because they had a large hailstorm that devastated many of the vineyards on the higher slopes. Where they were able to harvest the yields were very poor and the production extremely low.

The winemakers were very knowledgeable and honest when asked some questions. Some of the wines tasted a bit alcoholic yet clearly on the label it would say 13 or 14%. As they said with a wink they were using their latitude of +/-1% at will. In my tasting notes where I stated the alcohol content it is what the winemaker told me, not what was on the bottle. Usually this figure was higher up to 1%. The winemakers were also honest when asked when they felt a bottle would be at full maturity. This varied among the wines but in general they felt the Barolos need at least 5-7 years post vintage and preferably 10. The other wines varied based on quality. They said some of the better Barberas (single vineyard, superiore) should be held 3-8 years post vintage or even longer.

One last thing on the wine - we tasted and drank wine from good stemware in every winery and restaurant. They used all name brand stemware including Riedels, Spieglaus, etc. What a difference it made. And that was in EVERY winery and EVERY restaurant.

The food
Oh wow is all I can say. This is the region of the filled pastas, risottos, polenta, truffles and tons of meat. Their cheeses were exceptional and every city made their own cheese and meats. They also used lots of fresh vegetables in innovative ways. Our cooking lesson was fun as it is a plus anytime you can observe good chefs’ techniques up close and personal. Gelato is the other thing that the Italians are obsessed with and rightfully so. It's so good it's sinful but luckily so rich it's difficult to eat a lot of it.

The only negative of our trip was the intense heat. The temps were up to 95 degrees in an early season heat wave. There was nothing enjoyable about it. One of our hotels was barely air-conditioned and the other was in the country and didn’t need it. At least it was cool in all of the wine cellars so at one point I keep asking the winemaker questions so we could stay down in the cellar.

The Winetexs are now the owners of some very good Barolos and Barbarescos. Piedmont is a lovely area of Italy to visit. The wines and food were magnificent. I recommend having a guide in this region to help out with translation and most importantly, the driving. Our tour was arranged throughLa Dolce Vita Wine Tours. They were an excellent company to deal with for all of the tour arrangements and they do run trips to other regions in Italy.

It was a great vacation!

Winery Notes
Sottimano

Cordero di Montezemolo

Conterno Fantino

Cascina Ballarin

M. Marengo

Andrea Oberto

Pecchenino

Matteo-Corregia

Braida

Lots of boring photos atPiedmont, Italy Photos If you need to sign in use "Photosvinocellar" as the user id and "vinocellar" as the password.