Piemonte Wine & Truffle Festival Tour

Our first Piemonte tour ran from October 17 - 24 2017. We were blessed with beautiful warm days and cool nights with only a couple of foggy days which are the norm for the area through fall and winter. This tour was our first collaboration with Laura and Raffaele Chiusano of Sempre Italiano. We started out the tour with the trip from Torino to Costigliole d’Asti where we were based in a lovely Agriturismo. The next day we visited Barbaresco to taste some excellent wines of the area and where we also climbed the tower to look on wonderful views of the surrounding vineyards. After a magnificent lunch with white alba truffles as the main event in Santo Sefano Belbo we stopped to taste some lovely sparkling wines of the area returning to the agriturismo for dinner and relaxing.

The next day was full of activity with a truffle hunt, a distillery visit to taste some grappa, a cooking lesson and dinner at our favorite family run winery Boeri Vini plus some fantastic wine paired for us with our dinner. The next day was a trip to Barolo and Serralunga d’Alba for wine tastings, a lunch at Fontanafredda and a visit to Castello di Serralunga d’Alba. The next day was the Truffle Festival in Alba. The festival draws people from all over the world for the famous White truffle of Alba. Besides truffles there a stalls set up all over town selling everything you could ever want so it is always a fun day to learn about the truffles and also shop for treasures. On our way back to Costigliole we made a stop at the charming village of Neive.

We left Costigliole to return to Torino for the last 2 days of the tour. Torino is a fascinating city full of sites and experiences to see and do. Our last day began with a walk through the Porto Palazzo Market, the largest open air market in Europe. We then explored the Royal Palace, the Car Museum, and The Egyptian museum with the largest exhibit outside of Egypt. We all met up for a pizza lunch before more exploring and shopping with a nice cocktail in the piazza pre-dinner. Our last meal was an extravaganza at the Ristorante Solferino. It was fabulous! Marcia and I could not have asked for a more delightful group of people and are grateful to everyone for making this tour so much fun! Thank you to Edward, Kathy, Oscar, Anne, Jane, Adam, Steve, Patti, Chris, Amy, Linda, Gary, Brad, and last but not least, Laura and Raff.