Piemonte Italy - Barolo wine country

So I've had very limited internet access for the past few days, and in Piemonte had none....here's some catch up!

After the second race in Cesana, we went out to a wine bar in Sansicario, where the owner shared with us a special bottle he'd been given as a Christmas present! Amazing...and it was only the hint of what was to come.

The next day, we drove out of the mountains, seeing a dogsled on the way. Right by the highway!


This building got taken out by a snowplow, or that's our guess:


After the two race days of snow, of course it was sunny and beautiful. So sunny my first picture came out like this:


Tried again:


On this peak, you can kind of see the old bunkers where they shelled France during WWII...


After passing through Cesana at the bottom of the hill, we were greeted with the sight of amazing terracing for the grapes they make "mountain wine" out of. Incredible and a lot of work!


A castle on the horizon:


Closer:


No mafia:


We drove through Turino, and then a half hour south into the Piemonte area. We were staying in the town of Alba, and had plans to spend our two off days wine tasting. From the road, we could see the mountains we'd just left:


Deforestation followed by replanting = trees growing in rows everywhere:


But now we were in wine country.


This cat looked very focused:


We drove up to the town of Barolo, home to Caleb's favorite wine.


And took a group shot (love self timers!).


The restaurant we wanted to go to was closed, so we went on an adventurous drive to find something that was open on a sunday. We finally found an amazing little place, down an alley.


Here's the entrance:


The service was amazing - they even had little table hooks for our purses! The food was even better....it's almost difficult to eat anything now that we're not in Italy...

We went back to Barolo and walked around the tower.




And took lots of pictures of cool buildings.




We made a new friend.


Made me miss my puppy!


The weather was so nice, the views so good.


We happened on a school, and a bunch of 8 year olds were screaming and pointing at something on the ground. They'd dropped a roll of tape, so I gave it back to them - I'm reaching to give it to the nicest seeming boy.


Anyway, more pictures like those, but we need to move on to day 2...with our scheduled winery visits.

First, the next day we had coffee at a little wine house (well, Annie and I had really good coffee, and Caleb had wine of course). He was in awe at the prices...his favorite wine that sells for $200 in the US was only $97 (80 Euro). Only, hah!




Next, we went to the Manzone winery, a family owned business. Mauro Manzone was our tasting host, talking us through about 6 or 7 fabulous wines. My head was going to explode from all the information! (No, not from the wine, I learned quickly that a lightweight like myself needed to not drink all the wine...they had little spittoons for me!) Here we are with Mauro in the cellar.


He is 23 years old, and instead of high school, he went to school to learn about wine, starting at age 14. Amazing! So much to learn.


More winery pics.




We ended up buying several bottles of wine to drink on the trip with dinner. Mmmm. I also got a box as a souvineer. It's beautiful...I'll take a picture someday. :)

After two hours (the fastest ever) we had to pry ourselves away and head to our next appointment at the Cavallotto winery. The Cavallotto family makes wine using more traditional methods.

As much as I loved the Manzone wines, I think we liked the Cavallotto wines better. Guisseppe wouldn't let me take his picture, but here are pictures of Annie loving the smell (she wrote notes like "this is amazing" and "to die for") and caleb and I as well.












We ended up with a couple bottles of Cavallotto...mmmmmm. Sadly, that evening was our last in Italy, and we finished the day with the most amazing pizzas made by an older couple that had been cooking together so long it appeared they spoke via telepathy. I didn't get a picture, but trust me when I say it was amazing.