International Course on Piedmontese Wines

This week I left my boyfriend, dog and lavenderfarm alone for a few days to follow a very interesting course on Piedmontese wines at the Slow Food University (Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche) in Pollenzo.

I didn't make it through the selection, because this was a course for wine experts and people in the wine business, and well, ... you can say a lot about me but not that I know something about wines. But I thought it could be interesting as a lot of our guests want to visit wineries and come to this region, not only for its natural beauties, but also because of the great wines.

Sunday, when the course started, I heard about someone cancelling, packed my bags, and was just in time to enjoy the first diner of the course.

During this week I learned a lot about the history of Piedmontese wine-production, we tasted a lot of Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera, Moscato d'Asti ...

There were some interested visits to wineries in Dogliani, Barolo and Barbaresco.

It was a great week, with superb wines, interesting people ...

And I must say, I was very impressed how well this course was organised.

For me, it was a unique experience even if I'm not a real "wine person" and I hope my guests will also benefit from what I learned in this course.

Visiting wineries

Piemonte = wine !

It's very simple, when you live in Piemonte you drink wine, you talk about wine and most people also have a vineyard for their own table wine.

It's only logical that we visit the wineries in our neighboorhood, to look for possibilities to work together for our guests.

Yesterday we really found a little hidden gem. In the hills above Montechiaro d'Acqui, there is a natural winemaker with only 20 000 square metres of vineyard, but with a passion for it that I can't discribe, you have to see him. He's 80, but seems a lot younger, always smiling and telling stories about wines but also about the book he wrote (about his experiences in the resistance in WWII).

This wine farm existed when Napoleon (in 1797) passed here and it was always the same family.

With his daughter in law we made plans for pizza and wine evenings, degustations ...

I'm sure it will be great working with them !