Piedmont
The Langhe hills disappear into morning fog, and the perfume of Nebbiolo in autumn cellars is something you carry with you long after you leave. Piedmont is where Italy's greatest red wines — Barolo, Barbaresco, and the underappreciated depth of Barbera — meet what may be the country's most extraordinary food culture. Our relationships span fifth-generation estates in La Morra and Serralunga, family domaines in Barbaresco that rarely open their doors, and younger producers pushing Nebbiolo into exciting new territory. Between vineyard visits, experience truffle hunting with trained dogs in Alba's oak forests, Michelin-starred kitchens where tajarin and agnolotti are treated as sacred traditions, hazelnut groves that supply the world's finest gianduja, and the understated baroque elegance of Turin. Wine provides access to Italy's most profound culinary region.
CULINARY ARTS
Hunting white truffles with trained dogs through Alba's oak forests during the legendary autumn fair, learning to roll tajarin by hand with Piedmontese grandmothers who measure nothing and remember everything, hazelnut groves where the nuts are roasted and ground into gianduja while you watch, agnolotti del plin pinched closed the way it's been done in these hills for centuries, Turin's historic chocolate houses where bicerin was invented and gianduja perfected, descending into ancient caves where wheels of Castelmagno age in silence at two thousand meters.
CULTURE & LEISURE
Wandering Turin's baroque palaces where the Savoy dynasty shaped modern Italy, private access to the Egyptian Museum's collection — the largest outside Cairo, the royal hunting lodges scattered through the hills where kings once retreated after autumn hunts, floating above the Langhe vineyards at sunrise in a hot air balloon as the fog lifts from the valleys below, soaking in Acqui Terme's thermal waters fed by the same ancient springs the Romans discovered, hiking the UNESCO vineyard trails that connect hilltop villages across the Langhe, or timing your visit to the Asti Palio — Italy's oldest bareback horse race thundering through medieval streets since the thirteenth century.
ARTISAN TRADITIONS
Watching coopers shape Barolo barrels from Slavonian oak in workshops where the scent of toasted wood fills the air, visiting historic textile ateliers in Biella where some of the world's finest fabrics have been woven since the Middle Ages, traditional grissini pulled and twisted by hand the way Turin bakers have done since the seventeenth century for the royal court, Langhe ceramicists working local clay into pieces that reflect the curves of the hills outside their windows, hand-forged copper cookware still hammered in small Piedmontese workshops the way it was before stainless steel existed.