12 Reasons to Visit the Langhe Wine Region in Piemonte, Italy

Most of the times the snow is queen by this time of the year. A padded fog hides the outline of the world that surrounds us. But in the house the fireplace is on, fragrances of apple pie or strudel come from the kitchen: it's lovely to get back in your room after a long walk in the snow, or even after a ride between the white and still landscapes.

Sometimes the sun let us feel its nice warm and unexpected appearance. So nothing better than taking paintbrushes and watercolors and trying to fix on canvas or paper the promise of the next waking of nature still hiding underneath a romantic winter landscape.

To come back all together and tell each other, in front of the fireplace, how our day has been, sipping on a nice cup of tea and with a good book on the night table.

Nature is finally awakening! And it announces it greatly with an explosion of flowers, colors and smells that strikes us between the peach, apricots, cherries and pear trees that spread themselves endlessly from Magliano to Priocca, from Castellinaldo to Castagnito up to Canale. And to keep track of this, we also awaken our body and our soul with invigorating massages, beauty treatments, and homeopathic medicine always available by this time of the year.

"WINEderful" time!!!! Days become longer; the sun starts to heat the earth that thanks generously showing a wide range of greens of all shades. Time has come to taste the new wine, maybe walking through age-old paths that develop themselves on the fertile hills of Langhe and Roero; you can reach the ancient cellars keeping the nectar that has slept all winter in precious barrels. It's a good time to come visit us... oh if it is!

Colours get upper hand of us and escort us all day long, either if we lose ourselves on the little roads that lead us to Alba flanking the river Tanaro and following the smooth bends dominated by the precious tower of Barbaresco, either if we climb on the Roero pathways up to the hills of Magliano, Priocca and Castellinaldo inebriated by the perfume of the blooming acacias. And so, from the high hills, we can look at the endless meadows of first-crop hay that here gets harvested even five times a year.

Now gold takes the place of the color green: you get the desire of running into the many corn crops that are the queens of the valley. By this time of the year the country is a continuous swarm of peasants at work and the bucolic scenes take place one after the other in front of your eyes: the reaping comes punctually like a ritual even if it's not the sickle to work on it anymore, now enormous harvesters change the fields in sunburnt stubbles coming forward like royal grasshoppers.

Nights become warm and crispy and invite you to experience the evenings, so, nothing better than to attend the music festivals that by this time of the year tour around in hamlets like Dogliani, Piozzo, Monforte, Roddino, Serralunga, and Bene Vagienna. It's true: the heat of the daytime is oppressive, but the house, with its old and sincere walls, protects us from the sultriness and almost invites us to take a midday nap really useful after a night full of music and flavors.

The country fairs spread themselves from hill to hill: the "Festival Pavese" of Santo Stefano Belbo is an appointment with music and theatre, the hazelnut fair of Cortemilia is a marketplace of the well known "round and gentle" quality of the Langhe, at the fair of Murazzano you can taste the d.o.p. cheese named after the town, the "Mangialonga" is an enology-gastronomic walk in La Morra. This month, every small town between Langhe and Roero celebrates the summer with appointments in the piazza ( central squares), cultural events and fireworks: no evening passes by without showing these colorful explosions somewhere above the nearby hills!

Here comes one of the events not to miss: the biannual appointment with "CHEESE", the big cheese show that takes place every other year in Bra, the birth town of the Slow Food association. But, don't worry! In the even years, when this festival doesn't take place, Bra always offers very interesting specialties like its worldwide famous sausage and its unique and different cheeses like the "BRACIUK" that pickles in the dregs of pressed Nebbiolo grapes…

The most important month for the region: the grape harvest is at its apex and dyes cellars red. Vineyards, now naked, get dressed with the most fascinating colors like purple reds and rusty yellows: a triumph for the palette of any painter, beginner or expert. And then, the National Truffle Fair introduces the first precious fruits of this generous earth filling the narrow streets of Alba with their delicious fragrance so intense to be almost unbearable. The "Palio degli Asini" (donkey race) with the traditional competition of the boroughs, the historical parades and the events in the central square, comes after the more noble September Palio of Asti. Alba, quiet town for the rests of the year, become a crossroad for people from all over the world inviting everybody to learn the culture of good drinking and well eating.

The month of the king: the truffle appears in all its shapes on the tables of the high-quality restaurants of the area and expresses itself at its best at the height of its ripeness. This is the perfect timing to taste the truffle, maybe followed by an important wine like Barolo and Barbaresco. In the mornings the barking of the many "trifolau" dogs echoes in the fog, they get started in the first hours of the day on the usually successful search for the precious "Tuber Magnatum Pico": the absolute power of our tables. This is the best time of the year to bring with us a bit of that perfume on the way home…

Freeze surrounds us, but the warm fireplace waits for us when we come back home together with the cordiality of the other guests that get together around the table enriched for the Christmas Holidays. You feel home right away and the words of the gathering describe snowy and still landscapes where the only movement comes from the smoke of the chimneys and "putagè", the cheap stove that still resists from the family tradition of the place: it's nice to choose to live the holidays in company of a numerous group of friends all together in the same warm and cozy house.