Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont

I visited this WHS in July 2019. I spent 4-5 days in a lovely agriturismo in the middle of the rolling hills of the Barolo vineyards in Serralunga d'Alba and used it as my base for basically half of the 6 locations of this WHS (Langa of Barolo, Castle of Grinzane Cavour and Hills of Barbaresco). Going to and from Milan, I spent another 2 day trips covering the other 3 locations of Nizza Monferrato, Canelli and Asti and the Infernot. After covering all the locations in quite some detail, I returned to Barolo for the yearly agri-rock festival/concert (together with the Giro d'Italia, this is something to keep in mind as all of Barolo is closed down and almost impossible to visit just before, during and just after the concert).

I must confess that although this WHS is the home of some of my favourite Italian wines, I was a bit skeptical to allow such a 'long' visit to 'yet another vineyard WHS'. However, now that I visited I can only urge you to try to allow much more time to this beautiful WHS than a mere day or two. First of all, the Langa of Barolo, Castle of Grinzane Cavour and Hills of Barbaresco are on one side, while Nizza Monferrato, Canelli and Asti, and the Infernot are on another and it takes a lot of time to cover them all. Those of you who rely on public transport may want to think twice here as it …

Having arrived in Nizza Monferrato by bus from Alessandria I made my way into the old town to the central square. I had expected yet another of the pretty old towns that you find all over Italy, this one with a bit of wine focus. Instead I found a fairly mundane modern town with some old buildings in between and I was left wondering: Why is this on the list?

Ahead of my visit I had studied the reviews on this site and wasn't expecting much. If even Els can't find many - let alone nice - things to say you know this probably isn't one of the greats. But still, I had expected something and the "old" town of Nizza Monferrato just had very little of anything to show. If this is WHS material, every second town in Italy would deserve the honors.

To get a bit deeper into the vineyards, I decided to hike North West into the hills. As soon as I climbed the hills I got some nice views of the vineyards. The Bricco de Monferrato (picture) itself is a nice photo opportunity. As a practical recommendation, it's worthwhile to take a proper look at the 60MB large site map before visiting. It kind of messes up your data plan when you do that in the hills of Nizza Monferrato looking frantically for OUV and those fabled vineyards.

Frankly, I am hard pressed to make out anything resembling OUV. In a site like St Emilion you …

My favourite place in Italy besides Rome is not Venice, Florence or Tuscany but the relatively obscure wine producing region of Barolo in Piedmont. This seems to run counter to most of the comments here, but Piedmont is the only region that has successfully grown and produced wine from Nebbiolo. 

The scenery is also beautiful and the wine some of the most complex in the world, but most importantly here you can meet some of the most hospitable people who work in the wine trade.

I’m down to 3 in my quest to ‘complete’ Italy: Mt. Etna on Sicily and Su Nuraxi di Barumini on Sardinia are still beckoning. Interesting sites, but a bit too far away for a weekend trip. So (with a little reluctance) I settled for the 3rd remaining WHS: the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont. This is a serial nomination of 6 sites in Northern Italy, situated east and south of Turin. Within this group, I focused on the wine-growing area of Nizza Monferrato.

Nizza Monferrato is the namesake of Nice in the Provence (called Nizza or Nizza Marittima in Italian): both once belonged to Duchy of Savoy and got their suffixes to distinguish between the two. I travelled to the Italian Nizza by a combination of train and bus from Turin. The trip takes about 1.5 hours, and a transfer is needed in Asti. From that point on the flat surroundings of the northern industrial cities are replaced by a landscape of cultivated hills. That’s where the WH area begins.

The bus travels via one or two interesting hillside villages such as Mongiardina. I expected Nizza Monferrato to be something similar, but this is a fairly large town of over 10,000 inhabitants. In the nomination dossier, it is highlighted as the best example of a vilanova: a medieval settlement with a main, arch-lined street and a market square for the sale of local products.

So there I was, in the city center. But what’s to see? I had …

I spent some time touring Asti, Alba and Nizza Manfrotto in Piedmont in search of the OUV of this site, but it eluded me. I had previously visited the vinyards of St Emilion and Lavaux, both of which seemed outstanding. So I hope that the new WHSs of Champagne and Burgundy offer more in terms of OUV.

Producing good wine does not to my mind create OUV. We have superior wines produced in New Zealand, but I doubt that the vinyards here would claim any OUV.

Today vineyard and more vineyards tomorrow, the groaning words from my cousin that I heard almost every day when we had to join our parents wine trip in France, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from Champagne to Barolo, the ultimate trip for wine lovers! I have to admit that in that time I was not happy, but at the end at least two vineyards from that trip have become World Heritage Sites and many still waiting to be listed, and that make me quite happy at least I don’t have to revisit those vineyards again.

As I mentioned Barolo was one of our destinations, after long trip in French vineyards, I entered Italy with high expectation for some change to cure my overdose on French wine. The hilly vineyard landscape of Piedmont is really beautiful and so contrast with much lower hill of Burgundy and Champagne. The villages are really pretty and there even having castles on the top of the hill, a beautiful place indeed. Apart from geography and architectures, I could not see much difference from other famous vineyard in France. And I have to admit that I did not have time to appreciate the place, most of the time was spent on wine testing and wine shopping. Apart from the vineyard, we went to Barolo castle, to see old wine and olive oil pressing machine and other many small villages including the famous and beautiful La Morra and Barbaresco. Strangely I don’t know why we skipped Asti, …