Castagnole Lanze: Sat 14 – Tue 17 Sept: Accommodation
Sat 14th September: afternoon
It was 2.30 pm by the time we arrived at our lodging, Villa Cristina Suite, in the village of Castagnole Lanze, just over 20 minutes by car from the town of Alba. We had swapped to this venue at the last moment due to the fact it had a pool but, now that we’re here, our host informed us that it’s too cool to be swimming.
Mark took the opportunity to have an afternoon bike ride whilst I caught up on some reading and updating of bookings for the remainder of our trip. The nearby village apparently had a few good restaurants so we decided to head there to find one for dinner. The 10~15 minute walk to the village was not for the feint of heart though. The narrow road was winding and without a verge and drivers here think they’re still on the autostradde. We found a restaurant for dinner, there was really only one nearby, and it was ok but we didn’t think it was worth the risk of walking back here again another night. The lack of any decent verge meant that we would not be game enough to take a morning walk so the whole ‘change of plan’ idea was proving to be rather vexed. You live and you learn.
There are two main wine regions nearby and we thought we would explore these during our time in the area; Barolo and Barbaresco with Barolo referred to as the King and Barbaresco as the Queen. Our host had helped us book a wine tasting in the Barolo region so we would make that the focus of our exploring tomorrow.
Sun 15th September
It was a cool start to the day but it was a clear blue sky morning and it promised to get up into the high 20s later in the afternoon. We decided to do some exploring by car after breakfast given it wasn’t all that safe to walk around the area. I had initially planned to explore the main wine region of Barolo one day and the other wine region, Barbaresco, on the second day but we ended up fitting both of these into the one day as well as a visit to Alba, the place we were initially meant to stay.
Our first stop was at a small village called Neive which had two huge churches and loads of people walking around but little open, likely due it being a Sunday. There were some impressive structures though and it was of no surprise to read that the Romans had been here back in the first century BC. It only took about 20 minutes to do a loop around the place so it was then off to our next stop, Barbaresco.
Barbaresco was only a small village but I was able to do some wine tasting at one of the local bars. We’d had a Barbaresco wine the night before that neither of us enjoyed and the two ones I tasted today were not that great either so we were pretty relieved that we hadn’t made a booking for a formal wine tasting at a vineyard in this region.
It was close to lunchtime by the time we left Barbaresco so we headed to Alba for lunch and there was not much happening there either, though but that was probably more due to the fact it was Sunday and places in Europe essentially shut down on a Sunday. We did get a chance to try some truffle with our lunch though, for which the area is highly regarded, and it was delicious.
The only tasting we had booked was in the Barolo region, just a few minutes south of Alba, so we set off there after lunch to take our wine tasting session. The Ceretto Winery was a most impressive venue and we were pleased to find that we actually liked some of their wines and, to underscore this point, we purchased two bottles. We then went on to visit the village of Borello but it was also small and seem to be filled mostly with people enjoying a long lunch. It was a very warm afternoon, with our car registering 29 degrees, so we then headed back out villa and spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool. Our host had said the water was too cold for swimming and she was right. I managed to get in up to my waist but that was it for me. I’d put the temperature of the water near 17 ~18 degrees, or even lower.
Our dinner booking wasn’t until 7.30 pm as we’d been told a large group was booked in for 7 pm however, when we arrived, we were the only people there and, when we left, we were only two of six people in the restaurant. Pan Pist (no website) was an unusual venue as it was highly rated on Google and the food was absolutely delicious but it was located in along a strip of road in a reasonably remote area that seemed to be a mostly light industrial area. Totally weird but we had a delicious meal and the restauranteur was a most friendly host and, although he didn’t speak a word of English and we don’t speak any Italian, Google helped us to communicate. He suggested a great local wine, Piemonte Albarossa DOC Marcello 2019, Vigne dei Mastri, which was the best we’d had this trip. It was apparently produced by a vineyard just a short drive from our Villa. If only we’d know this yesterday we could have visited as it is very reasonably priced at €16.90. This was a lovely way to finish off our visit to this region. We had decided that we would leave this area tomorrow, instead of the day after, because we had basically run out of things to do. We will head to Bologna one day earlier than planned as there is a lot more to do in that area.
We had enjoyed our short time in Castagnole Lanze and especially our accommodation. Villa Cristina Suites is a great place to locate if you’re interested in finding a comfortable base to explore around this wine region, especially one that has a pool if you’re here in the hotter months.
