Day Seven – Time to Loosen Trousers

Today we woke up and started getting ready at 8:15, which was earlier than I would have liked as I’d had a cup of full-caffeine coffee the previous evening, which turned out not to be such a good idea. On the other hand, we thought we’d made a good early start to the day.

After getting ready, we went downstairs for breakfast. There were two other couples staying at Villa Sampaguita; a couple from Rhode Island in the States, and another from Canada. Two odd things with this – the guy from Rhode Island is also named Scott (not that odd I suppose), but the guy from Canada was working in the same office building in London England at the same time as Jamie – that is odd.

Breakfast was the usual sort for a B&B – coffee, orange juice, fresh fruit, yoghurt, granola, scrambled eggs (with fresh basil and tarragon, very tasty). We were regaled with tales and advice by the garrulous host Tim, to the point that breakfast stretched to almost an hour and a half – very entertaining. Tim gave us maps and itineraries for the day’s driving tour, and offered to call a friend of his whose family owns a vineyard in the Barolo region.

We finally hit the road at about 11am and headed south, in the general direction of Barolo. The Barolo valley is in the shape generally of a horseshoe, and we drove along the windy roads on the top of the ridge. Tim sent us along the back roads, which are always more interesting than the Autostrada, although the Italian drivers around me seemed intent on self-destruction – I’m convinced they learn to drive at the Mario Andretti School of Fast Motoring And Dangerous Passing (apparently I drive far too slowly, but 90km/hr on roads barely wide enough for my car, let alone two lanes, is just too fast for me).

Due to the late start (apparently), we went straight to the winery for a tour and a tasting. (www.rivetto.it) The Rivetto family has owned the winery and the land for four generations, and Enrico (the youngest son) was nice enough to show us around the place before giving us a taste of three of their wines. Being used to North American wine tastings, I thought he poured tasters like a champion. I actually had to ask him to pour me a slightly smaller portion as I had to drive, which brought a tear to my eye.

The wine was excellent – he gave us a 2007 Barbaresco, then a 2006 and 2005 Barolo. All were brilliant, and we were forced to buy two (I hate when that happens) – a Barbaresco to drink on our patio in Asti and a Barolo to take home with us.

We were there for a fair bit of time, and it was just about lunch time when we were finished. Enrico recommended a restaurant in the town just across the valley from the winery – Restaurant Italian in Serralunga. There were two menus – we chose the €20 option which included antipasti, a first course, a main course, and desert. As there was no listing of what each was, we weren’t really sure what we were going to get. The antipasti turned out to be sliced veal with a local tuna and mayonnaise sauce (which doesn’t sound like it would be good at all on veal, but was actually really good). First course was ravioli for Jamie and nebiolo risotto (nebiolo is a variety of local wine). Both again were very tasty. Mains was rabbit (coniglio sounds better than Bugs Bunny), and dessert was panna cotta and tiramisu.

Full and feeling very pleased with ourselves we walked back to the car to continue our driving tour. Both of us were a bit surprised with the heat – it seemed to have gotten significantly hotter while we were having lunch. The thermometer in the car confirmed it: 32°C on the 4th of June. I’m glad we had air conditioning.

Next on the itinerary was the town of Barolo itself. We found a parking lot just on the edge of town, but of course it was full. There was a sign for more parking further down the hill, so I pointed Francesca in that direction. Unfortunately they have decided to rip up and repave almost all of Barolo, so we were quickly turned around and headed back up to the main road. Still no parking in the lot, however there was a spot on the side of the highway (or whatever it was). I quickly darted over and managed to do a half-decent job of parallel parking, despite being on the wrong side of the road (I’ve re-learned how to drive in Britain on the left, and am finding being back on this side very disconcerting).

We walked down the hill we’d just driven back up and into Barolo. A quick look around revealed almost nothing of any interest – a few wine shops, oddly a museum dedicated solely to corkscrews (which they charged €4 to go into – a bit steep to look at a bunch of old corkscrews in my view), and a whole lot of construction. Maybe it would have been better without the lorries, cranes, and dirt everywhere.

We hiked back up the hill in the sweltering heat (we live in London, anything other than cold drizzle is sweltering to us) and got back in the car, air-con cranked up to the max. We drove down the hill and back up again to see the view from the top of La Morra, as it’s one of the highest spots around and Enrico had said that the views from up there were the best. He was right – from the medieval fortification looked down the entire Barolo valley, all the way to the Alps in the far distance. We thought about stopping for another bottle of wine, but were parked in a customer parking space in front of the local grocery store (we’d been in to buy water, so we were technically customers) and felt a bit guilty about using their reserved space, so we headed back down the hill.

We’d done a fair bit of driving so far, and were about an hour away from home, so we decided to head back and have a glass of wine on the balcony while we waited for a reasonable hour to go for dinner. It turned out to be a very good plan.

I didn’t feel like doing much more driving today, so we chose another of the recommended restaurants – this one quite close to the B&B. It is one of the oddest-located fine dining establishments I’ve ever seen – wedged behind a gas station on the road between Asti and Torino.
La Grotta is evidently one of the most famous restaurants in Asti (according to their literature), and sure enough, on the wall in the lobby is a picture of Pope John Paul II shaking hands with the chefs and the menu they served him. I figure if it’s good enough for the Pope, it’s good enough for me.

We felt a bit under-dressed, as all of the waiters were in white dinner jackets, and everything was served on trolleys – very old-fashioned and elegant. Everyone tells us that Piedmont is known for their antipasti, so we had the “Mixed Lean Meats” as it was described on the menu. It turned out to be a trolley laden with all sorts of delicious treats that the waiter served us a selection of – including: boiled egg with mayonnaise, a sort of potato and tuna salad, beats, veal with tuna mayonnaise, veal tongue with sauce (we didn’t find out that’s what it was until after we’d eaten it), tomato and mozzarella, and others.

We split a first course of baked lasagne, which was quite tasty; although I think based on the size of our main courses we could have easily skipped it. Jamie went for the veal Milanese (otherwise known a schnitzel), and I had saltimbocca alla romana (veal with sage and prosciutto). Both were excellent but GIANT – double or triple what I would have expected at home. We managed to eat a good chunk of both dishes but neither of us could finish; there was just too much. The waiter brought the dessert trolley over, and everything looked so appetizing. We were both too full to really think about it, and we had to decline. A tragedy. I found room for a decaf espresso, but even than was a stretch.

We drove back to the B&B and set up on the balcony for a final glass of wine. I almost immediately got a giant mosquito bite on my toe, which hurts like hell – hate those little flying bastards. We quickly adjourned inside and closed the screen – discretion being the better part of valour. A slightly itchy and swollen end to an excellent and very filling day.