Keep your Feet in the Street

A Lovely day in Piemonte

After breakfast and a very informative session with our concierge, we headed into town for the market day and to revisit some stores we had only seen closed, so far. Cecelia bought a beautiful brown and gold glass pendant and I got a barrette for Kathryn. Our visit to find dish towels for my frind Molly was so much fun, looking through many samples in a store about as big as our bathroom. Strolling through the market was enjoyable—we got a bunch of supplies to have dinner at the B&B—lots of bread, cheese, salami, a half a roast chicken (we had really wanted a whole one but we just couldn’t seem to get the guy to let us have one) and something we have no idea the name but it is like poultry meat loaf—very delicious no matter what it’s called.

Lunch was nice at the simple Trattoria Bigat in town. Kenny was smart—he just had a salad, but the rest of us had pasta—full again!

In the afternoon we went for a wine tasting at Giovanni Piacenza, only about 15 minutes, beautiful drive, through the Monferrato, from here. His Barbera is the house wine at Baur B&B so we were confident of the quality. This was a totally informal and friendly tasting. We started with the Cortesea—an off-dry bubbly white reminiscent of prosecco. Then we tried his light and easy drinking chardonnay—no oak. We compared the very drinkable, dark purple Barbera d”Asti with a Barbera Superiore “Nizza”—this was the stunner. So much fruit with the French Oak—great feel in the mouth, great flavor. We asked Giovanni what fruit was in there—currents? Black berry? Cherry? He said “Barbera!” Of course!

After the wine we drove to Mombaruzzo to taste soft Amaretti cookies. We had to have sme and some of the hazelnut variety, too. We walked to a pretty grassy spot with a great view and benches and just sat there a while to enjoy.

Then we drove home by way of Alice di Colli where we climbed to a very high spot to take photos and enjoy the breezy evening air.

At home we spread out all the bounty from the mornings shopping and had a wonderful feast including the Barberas of Giovanni Piacenza.