Robust red wines and the world's finest truffle make Piedmont one of the best gourmet's destination. This drive goes along gentles roads, vineyard and medieval hilltop villages.

In falls delicate mists give the hills an ethereal beauty and in summertime you can enjoy the walks around vineyards 

Langhe...the name itself sounds wonderful. Truffle after truffle... vineyard after vineyard; the way goes to paradise or to the sea... far away from the image the people have of Piedmont.

Sightseeing is an obvious activity while in the Langhe given the many well restored medieval hill top towns within a short drive from Alba. Some of my favourite include Monforte d'Alba (charming piazza), La Morra (best view of valley), Serralunga d'Alba (pretty castle), Diano d'Alba (quaint with stunning views) and Grinzane Cavour (imposing/impressive castle). At Grinzane Cavour

Vineyards and castles whose enoteche stocks some of the most important and famous wines of the world..passionate will konw that. 

Slow Food was born in Bra...and food lovers who come in massive numbers know that very well. To stay in the Langhe region is the wish of a different culture is the curiosity o dicover so many different "raw materials"..meat,truffle,cheese, chocolate wines, hazelnuts

If you visit Langhe region you'll probably go back home fatter...but surely happier.

Piedmont: Italy’s New Food Capital

Piedmont is known for rich dishes featuring truffles and cream sauces, but it’s also Italy’s most culinarily progressive region. Writer Anya von Bremzen meets its brash young chefs and tries something called a virtual oyster.

By Anya von Bremzen

Piedmont, Italy’s staid northwestern region, is famous for the country’s most tradition-bound cooking—insanely eggy pastas, vitello tonnato, the boiled-meat dish bollito misto—plus rivers of pedigreed red wines like Barolo, Barbera and Barbaresco. But there’s a little-known fact: Piedmont, which also happens to be Italy’s most developed and industrial area, is forging a new identity as its most exciting and progressive restaurant region, where young local chefs have been playing catch-up (and forming close ties) with Spain’s avant-gardists. To report on Piedmont’s burgeoning New Wave culinary scene, my boyfriend, Barry, and I arrived with a simple plan: Spend a few days in the wine-growing countryside—perhaps with one classic trattoria detour—then do the same in the region’s capital, Turin.

We started our exploration in Alba at restaurant Piazza Duomo, which sits on the town’s main square. Alba is the resolutely provincial Piedmontese stronghold renowned as the world’s white-truffle mecca, but Piazza Duomo celebrates the brilliant cross-cultural cooking of Enrico Crippa, its 37-year-old hipster chef. Crippa was the star protégé of Gualtiero Marchesi, the Lombardian who almost single-handedly created the minimalist, elegant style we know as modern Italian. While running Marchesi’s restaurant in Kobe, Japan, Crippa became expert in Japanese flavors, and at Piazza Duomo, he dots shiso-spiked broth with crunchy quinoa crackers, rabbit sweetbreads and tiny cubes of house-fermented chickpea miso. Crippa’s current infatuation is with the vegetable-obsessed French chef Michel Bras; it shows in dishes like Salad 41, named for the number of leaves, flowers and herbs it contains.

Piazza Duomo is owned by the Ceretto winemaking family of Barolo and Barbaresco fame, which accounts for the deep cellar. We ate in the spare upstairs dining room, decorated with whimsical frescoes by star painter Francesco Clemente. Joining us was an Italian gourmand named Giorgio Grigliatti, a good friend of avant-garde master Ferran Adrià, of Spain’s El Bulli. After lamenting the current trend of consuming Barolos too young, Grigliatti raved about Crippa’s cooking. “He has the most cosmopolitan palate in Italy. But locals don’t get his international style,” Grigliatti whispered angrily as we left.

Out in the Piedmontese countryside, we stationed ourselves at Villa Tiboldi, an inn perched on a vine-covered hill 10 miles north of Alba. The antiques-filled 18th-century property belongs to the Malvirà winery in Roero, which borders Barolo. Hoteliers and winemakers Roberto and Patrizia Damonte poured us their soft, lush Arneis and austere, faintly minerally Nebbiolos. When I mentioned wanting to visit other winemakers, Roberto insisted that these winemakers come to us—bearing bottles. Which is how we ended up on Villa Tiboldi’s panoramic terrace, dining with the Piedmontese wine royalty. 

They were quite a crew. Barolo baron Domenico Clerico, dressed grandly, could have stepped out of a Renaissance fresco, while leather-clad Barbaresco king Bruno Rocca arrived on his Triumph motorcycle. My favorite character, Walter Massa, sported a cool, clubby riff on cowboy-wear, replete with handcrafted snakeskin boots. Arneis may be Piedmont’s best-known white, but Massa has made news by reviving an indigenous varietal called Timorasso in southeastern Piedmont. His bright, complex whites are the current favorite of young Italian sommeliers. While we ate delectable frog’s leg lollipops fried in focaccia batter, our dinner companions discussed their shared commitment to terroir and defiance of globalization in producing their modern-style wines.

For lunch the next day, Grigliatti sent us to an ur-traditional trattoria called Marsupinoin the village of Briaglia. After an hour of scenic hairpin roads and missed turns, we arrived at the charmingly chintzy place to learn that Grigliatti had preordered our wines: Champagne, a Barolo and a big Barbaresco—just for Barry and me. Three generations of the Marsupino family hovered by our table, bringing one amazing dish after the next: rooster agnolotti, snail-and-leek casserole, tongue in salsa verde and 40-egg-yolk tajarin (tagliatelle).

After that binge, we needed detox. Instead, we took a plunge in Villa Tiboldi’s pool, then—impossibly—ate our way through the menu at All’Enotecain the nearby town of Canale. I place the blame on Davide Palluda’s (pictured above, left) light, revisionist cooking. The thirtysomething chef, who has worked all over Europe, presides over a beautiful, airy dining room with Oriental rugs and silk drapes over tall windows. Before dinner, he explained his approach. “My clients are local winemakers,” he said. “I try to appease them with food they recognize while discreetly pushing the boundaries.” For his Head to Hoof Cow, Palluda takes the Fassone cow offal that locals adore and serves it as a pretty mosaic of terrines, salads and fritters; for dessert, he fills carob-flour ravioli with an explosion of liquid Blu del Moncenisio cheese, and tops it with a sauce of diced pears and almonds. The Enoteca complex also houses Roero’s regional wine center and a shop stocked with Palluda’s conserves. We left loaded with jars of his rabbit ragù and Barolo-packed peaches. 

 Alba

The Saturday morning market in Alba is also a favourite of mine, but don't get there too late as all the stalls are packed up by midday. There is a huge covered food market area that sells fruit / veg / poultry / meats / cheese / olives / flowers etc. From my experience, the vendors are happy to let you sample some of their local cheese to aid in your decision as many of the cheeses might be new to you as local to the area. As with all Italian village markets, there are numerous stalls that sells clothes, homeware etc, though I have not found anything noteworthy from those vendors, but it is still fun to have a look while eating some freshly baked focaccia from the bakery. 

Robust red wines and the world's finest truffle make Piedmont one of the best gourmet's destination. This drive goes along gentles roads, vineyard and medieval hilltop villages.

In falls delicate mists give the hills an ethereal beauty and in summertime you can enjoy the walks around vineyards