Featured holiday Wine-tasting holiday in Piemonte Italy

Arrive at Turin airport, collect your hire-car and drive to your hotel in Benevello near Alba. You stay at the 4-star Villa d’Amelia, surrounded by acres of hazelnut groves and vineyards. The hotel’s 37 rooms and suites are individually decorated in a way that maintains warm, yet neutral colours, but with interesting charcoal accents and coolly elegant marble bathrooms. The outdoor swimming pool is heated, so is available for use later in the year. Walking paths and mountain-biking routes vein the picturesque landscape around the hotel. The hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant serves modern interpretations of local cuisine from seafood to locally grown vegetables and herbs. The bistro restaurant alternately offers a light and refreshing menu, and the bar offers a taste of the region through local wines and cocktails.

During your three full days in Piemonte, there will be a wine-tasting of three regional wines at your hotel and also a half-day’s visit of Barolo with a local guide, along with a wine-tasting and transfers from the hotel to Barolo and back. Then you have the rest of the time to soak in the very special atmosphere of this part of Piemonte with its patchwork of steep vineyards and elegant villages on hill-tops. Barolo and Barbaresco, two of the most revered red wines in the world, hail from the heartland of this region, both produced from the ‘Holy Grail’ variety of Nebbiolo grape (named after the morning mists that hover atmospherically over the vines here during harvest time). In addition to these, there are other high-quality wines to tempt your palate including Barbera, Dolcetto and Moscato. One of the most appealing and fascinating aspects of the wines of Piemonte is their variety and how this exists within a very small geographic area, with small, individual differences from how the producer decides to vinify, whether more traditional or modernist, the influence of the climate and soil when the vineyards are at slightly different altitudes and facing different directions. It is not only these classic red wines that are produced in Piemonte but Arneis is a herby white with notes of almonds, the classic Gavi di Gavi, Timorasso with its peach and apricot notes and of course the frothy Moscato d’Asti, a wine that actually smells of grapes but also elderflower and with its fizz and naturally low alcohol is the ideal wine to liven your palate at the end of a meal. Villages such as Barolo and Barbaresco are close by for wine-tasting experiences. The 16th century Castello Falletti in Barolo has been converted into a wine museum and enoteca, and now provides the perfect environment in which to taste the dark, full-bodied Barolo red wine. Montegrosso is the home of Barbera wine, while Costigliole d’Asti and Canelli specialise in the sparkling Asti Spumante. A visit to Alba will be a cultural highlight of your stay in Piemonte, with its austere medieval narrow winding alleyways and brick towers. The pretty old town, with the peaceful ebb and flow of day-to-day life, makes for a very relaxing afternoon’s walk, before descending into the underground museum and ruins of Alba’s medieval and Roman history. Aside from the magnificent Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, parts of which date back to the 6th century, Alba’s pride and joy may well be Macrino’s Vergine Incoronata, which hangs in the council chamber of Alba’s Palazzo Comunale. Just south of Alba sits the Grinzane di Cavour Castle, which is still the meeting point of the ‘Order of the Knights of the Truffles and Wines of Alba’. Its museum gives essential insight into the Order, as well as wine-making traditions, folk traditions, and Count Camillo Cavour himself.

Depending on the time of your flight back to London, spend more time exploring Piemonte or drive to the airport and return your hire-car ready for the flight back.