Where can you eat the world’s most aromatic truffles paired with the world’s finest wines? There is only one place, and that place is Piemonte.
There is so much to explore when speaking about this region, from the grape varieties, to the wine styles, to single vineyard sites.
Where is Piemonte?
Piemonte literally translates to “at the foot of the mountains” and is located in north-west Italy, at the base of the Alps. Piemonte is home to Torino, the first Italian capital after the unification of the country in the late 1800s. Torino is an elegant city set amongst a magnificent backdrop – it’s almost as if the city springs up naturally from the foothills of the ever-present Monviso, the highest mountain on the Alpine border separating Italy and France.
In Piemonte, art, breathtaking landscapes, enchanting villages, stunning monasteries, and gastronomic delights fill your senses. Just picture aromatic white truffles freshly shaved on heaps of tagliolini pasta. And of course, we can’t forget the prestigious wines known all over the world!
What makes Piemonte a perfect region for wine?
Piemonteis is home to a serious wine-making tradition, with references to the Nebbiolo grape dating back to the 13th century. Piemonte is the land of red wines, and is the birthplace of the extraordinary Barolo and Barbaresco wines. Interestingly, these top wines account for only about 3% of Piemonte’s wine production, which means there’s so much more to discover about this region!
One of the reasons behind Piemonte’s incredible wine production is its unique geological composition. The Alps mountains create not only a border of this region, but they also create a natural, protective barrier that ultimately gives way to vast foothills. These naturally-occurring elements are precisely what create the region’s ideal environment for grape-growing.
In fact, Piemonte is one of the regions with the highest number of DOCG wines. These are wines within the Italian wine classification system that are considered of exceptional quality and held to the most rigorous production standards.
Piedmont is a land of quality. More than 80% of the wine produced here is with denomination of origin (DOC). 18 wines are DOCG (Denominazione di origine controllata e garantita) and 41 DOC (out of 73 DOCG and 332 national DOC wine selections). The grapes at the base of these acclaimed wines come from about twenty historical autochthonous vines, among which Arneis, Cortese, Erbaluce, Favorita, Moscato Bianco, Barbera, Bonarda, Brachetto.
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