Piemont: Finally “Good, Clean and Fair

The Trip that La Botte Piccola has the pleasure to propose takes place in the “not to be missed” Salone del Gusto, organized by Slowfood in Turin.

A long weekend dedicated to the discovery of “good, clean and fair” food, as the famous saying goes.

The Salone del Gusto is really a “not to be missed” event for food lovers. From its first edition in 1996 it has significantly grown and has come a long way, considerably increasing its number of exhibitors and the quality of its products on offer.

Its success has been astonishing and exponential: from the very first edition the number of its visitors have turned the elitist approach to quality gastronomy upside-down. It transformed the pleasure once available to only a select few into a right accessible to everyone.

It is now possible to visit the Italian presidia together with its international counterparts. You can also go to see Terra Madre, the world meeting of food communities which, held for the first time in 2004, attracted 5,000 peasant farmers, artisans and fisher folk from 130 countries (www.terramadre.info), a unique opportunity for this type of exhibitions.

At the Salone you will have the chance to participate in the Taste Workshops: Slow Food’s now famous tasting sessions in which producers and experts talk about food and wine and the audience tastes and learns as it listens.

Simultaneous translation into Italian and English is available at every Taste Workshop.

La Botte Piccola takes you to visit Il Salone del Gusto and uses this occasion to let you enjoy Langhe and Roero in a season that is particularly pleasing both for the beauty of its autumn panoramas featuring landscapes of red and yellow foliage, and also from the gastronomic point of view: food pleasures are endless during this season and in a region that is famous for its great wines and truffles, you will be able to enjoy all sorts of delicacies.

While exploring wineries and small villages you may happen upon “trattorie”; inns and small wineries where you can taste the “gourmandises” made by local food artisans. You can have a good glass of wine together with delicious cold cuts flavoured with truffles or with Barolo, with specialty olive oils and all varieties of excellent cheeses.

The tour proposed by la Botte Piccola offers top-level gastronomy right from the very beginning.

As usual, a minivan with a driver will pick you up at the airport to take you to one of the best restaurants in the area.

Inside the Castle of Pollenzo, which was listed by Unesco Patrimony in 1997, you will have dinner in Guido a Pollenzo, Michelin Star, a breathtaking location for a restaurant born out of the union of the talents of two great restaurants in Piedmont.

The dishes proposed vary from traditional plates to seafood with a diverse choice of simple cuisine that pays great attention to local foods.

After the first welcome night your trip will take you to visit the “Salone del Gusto”.

On Friday you will have the chance to stimulate both your palate and imagination at the exposition stands. You will visit exhibitors that come from all over the world, and will participate in interesting Taste Workshops that have been selected for you by La Botte Piccola.

The fist one that has been chosen is:

Give me Cinque!

Fri 24 03:00 PM

The terrain of Cinque Terre is made up of five Ligurian coastal villages offering rugged terrain for heroic vine-growers, characterised by low, dry-stone walls terracing the steep cliffs. After a long period of neglect, recent years have seen a return to production for the Bianco delle Cinque Terre and sweet Sciacchetrà, thanks mainly to the efforts of Walter De Battè. We’ll taste his wines along with those of the promising young winemaker Heidy Bonannini and Cantina dei Litàn.

(The Sciacchetrà presidium is part of our tour in Liguria: Travelling through Liguria, tastes and hidden treasures, for further details please take a look at the web page www.labottepiccola.net)

At the end of the day, sated and satisfied with your discoveries, you will take part in the second Taste Workshop that has been selected for you:

A splash in the Med

Fri 24 06:00 PM

Non member price: € 16,00

Member price: € 11,00

A tour of the Mediterranean and the fragrances and flavors of fruits, herbs and seeds used to distil liqueurs and spirits. Arak from Château Musar, in Lebanon, aged in Phoenician amphorae. Ouzo from Barbayanni, on the island of Lesbos, Greece. Pastizzu from Mannarini, Corsica. Marí Mayans Hierbas Ibicencas, distilled from the extracts of 18 different herbs in Ibiza. Varnelli aniseed liqueur from Muccia in the Marche region, Italy. Boukha, made from figs in Tunisian. Raki from Turkey. All featured in a talk and tasting led by Luca Gargano.

After the pleasing aperitif you will come back to the Langhe for a dinner organized by slowfood.

The chefs that have been involved in these dinners are the best interpreters of local cuisine in their territories, noted world-wide. The dinner that has been selected for you by La Botte Piccola is one of the extraordinary protagonists of the cuisine from Apulia.

At Antichi Sapori, his osteria in Montegrosso, near Bari in Puglia, Pietro Zito is a master when it comes to cooking the recipes of his native Murgia region. He cooks with full respect for local tradition, culture and climate, growing many of his outstanding ingredients in a kitchen garden next door. For Salone del Gusto he revives the characteristic, essential flavours of his homeland in the charming ‘olde worlde’ Villa Contessa Rosa on the Fontanafredda estate with a selection of wines from the historical cellar of the house.

Pietro collaborates with la Botte Piccola for the cooking sessions in Apulia, for further information please contact La Botte Piccola (www.labottepiccola.net)

After the full immersion at the Salone, and after experiencing delectable things from all over the world and Italy, we come back to Piedmont in order to visit the wine producers that interpret the region’s great wine tradition in ‘the natural way’.

The “vignaioli” selected for you by La Botte Piccola are as usual “Agricoltori, Artigiani, Artisti” (farmers, artisans, artists), that make stirring wines, the result of an agricultural effort that has almost disappeared, and a vinification that is as less intrusive as possible.

You will have the pleasure of visiting “vignaioli” that produce exceptional, great Piemontese local varieties of wine; a noble Barolo, a unique Moscato di Asti, made by great producers that cultivate their vineyards just like a garden and avoid the use of selected yeasts, using instead only natural yeasts.

You will have lunch with one of the producers and will have the opportunity to discuss the quality of natural wines with him.

The restaurant that has been chosen for this occasion is a Michelin Star, La Locanda del Pilone, just outside of Alba.

You will have a relaxing stay among the vineyards, thanks to the wonderful panoramic position.

Elegant atmosphere: the place is furnished with Piedmontese antiques. The furniture is the same as it has always been in a farm in the Langhe.

Traditional regional cooking, with a wide choice of wines from a wine list that has almost completely been converted into biodynamic or biological products.

The following day you will enjoy a nice walk and really have an experience related to the territory and its land.

An exciting experience for a truffle lover, a truffle seeker will take you through the woods with his dog, on the lookout for the precious mushrooms, led only by the animal’s nose and the intuition that he has developed throughout years of experience.

The quest will start off with an expert’s explanation that will provide you with some essential tips and secrets so that you can better comprehend where these truffles come from and how they are formed.

After stimulating your imagination and whetting your appetite with the simulation of the search for truffles, you will enjoy a unique lunch in a real local inn.

The trattoria is located inside the chef’s old house, the “oste”, whose furniture, flavours and rhythms of the typical house in the langhe have been kept undamaged and intact. Your lunch will be hosted inside his kitchen, where you will eat as though you were at a friend’s house, and you will have the chance to discover the secrets of his art.

At your arrival you will be welcomed with a fire in the fireplace, with some spit-roasted meat, in front of the kitchen. It is here that this extraordinary personality, chef and refined painter with an atelier on the second floor, stages his taste for life. The three rooms are equipped with linen, and are beautiful and unique in their simplicity. The wine list is one of days gone by, consisting of a few well-loved bottles.

A real mouth-watering experience……

The B&B chosen for the night rest is a romantic and traditional place, in a land between Roero and Langhe in a very characteristic little village, Govone.

An old mill where the farm labourers once took grain to see it transformed into flour under the pressure of heavy stone grinders

The tour is as Follows:

In Thursday the 23^rd out Sunday the 26^{th Octobre}

– Thursday night arrival at the Turin Airport where you will find the minivan with the driver, and dinner at Pollenzo at Da Guido (Michelin Star)

– Friday morning departure to Turin, destination Salone del Gusto, where you will be spending all day, you will be attending two Taste Workshops, and and at dinner time back to le Langhe, for a slowfood event in Villa Contessa Rosa on the Fontanafredda.

– Saturday Visit to the Moscato d’Asti and Barolo wine producers and lunch in the Michelin Star Locanda del Pilone. Free night with Minivan at your disposal

– Sunday Truffle experience and lunch in the Oste’s Kitchen, free afternoon and departure

The Cost of this tour for a group o f six people is 900 euros per person.

The price includes:

– Thursday night restaurant (wines and Truffles excluded)

– Slowfood dinner on Friday night

– Saturday lunch restaurant (wines and Truffles excluded)

– Sunday lunch (wines and Truffles excluded)

– Entry at Salone del Gusto

– Entry at the two Taste Workshops

– Truffle experience

– Two wine tasting

– Minivan with the driver