A first weekend in Monferrato
Two days that work in any season, for people who have already done the Langhe.
Written by the I Love Piedmont editors in Mongardino (AT).
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Monferrato is the largest of Piedmont's three UNESCO wine landscapes and the one visitors reach last. It has no Barolo and no Alba, which is precisely why the tables are free and the sagre are still for the people who live there.
Base yourself in or near Asti, or in one of the hill villages north of it: Cocconato, Montemagno, Moncalvo, Castelnuovo Don Bosco. Asti has the station, the restaurants and enough hotel rooms. The villages have the views.
Saturday morning. The market in Asti, one of the largest in Piedmont, spread across Piazza Campo del Palio and the surrounding streets. Then the centre on foot: the cathedral, the Collegiata di San Secondo, and the medieval towers that survive between the shopfronts. Coffee under the arcades of Piazza Alfieri.
Saturday afternoon. Drive north into the hills. Moncalvo, which claims to be the smallest city in Italy, has a hilltop piazza and a view across to the Alps on a clear day. Cocconato sits on a ridge with a microclimate that locals call the Riviera del Monferrato. Between them the road runs through vineyards, hazelnut groves and villages of a few hundred people. Stop at one of the infernot cellars, the small chambers cut into the soft sandstone for storing wine, several of which are open to visitors.
Saturday evening. Whatever sagra is on. In summer that will be an outdoor dinner in a piazza. In winter a bagna cauda in a village hall. Failing that, eat in Asti, where the restaurants around Via Cavour are good and unpretentious.
Sunday morning. Nizza Monferrato or Canelli, south of Asti in the Barbera country. Canelli's underground cellars, the cattedrali sotterranee, run for kilometres under the town and are a UNESCO site in their own right. They need booking. Nizza has the Barbera d'Asti Nizza denomination and a Sunday atmosphere worth an hour.
Sunday afternoon. One producer visit, booked in advance, then home. Or, if the season is right, a truffle market at Moncalvo or Montechiaro d'Asti instead.
What to skip. Trying to do the Langhe on the same weekend. It is an hour away and it is a different trip.
What is actually on while you are here is in our calendar, filtered to Monferrato.