[Ugh, this is so late.... I'm trying to catch up, but there's so much going on now... all the good pictures are published here]
Our last day in Piemonte was jam-packed with wonderful, exciting wine tasting, beginning at about 10:00. We started at Agricola Gian Piero Marrone, a winery who had made a great Nebbiolo d'Alba that we had quite enjoyed in Genova, and was very conveniently located next door to our B&B. It is a small, family winery, currently run by three sisters (one is the bookkeeper, one is the marketing/sales person, and one is the winemaker); our tasting happened on the kitchen table, with a toddler scampering around underfoot. The wines were good, though we preferred the Nebbiolo d'Alba we had tried earlier over the rest of the lineup. We bought a few bottles of both the '03 and the '04 so it will be interesting to see how things develop over the next few years.
After our tour and tasting, we ran back up to La Morra, in an attempt to find a working internet connection and book a B&B in the Val d'Aosta for the evening. I also stopped by the Cantina Communale di La Morra, which is a neat wine shop run by the municipality, dedicated solely to the wines of the Commune of La Morra. All of the Barolo communes have this sort of shop, which is an easy way to find local wines, without having to run around to all the different wineries. I don't think it's non-profit, but the prices are certainly comparable to purchasing directly from the wineries, and there are sometimes a few older vintages.
After lunch, we were able to get a tour of Fratelli Ferrero, where we had been staying the last few nights; Nina, Renato Ferrero's wife, showed us the family's cellars (dating back to the 1700's), gave us a bit of the family history, pointed out some of the plantings, and then took us back to the house, where we checked out the ageing room in the garage. All in all, it's a small-ish setup (with just enough work for Renato and one other guy to handle), and most of the infrastructure has been in place for a generation or two; they were emptying some of the barriques while we were there, and rented a van to transport the wine from the cellar to the garage. The wines were good, though I don't remember too many details now... the second-tier Barolo was quite reasonably priced, and the Langhe Nebbiolo was great, so we got a few bottles and stashed them away for future consumption.
After all the drinking and talking and suchlike, we finally got on the road. It was a nice drive up around Genova back to the Alps, and it felt really nice to be back up in the mountains; it's become more and more apparent that we are "mountain people", and while Toscana and Piemonte are nice places to visit, we really feel more at home when there are snow-capped peaks in the middle distance. Who knows what that means for our return, since San Francisco doesn't have much by way of serious mountains, but that's something do deal with later.
Courmayeur is right on the Italian side of Monte Bianco, i.e. Mont Blanc. It's rather a cute town, though a bit resort-y. The B&B Les Pyramids turned out to be above an Audi garage, which was a bit weird. However, we were able to find a reasonable dinner up the road, though Polenta with Pancetta and Scamorza is maybe a bit over the top. But Mocetta di Cervo (a bresaola-like cured loin of venison) was tasty, and the wine was decent (more Nebbiolo, but not quite the same quality as in Piemonte). A nice end to a good day.
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