Magic and Mystery in Piedmont Rosie Meleady discovers the hidden treasures of autumn in the hills and valleys of Piedmont, home to some of Italy’s most prestigious wine producers including Barolo, Barbera, Barbaresco, Nebbiolo, Dolcetto, Alta Langa, Roero and Moscato to name a few
I have a group of five good friends who are literally, scattered around Europe, each busy running their own successful, if not all-consuming, businesses. Finally, after much planning, we pledged to meet up and explore a different region in Europe once a year. Having agreed to down-tools and spoil ourselves at our annual retreats we agreed that the weekend must include a luxury spa, wine tasting, fabulous food and a sumptuous setting. Unsurprisingly the destination is usually somewhere in Italy! There is a twist… each of us has to organise an activity that we absolutely can’t do at home. We jointly agree on the region and a hotel which will be our base for the weekend and we submit our ideas to a VIP tour company in
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secret. They then arrange the itinerary, without revealing the full details to any of us, so it becomes a magical mystery tour! Our most recent magical mystery tour took us to Piedmont during the truffle festival and our gorgeous setting of choice was the 5 star luxury hotel, Il Boscareto Resort and Spa. The hotel kindly organised for a car to collect us from Milan and within a couple of scenic hours we were winding our way past hazelnut groves and up the drive to Il Boscareto, suitably perched in a valley surrounded by rolling hills of rust-tinted vines. It was late autumn and while the vines had lost some of their autumn glory the swathes of colour the hills offered was still oil painting worthy. However, we had no time to waste; there were vineyards to be visited and wines to be sampled!
