While you should avoid grappa before you get into the saddle, if you need a boost of energy you can always rely on the soft cookies born from a love story. It's the story of Francesco Moriondo, bursar to the Savoy family at Venaria, who fell in love with a young woman of Sicilian origin, a pastry chef working for the Royal Family. The two lovers decided to open a pastry shop in Mombaruzzo and the combination of local traditions with those of Trinacria, with the help of the “armellina” (the almond from the apricot kernel), gave rise to this biscuit with a slightly bitter taste, but rich in nutritional properties.
That being said, with dreamy eyes and taste buds in a state of alert, the time has come to begin the tour, which starts from Piazza del Popolo and moves away from the old town centre along Via Guasti, which becomes the SP44 road with the first ups and downs. You will then cross the hamlet of Casalotto, heading towards Nizza Monferrato, and pass in front of the historic Berta Distillery.
At the end of the tour, you will return to this crossroads and continue through Fontanile, passing under the monumental neo-Gothic parish Church of San Giovanni Battista, whose 53-metre-high dome stands out unmistakably among the hills, while also enjoying the murals of the project named "I muri raccontano" (Walls tell a story), some genuine narrative postcards that adorn the streets of the village. After a short descent you get to Mombaruzzo Stazione, but the trail doesn't end here because we advise you to turn, near the level crossing, towards Quaranti, on the SP4 road. Just couple of kilometres away and you will be in the village of the wine record. Quaranti, as a matter of fact, is the smallest of Italy's “Wine towns” but it has the largest number of DOC and DOCG wines, among which Moscato and obviously Brachetto stand out. Continue along Via Marconi and Via S. Defendente, which goes downhill and becomes increasingly narrow as you cross fields and poplar groves.
Keep going left, at the next crossroads turn right and at the junction with Via Cervino turn right again following the signs to Maranzana. You climb up a bit and you will be in the village that was the birthplace of a legendary character: the explorer Giacomo Bove who, in 1878, left the vineyards he was destined to work in, and left on board the ship Vega heading to the far north, in search of a passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait. One of the most important missions of the century, which was declared "Memory of the world" by UNESCO. It gives you the shivers, either because of the cold that the Nordenskiold mission evokes, or at the thought that such distant seas and deeds were once dreamt and conceived in these hills.
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Astesana Wine Route
An ancient area steeped in history, but also a Wine Route with over 200 member wineries promoting, all together, one of the Piedmont's most beautiful corners: Astesana.
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The Moscato di Canelli Wine Route
Breathtaking ridges, vineyards extending as far as the eye can see, villages with ancient charm and World Heritage landscapes. A journey through vine shoots, vines and grapes that everyone knows in their liquid form but few have the privilege of experiencing in their organic state.
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The Nizza Wine Route
The Asti sands are placed on marly clays and are rich in microelements... a lot of sands to form huge heaps: no, they are not dunes, because the sands are those of an ancient sea whereas today they are the green hills of Barbera and, more precisely those of the nearby 18 villages which, thanks to their excellent exposure and perfect climatic conditions, boast the cultivation of Nizza DOCG.
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The Barbera di Rocchetta Wine Route
Its name is Rocchetta Tanaro, because for four millennia, on this river bank man has found a fertile and quiet place to dedicate himself to agriculture and trade. But it could also be called Rocchetta Barbera, because it was from here in the 1980s that Giacomo Bologna took up the challenge to introduce the world to a wine that until then had been considered a "wine of the people" and therefore, quite incorrectly, unworthy of attention. Or we could call it Rocchetta della Natura (Rocchetta’s nature) because it is the starting point of one of the largest Nature Reserves in the Province of Asti.
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