A Pretty Awesome Wine Tour

At the urging our hotel sommelier, we decided to drive the 40 minutes to Travaglini Gattinara, a five generation winery that grows Nebbiolo grapes.  About three miles out, we turned off the Autostrada (the Interstate) and headed through a pretty ugly section of industrial and big box stores.

I quipped to Carol, "well, you can tell we're in wine country."  Then we started rolling through a couple of smaller towns, over the Sesia River, and into the medieval village of Gattinara.  We turned off the main road and it got small town/rural very quickly.

The GPS took us to a dirt road, past the winery, before we realized it wasn't behind the gated fence that Waze insisted it was.  It was a private house, with a dog happy to see us.  And by "happy to see us," I don't mean in that friendly, tail-wagging way most dogs have, but more in the "I'm going to tear you apart limb by limb and have you watch me eat you part by part as your brain loses consciousness" way that a few dogs have.

(Editor: Whelp, that got dark quickly.  Like pitch black 2am moonless night dark.  Blogger: Huh?  Whoa, sorry, I think I wasn't fully conscious whilst writing that last paragraph.  Wonder what I said.  ((Reads post:)) Whoa.  Sorry about that.  Nothing see here.  Time to gently move along!)

Anyhoo, as we pulled up to the actual winery, a non-descript, albeit largish, brick building, I was worried this was going to be a wasted trip, or, if not, at least a letdown from what we were promised.  We were met by a young woman who was to be our tour & tasting guide for the winery.  

We had a bottle of their Reserva wine the night before with dinner at Lo Stronello, and took an instant liking to it, so this seemed to be a bummer.

When she said, "we'll start with a video," I was sighing inwardly.  Carol looked at me, and in that loving way spouses have, rolled her eyes.  Great, it's 10:30 in the morning, and we're a long way from anywhere else worth being!

Then the video started.  It was actually pretty interesting, as it showed how they cleared and created a new field for more vineyards.  So that was of interest.  And, we also realized that tour consisted of us, and our guide, and that was it.  No other people there.  That was something to like.

And then it all got very cool.  She took us into the bottling/labeling room.  First, we watch an older woman from the village putting labels and ribbons on the magnums.  She had row after row of magnums set up in front of her.

She's done a lot of labeling by 10:45 am.

Very tempting to try to sneak one out.

A magnum!

Then she walked us over to the bottling machine, and we watched the workers feed the empty bottles into the assembly line, where they were spiffily cleaned by machine, filled, and corked.  The daughter of the owner, Cinzia Travaglini and her husband, the winemaker, was working the bottling.  

The bottles then went through a back and forth process to shake the cork tight.  Then the foil was deftly put on by the same machine, and finally out the other end where another worker stacked them in boxes.  It reminded us a lot of watching the bottling production line at Bold Rock, a cidery in Nelson County, Virginia.

The old bottle mold.

The bottles being cleaned, filled, and corked.

Of course Carol is happy, she's standing

next to a LOT of great wine!

The bottles are constantly moving on

this part, to make sure the cork has

a nice, tight fit.

And last in the process, the foil gets 

put onto the cork/top of the bottle.

The tour could have ended right there and we would have been happy with it.  But wait, there's more.  Just before we went into the vat room, the owner glided by and introduced herself to us.  I remember at one wine dinner in the Del Ray area of Alexandria, the owner answered my quizzical query (Editor: Nice alliteration!  Blogger: Quite!) as to why he was there by saying, "You sell one bottle at a time."  I have to believe it wasn't a lucky chance that she ran into us, but we had a nice chat and we were charmed that the owner took time to meet us.

Next we went into the vat room, where our guide (she never us gave her name, I guess she didn't care about the fame that comes with being named by name in this widely read blog.)

(Editor: Named by name? Blogger: Forget it, I'm on a roll.)

Everyone should have a tower

of wine in their house, no?

They have a lot more vats than 

this in the tank room.  And

every time the winery buys

another one, the vat maker

says, "Tanks a lot!"

(Editor: Are you drinking copious amounts of wine right now?  Blogger: Believe it or not, no actually.  Although that's not a bad idea.)

So that was all pretty cool, and then we went down to the barrel rooms.  There are two -- one with huge barrels aging the wine for a longer period of time, and one with regular French oak barrels for a shorter aging period.  I will let the pictures tell the story:

I will let you figure out which are the

smaller barrels and which are the larger ones.

Then she took us into the very modern family wine library, where they are storing bottles from the many different years.  The winery was started in the 1920s.  Wine had been made in the town since the Romans, but the focus had always been on quantity and not quality.

Travaglini started focusing on quality in the 1958, when Giancarlo Travaglini inherited the winery after his father passed away.  It's also the year of an interesting innovation that helps the winery stand out from others.  If we are socializing and I pull out a bottle of Travaglini Gattinara to share with you, I will tell you of that innovation, but I'm not telling that story here. 

The owner and her husband are the fourth generation of the family to be making wines, and are coming up on the winery's 100th anniversary. 

After that, we went back upstairs, this time to the wine tasting room.  First, our guide showed us a vineyard map of the area.  Travaglini owns 57% of the vineyard space in greater Gattinara, and is constantly looking to expand, buying up little plots here and there to expand.

Our guide then brought out a charcuterie plate to have with the wine (mercifully smaller than the one from the hotel wine tasting on Monday night).  We tasted three different wines, all of which we enjoyed.  They sold for 6.70 Euros, 11.90 Euros, and 20 Euros each.  Each were much better quality than similarly price wine.  We could have tasted six wines, but at noon with a drive still ahead of me, I thought an intelligent decision was better than a stupid choice, so we went with the three.  Which was plenty.

The winery won't do a direct ship to the US, but she gave us info on different ways to order their wines in the US, so I fully plan to.  As we were saying our fond farewells (we really liked our guide, and the wine made us fonder of her!), the owner stopped by again to chat, and forever earned my eternal appreciation by giving us a branded waiter key double-hinged wine opener.  It came in handy in Amsterdam and was not confiscated going through airport security (we did carry-on only) in Milan and Amsterdam.

My only disappointment was that we didn't get to see the vineyards, but I had a plan to drive the dirt roads past the vineyards.  Except it all turned out cooler than that. 

Food Adventures In Italy

Every dinner we ate in Italy was fantastic.  We were uncharacteristically lazy and ate three dinners at the hotel's terrace.  The food was so good, and the commute back to our room consisted of a four story elevator ride.  So that was hard to argue with.

The only thing I didn't like is that they didn't relax their dress code for the 95 degree days.  For breakfast you could wear shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals.  I drew the line at a t-shirts, but did wear my Oofos (most comfortable footwear ever invented!) and shorts to breakfast.  

The first night at dinner I showed up in shorts and Oofos and was forced to go back to my room and change.  They enforced the long pants and shoes/sneakers despite the unprecedented heat wave.  So I changed, came back, and then watched some guy wearing a Carhartt t-shirt and jeans be seated.  So classy!

Anyhow, Tuesday night we had reservations at Lo Stornello, smack in the middle of downtown Stresa. 

Lo Stornello is a Michelin Plate restaurant.  And it was fabulous.  I had raviolis with shrimp in them for the first course.  I'm not good at remembering to take pictures of my food, but trust me, the presentation was first class.  My second course were perfect lamb chops. Carol enjoyed her gnocchi first course and beef second course.

They have a great wine list, including wines from the winery we were visiting the next day (Wednesday).  

By the way, the restaurant we ate on another side street in Stresa at Wednesday was also quite tasty.

However, any mention of a meal in Italy needs to include the lunch we had at the top of Mount Mottarone on Sunday.  The charcuterie plate (highlighted in an earlier post) was simply amazing.  No matter where we ate, we were winners.

A Short Post of Riffs on Italy

Rick Steves is the patron saint of American travels to Europe.  His TV show is great, his travel guides are easy to use and full of good info.  However, his guide dissed Stresa.  

However we enjoyed the times we went into town.  Even if the streets were not pedestrian only (some were), there were few cars, so I could walk right in the middle of the street.  There were five gelato shops (we stayed loyal to one).  There were fine little shops, many restaurants of varying quality, and, of course, the lakefront affords timeless views of a spectacular nature.

Traffic circles are the best way to keep traffic moving, and not just in cities.  Instead of four-way stops, or traffic lights out in rural areas, traffic circles keep traffic moving safely.  You have to slow down as you come to a traffic circle, but you don’t have to stop (unless a car is coming through the circle, obviously).

The Italian leg of our trip was fantastic, except for the heat, of course.  The food, culture, wine, and more of the country make it, without question, the second best in Europe (a ways behind Spain, and a smidge ahead of France).  Readers are allowed to disagree.  (Editor: Wow Glen, you are soooo open-minded as to allow people to have differing opinions.  Blogger: Thanks, I know.)

We covered a lot of miles in Italy, driving from the airport into Milan, driving from Milan to Stresa, up Mount Mottarone, down and around the other side of the Lake for the cliffside church and the Rocca di Angera, out to the winery, and then to Lago d’Orta.  Other than our adventures in Milan and the switchbacks going up the mountain, driving was pretty easy.

 

A Few More Pics

 

Our balcony.

The hotel pool, which

we enjoyed twice.

Not as hazy, which led to the. . .

. . .clearest picture of the Alps from our hotel.

A Rocky Hermitage

In the 1100s, a wealthy local merchant by the name of Alberto Besozzi, decide to build a cliffside hermitage after surviving a rough storm while crossing Lake Maggiore.  

Give Alberto credit, he wanted to live the life of a hermit, this wasn’t just a “spare my life and I will build a church” reaction, he went all in and became a hermit.

The Eremo di Santa Caterina Del Sasso is only about a twelve mile drive from Rocca di Angera, but instead of being high on a rocky bluff, it is built right into the lake’s cliffside.  Here, take a look:

The iconic photo of the Hermitage.

I can’t even fathom how they built it, especially nearly one thousand years ago.  The initial chapel was joined by two churches in the 1300s.  

This is part of a small modern

art display at the hermitage.

Love their expressions.  This a fresco,

not part of the modern art display.

Pretty wallpaper.

This was the men's toilet.  I have it on

good authority than the women's

toilet was the same.  Ugh.

I can pick out Isola Bella just because

I know what to look for.  Just trust me,

it's there.

Here I had the presence of mind to 

take a picture of the entire press.

This was used for both wine and

olive oil

The cliffs are held back from falling by heavy wiring to hold the rocks in place.  In the 1700s five enormous boulders crashed onto the church, but came to a halt in a chapel’s vault until 1910, when they finished the job (since repaired).

The ceiling of the main chapel.

This guy needed the help of Morrie Kesseler.

The staircase down from the parking lot/entry building is quite long, which is fine going down, but we did not look forward to the walk back up the cliff stairs.  We hadn’t consulted the cliff notes before going, but Carol noticed an elevator for the trip back up.  Phew.

It’s not a place you go for a lengthy visit, but if you near are it, it’s quite the buildings.

Tuesday Rocked

We headed south, and crossed from the west side of the lake to the east side.  Our first stop was another Borromeo palace, the Rocca di Angera.  Built on a huge rock bluff (hence the “Rocca”), it’s about a 25 mile drive from Stresa.

It’s a very impressive looking structure perched high above the town of Angera and high above the lake.  Construction was started in the 1100s by the Visconti of Milan, but was mostly built during the 13th and 14th centuries.  The Borromeo family purchased the castely in 1449, because you can’t have too many residences.  They have been expanding and improving the castle ever since.  It was damaged, albeit not badly, during a bombardment in World War II.  

The Rocca di Angera was not overly crowded, and we made it through the outer gate to a terrace with impressive views of the lower part of Lake Maggiore.  Using our combo tickets I had purchased the day before at Isola Madre, we skipped the long line to buy a ticket and walked right in like we owned the place.

(Editor: Um, the line to buy tickets was only two people long.  Blogger: If I’m going to write about ticket lines, I have to make it exciting!  Editor: Yes, your readers must be on the edge of their seats from the drama).

The Rocca di Angera is

a gated community.

Carol at the gate.

View from the outer terrace

View with more of the town of Angera.

The inner courtyard features one of the largest old preserved wine presses and massive wine barrels (some might be olive oil barrels).  My barrel expertise is limited to knowing that “coopers” made barrels. 

The tower from the inner 

courtyard (Corte Nobile)

Massive old barrels and buckets. 

The screw of the wine press.  I had 

a brain fart and forgot to take

a picture of the whole thing.

The old wine barrels.

We walked through the rooms of the palace, skipping the doll museum (apparently this family singlehandedly kept the creepy doll/marionette craftsmen in business.).  We made our way upstairs through some pretty cool rooms, including the Hall of Justice (Sala di Giustizia) which includes frescos depicting great moments in Borromeo family history.

I assume the purpose of the wall is

defensive, but it's unclear what use

it actually served.

Old villa across the lake.  Yes, my

zoom lens is both better and simpler

than most.

Carol's fired up.

This guy is. . .I have no idea what he's doing.

Thinking of tiling our ceiling in

the sun room in this fashion.

Carol says the three faces represent a demon.

Others argue it represents a politician.

We kept going, which led to stairs, and more stairs.  And then we went up stairs to the top of the tower, taking a page from Jefferson’s advice to go to the highest point.  The views are spectacular.  It was hot, but not an unbearable day, and a lake breeze cooled the top of the tower nicely.  It was a joy to have such commanding 360 degree views from the top.

Some of the views from upon high:

The inner courtyard, and beyond.

Beautiful roof.

Angera's clock tower.

I don't know about you, but this is a great

shot.  Jefferson would approve.

We've seen the Borromeo coat of arms before.

They don't make stair railings. . .

Like they used to.

These three pictures of the vineyard should show the difference in height between three of the views:

Lowest level

Most of the way up.

From the top of the Tower.

There was a family with a daughter and a son – my guess is the daughter was 12 or 13, and the son was around 10 or 11.  From their language and accents, we took them to be Scandinavian, or even possibly Dutch.  First the parents yelled at them for leaning too far out the window (remember, gravity works!).  

Then the son almost dropped his hat out the window, earning him another deserved scolding.  Finally, after his parents reamed him out and he was sulking, the mother played good cop to calm him down.  As we made our way downstairs, we did not see any bodies or clothing flying past us through the window, so it seemed to end well.

We wandered through the smallish but beautiful garden, out a the point of land affording further great views.  The garden was started in 2008 and is organized into different zones of edible plants, medicinal plants, and aromatic herbs.  There's a beautiful, calming shaded fountain in the middle with benches.  We stopped in the café to hydrate, and shared a slice of apple cake.  And then it was back on the road again. 

Scenes from the garden: 

If you are ever in that neck of the woods of Italy, swing by Rocca di Angera. . .it’s worth the stop.  It's very simple, yet inspiring and impressive.

View from the driveway.  The money shot

would be from the lake, but I can't

do everything!