Join me, author Suzanne Hoffman, and licensed wine educator and certified French Wine Scholar Sheral Schowe of the Wasatch Academy of Wine for a highly personalized, intimate seven-day exploration of this enchanting land on a Labor of Love Piemonte Tour from June 9 – 16, 2019.
Piemonte is an enchanting region of Italy begging to be explored. The Alps cradle Piemonte, Italy’s second largest region after Sicily, and dominate its diverse landscape of valleys, vineyard-carpeted rolling hills, and fertile flatland nourished by the Po River.
The region is home to myriad agricultural bounties — wine, rice, cheese, meat, hazelnuts, and the world-famous tartufi bianchi, white truffles. It is rich not only in gastronomic and vinous delights, but in history, culture, and architecture. Despite its capital, Turin, hosting the winter sports world in the 2006 Olympics, and its notoriety as a premier wine region, it remains an under discovered part of Italy.
Oenophiles from Switzerland and Germany began to uncover the treasures of Piemonte in the waning decades of the 20th century. I was among that wave from Switzerland, making the first of nearly 30 visits to Langhe, Roero, and Monferrato areas of Piemonte in November 1999. On June 2, 2016, I launched my book Labor of Love: Wine Family Women of Piemonte at Cà del Baio in Treiso, one of the picturesque villages of the Barbaresco denomination. The launch of Labor of Lovewas not the end of my Piemonte adventures, but the beginning of a whole new chapter in my relationship with the region and its wine families.
My book has enabled both oenophiles and lovers of Italy’s rich culture to connect with 22 of the region’s wine families and now serves as a roadmap for exploring this under discovered region with me.
Each Labor of Love Piemonte tour is customized to meet the interests of the organizer. This one in partnership with the Wasatch Academy of Wine is a wine-centric tour that will include four excellent master classes and many other vinous, gastronomic, and cultural experiences.
There are limited spaces available for the June 2019 tour, so to join in this bucket list worthy adventure, or for information on how to organize your own customized Labor of Love Piemonte tour, email me at Suzanne@winefamilies.com for a registration form.
At 7:30 a.m. Central European Time on Monday, April 18, 2016, the presses at VeronaLibri (obviously in Verona, Italy) will begin to run, bringing to three-dimensional life Labor of Love: Wine Family Women of Piemonte. It will three years and one month to the day when I left for Italy to begin my Labor of Love odyssey (although I didn’t have a title yet, it was truly the beginning of my labor and I have certainly loved every minute of it).
Monferrato Labor of Love Wine Families
Now I would like to introduce you to the three Monferrato wine families I did not know that day I left Denver International Airport for the unknown, but whose stories have become part of life and, as a result, part of my book. Yes, I know there are many more wonderful wine families out there with stories yet to be discovered and told, but a girl has to start somewhere. I believe that I chose 22 fabulous starting points for a journey that will no doubt last for the rest of my life.