We stayed at Palais Cerequio in La Morra and loved it. Close enough to visit a lot of places.
Il Centro was fantastic; great wine list and food. My wife says best tiramisu she’s ever had and she knows her tiramisu. If you have a LARGE budget, do the white truffle tasting menu at Piazza Duomo in Alba.
I’ve just had a few days in the area and can echo John’s comment re Cavallotto. Just out of Castiglione Falletto so an easy walk, the wines are fantastic and the family very nice. I learned a lot from my time spent with Giuseppe Cavallotto. Aldo Conterno are just outside Castiglione Falletto on the left on road to Monforte d’Alba but note that they do not have a winery sign (I hadn’t turned on the GPS and drove straight past them) and have a ‘Favot’ plaque on the front gate. They do not sell wines at the cellar door by the way.
That road you are talking of John is fully paved and does have a fabulous view looking back up the Bricco Boschis hillside to Cavallotto.
Cheers…Mark
Truffle footnote: In 2004 my brother and I ate at La Coccinella, at Oliver’s recommendation. It was a great, if briefly scary, experience.
My brother had never had truffles, so he ordered them. They were priced by the gram on the menu (I don’t remember the price). The waiter came with the shaver and began shaving … and shaving … and shaving … and shaving.
Suddenly I realized that my brother didn’t realize that they were charging according to the amount they shaved. (Of course, no restaurant weighs the shavings, which might have alerted my brother.) I pictured us having to wash dishes at La Coccinella for months to pay off the dinner bill and gave the ‘time out’ sign to my brother, shuddering at the tab we had just run up.
When the bill came, the truffle tab was something like 10 or 15 euros.
My wife and I stayed there as well. Very nice. Fairly centrally located for driving to wineries, though not really much immediately around it.
I may be in the minority, but I don’t really care for Alba, and I wouldn’t want to stay there. Kind of hard to get in/out/around, sort of a bland vibe to it, and I didn’t love any of the restaurants I tried there (though it was only a few).
We were there in May. Had a fabulous stay at relais San Maurizio. Not the most convenient but beautiful accommodations. Also a fantastic Michelin star restaurant on premises named Guido. I’d highly recommend eating at Duomo in Alba. The best meal I ever had in Italy. Regarding appointments we had an amazing guide/driver who made appointments for us, including at G Conterno, Bartolo Mascarello and Cavallotto. Pm if you want info on that.
We just returned from 5 days in Piedmont. All of the advice in this thread is spot on.
Regarding accommodations, we booked an apartment (located within a “castle”) via AirBNB, which has a number of good apartment-type options across the area in many of the villages.
Regarding wineries, I had excellent luck using email to contact wineries and schedule visits. I’m going to separately post pics and notes of my various visits over the coming days. And good advice above to schedule visits geographically so you’re not driving back/forth across the region.
I’ll echo the earlier positive comments on dining at Il Centro. Had a excellent dinner in January of this year and the father and daughter service team truly cares. Excellent Piedmontese dishes and the wine list was excellent (the wife and I had a Euro 90 1988 Produttori Barbaresco Paje, iirc, kept in their robust basement cellar that we also visited after the dinner). Just to warn, it’s in Priocca and can mean a 20-25 minute highway drive from Castiglione or La Morra, in Barolo.
Le Torri in Castiglione is a very good hotel with very professional and friendly wife-and-husband hosts. Since, it was a last minute trip for us, a desperate email to them about a week before we left the US, got us an arranged winery visits/tastings at Moccagatta in Barbaresco and Azienda Barale in Barolo. The hotel appears to have other winery connections in Castiglione for arranging appointments.
R Cabrera,
Could not agree with you more re Il Centro. Had a wonderful dinner there in September, including an '04 Elio Grasso Case Mate. One small correction: It is a father/son service team, Enrico and Gianpiero Cordero, and Enrico’s wife, Elide, is the head chef. The young woman helping to serve is not an immediate member of the family, I believe.
J Henson
Now that I recall, the daughter I referred to attends school in Brooklyn NY and she was home for the holidays, and she was a regular staff at Il Centro.