When Maria Nikolov and I saw the announcement by the 1818 Society of a Great wines of Northern Italy tour, we signed up immediately. We also wondered how can it could include 10 wineries, truffle hunting and tasting, medieval castles, palaces of French and Italian royalty, Land Rover ride through vineyards and several other activities in 7.5 days! But it did, and faultlessly.
We visited four main regions/wines: Barolo, Franciacorta (the Italian “champagne”), Amarone (Valpolicella/Verona) and Prosecco (Valdobbiadene).
Let’s start with the centerpiece of the tour – the wineries. Indeed, they were among the very top in their respective regions. Most of those visited have won numerous prizes in Italy, Europe and the US. They were exquisite as you can see below! The picture on the left is of the 16 participants.
Several of the wineries are also historical monuments: Fontanafredda was founded by the first King of Italy in 1858, for his beloved mistress Rossina; Marquesi del Barolo which began at the Imperial Court of Versailles where Louis XIV’s great granddaughter married C. T. Falleti, the Marquis of Barolo; Serego Alighieri winery is still owned by Dante’s (the famous poet) family, 21 generations later! The cellars were truly amazing – often centuries old, deep below the surface, some used as air raid shelters during the last war.
We also had superb meals with appropriate pairings at various award-winning restaurants, and mostly regional cuisine with locally sourced ingredients.
Of the several additional activities, a nice change of scenery after considerable wine tasting, perhaps the two which the group enjoyed the most were the truffle hunt with the “trifolau” (the truffle hunter), with his energetic dog. To our surprise, one is allowed to enter private forests for mushroom hunting and it took under 10 minutes for the dog to find a truffle – a white one at that, the much rarer and expensive one. The tasting afterwards of white and black truffles was beyond words – the only conversation uttered was “uhhmm, hmmm”! The second was a ride in an open Land Rover over the UNESCO designated Prosecco production hills – breathtaking and educational.
We also learned about the wines we tasted, and well as wines in general. While traveling from one region to another, Patricia the tour guide took out the corresponding aromas for the upcoming wines from a case with 54 tiny flasks of different aromas. Prizes were given out to the participants who got the most correct, although we saw the effects of Covid as our ability to identify aromas was generally not so good. I did get one prize though! We can now also better identify the many flavors in wines (e.g., cherry, truffle, pepper, toast, peaches, etc.)
We thought it was a nice touch and appreciated that after leaving each region, the tour operators carried out a short evaluation to ensure things were going well, and if anything needed to be changed. The overall evaluation for the tour was 4.9 out of a maximum possible of 5.
We enjoyed ourselves so much, as I believe the others on the tour did, we will most likely sign up for another tour next year as I heard there might be an additional 3-4 new ones in 2025. HIGHLY recommended!
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KEYWORDS Italian wine, new friends, Northern Italy
