For the weekend, a group of friends went to Alba for the annual white truffle fest in Piemonte, Italy. This was a festival that I had been to my first year in Geneva with the Baleskys and my 3rd time to the Piemonte region (last trip was August 2016 with the Bellgraphs).
The group of 9 of us rented a house one top of one of the hills on the vineyards outside of Alba and then there were two other groups of friends in the area staying in other locations.
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| Sunset on the drive in |
On Friday, we drove from Geneva and the first thing that we noticed along the drive was it was quite foggy after entering Italy. After further research, we discovered that 30km west of Turin that there were several wildfires and this led to the poor visibility. Luckily, the smoke was noticeable for breathing, but it did it down on some of the views of the vineyards. Once reaching Alba, we dropped off our gear and settled prior to going to dinner. We had dinner at Vinoteca Centro Storico, which is near the castle in the nearby town of Serralunga; the place was great!
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| Serralunga from above |
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| Chef at the restaurant carving Serrano for appetizers |
The following morning we had planned a guided truffle hunt with a truffle hunter and his two dogs where we learned about the truffle and the ‘hunting’ season and it was all quite interesting. While searching for truffles, our group found 2 black truffles and 1 white truffle and it was fun to see the dogs search the forest floors and then begin to dig when catching an aroma.
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| Truffle hunter |
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| Truffle Hunting |
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| Post truffle hunt |
The remainder of the day was spent in Alba at the trufflefest. The festival is a large tent with farmer/vendors selling truffle and other truffle flavor foods. We used the opportunity to purchase an assortment of food as the group (9 from our house and the 9 others in the area from Geneva) had a giant pasta family-style dinner where we were staying that night.
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| Truffles at the trufflefest |
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| Dinner is served |
The following morning, we did a wine tasting in the area to re-stock on Barolo and Barbarescos before driving back to Geneva.
Short movie that one of the people on the trip created:
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