La Morra discovery guide

La Morra has the single best view in the Langhe. From the terrace at the top of this village of 2,668 people, at 513 metres, the entire Barolo amphitheatre is visible at once — the vineyards UNESCO inscribed on 22 June 2014, laid out below you with the villages on their ridges. Ten minutes away is the Cappella del Barolo, a 1914 vineyard shelter repainted by Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett in 1999.

The friction is the climb and the size. La Morra is up a steep hill with sloping stepped streets, and the village itself is half an hour of walking. There is no public transport worth using and nothing is reachable on foot from the valley.

The smart way is to pair it with Barolo, ten minutes down the hill, as one loop: the castle and the museum there, the terrace and the chapel here. Taste at the Cantina Comunale in the village before committing to a cellar — and decide who is driving first.

What the year does on this ridge

La Morra is high for the Langhe, at 513 metres, which makes it colder and clearer than the valley — and it is the view that the season decides.

• January–February — cold, often above the fog rather than in it, which can be spectacular: the valleys fill with cloud and the village sits in sun. Many cellars are by appointment and some restaurants close.
• March–April — bare vines, graphic ridges, growers with time. Changeable and often wet.
• May–June — the best weeks of the year. Vines in leaf, long evening light raking across the amphitheatre, the terrace pleasant rather than crowded.
• July–August — hot and hazy, which flattens the view. No shade on the slopes at all. Quieter than you would expect.
• September — the vendemmia, with the whole amphitheatre being picked below you. Visually the most interesting month and the hardest for cellar appointments.
• October–November — the fog. From up here you are often looking down onto the top of it, which is the famous Langhe image. Also the overflow from Alba's truffle fair, 10 October to 6 December, so the terrace and the restaurants are busy.
• December — cold, clear and very quiet.

If you come once: late May or early June for the light, or late October if you want to stand above the fog.

The terrace, first

Go straight to the top of the village. The panoramic terrace is the reason La Morra is on anyone's itinerary: from 513 metres the whole Barolo amphitheatre is in front of you, with Barolo below and the ridges of Castiglione Falletto and Serralunga d'Alba beyond. Go in the first hour of light or the last; at midday the view is flat and the terrace is busy.

There is a second viewpoint, from the Torre Campanaria — the bell tower — which gives a different and higher angle.

The Cantina Comunale

The village's communal wine cellar is the right first stop for the wine, because it pours across a range of local producers in one room. Taste here, decide what you like, and then arrange to visit that producer rather than guessing from a label.

The Cappella del Barolo

A few minutes out of the village at Brunate, and the thing people remember. It was built in 1914 by farm workers as a temporary shelter from storms while working the surrounding vineyards, was never consecrated, and was originally called the cappella di Santissima Madonna delle Grazie. The Ceretto family bought it with the surrounding land in 1970. In 1999 it was taken on by Sol LeWitt, who did the exterior, and David Tremlett, who repainted the entire interior — a pattern of curved and geometric lines in several colour schemes, visible across the valley.

It stands in a working vineyard on a farm track. Park properly and stay out of the vines.

The walk

The Sentiero del Barolo starts from the centre of La Morra and runs through the vineyards towards the neighbouring villages. The municipality names the trail but publishes no distance for it, so ask at the village rather than trusting a figure — and walking it one way to Barolo with lunch at the far end solves the driving problem completely.

The loop

La Morra and Barolo are ten minutes apart and belong together: the castle and the WiMu there, the terrace and the chapel here. Grinzane Cavour and Alba are on the way back.

La Morra is a village that knows exactly what it has and is slightly protective of it.

The defining fact is the one about the vines: historically it was illegal in La Morra to cut down a Nebbiolo vine, and the penalties were severe. That is a remarkable thing for a village to have legislated. It means the commune decided at some point that the identity of the place was the grape, and backed that with law rather than sentiment — which is a different relationship with a crop from the one most farming communities have. The modern DOCG rules are the same instinct written at a regional scale.

The second thread is the view, and what it has done to the village. A settlement of 2,668 people at 513 metres with the best panorama in the Langhe receives a great many people who come for twenty minutes. The village has responded by giving them somewhere to stand — a proper terrace — and somewhere to spend money: the Cantina Comunale, a communal cellar pouring the work of local producers. That is a sensible, collective, rather Piedmontese solution to the problem of being beautiful.

The third is the chapel, and it tells you something about contemporary Langhe. A 1914 shelter for vineyard workers, never consecrated, bought by a wine family in 1970 and handed in 1999 to Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett — an American conceptualist and a British artist — to repaint inside and out. The result is now a landmark of the region. A village that permits that is not a museum of itself, and the confidence involved is worth noticing.

La Morra is a working wine commune of 2,668 people whose main asset is a view, which brings a particular kind of pressure: a great many visitors arrive, photograph the landscape from the terrace, and leave again without spending anything in the village.

• Stop, do not just photograph. The most useful thing a visitor can do here is buy or eat in the village rather than treating it as a viewpoint with parking. The Cantina Comunale exists precisely so that you can taste across several local producers in one place and buy from whichever you prefer.
• Keep out of the rows. The vineyards that make the view are private property and a crop under cultivation, with machinery in them at harvest and spraying in spring. The marked tracks — including the Sentiero del Barolo, which starts here — are the legal and better way through.
• Settle the driving before the first tasting. La Morra sits at 513 metres and the roads down are steep, narrow, unlit and sometimes fogbound. Hire a driver, nominate a non-taster, or walk.
• Treat the chapel with some restraint. The Cappella del Barolo stands in a working vineyard at Brunate and is one of the most photographed objects in Piedmont. It is reached on a farm track; park where you are meant to, do not block it, and stay out of the vines around it.
• Come outside October and November. The truffle season in Alba pushes its overflow up here, and the terrace gets crowded. May, June and September give you the same view with room to stand at the rail.
• Respect what the village protects. Historically it was illegal in La Morra to cut down a Nebbiolo vine, with severe penalties. That is the local attitude to this landscape in one fact, and it is older than tourism.

What La Morra actually costs

Very little to visit and as much as you choose to spend on wine. The view is free, the terrace is free, the chapel is free to look at, and the walk is free. What costs money here is the bottle.

The wine

Part of La Morra lies within the Barolo appellation, which means the wine from those parcels carries the full regime: 100% Nebbiolo, at least 36 months of ageing after harvest with at least 18 in wood, five years for a Riserva. That obligatory patience is most of the price, in a zone of roughly 1,734 hectares producing around ten million bottles a year.

Three practical points:

• Start at the Cantina Comunale. Tasting across several local producers in one room, then buying from the one you preferred, is both cheaper and better than guessing — and it is the village's own cellar, so the money stays here.
• Buy at the cellar door. Normally better value than a shop and much better than at home. Tasting fees are modest and usually waived against a purchase.
• Look at the alternatives. Langhe Nebbiolo is the same grape without the long ageing requirement, at a fraction of the price. Barbera d'Alba and Dolcetto d'Alba are the weekday wines.

Everything else

• Eating in the village is good value, and there are not many places — booking is the real constraint rather than the price.
• Accommodation up here is moderate and the view from a room is worth paying a little for. October and November are the expensive weeks, because of Alba.
• A driver for a tasting day is the expense worth accepting. The road down from 513 metres is steep and narrow.
• The Cappella del Barolo costs nothing to see from outside, which is how most people see it.