Castello di Barolo site features

You climb to the castle from the square, which it stands directly above — there is no approach drive and no park, because the village grew up tight against the walls.

The visit is the WiMu, and it begins at the top and descends — the opposite of how a castle is usually seen, and deliberate: the museum's argument runs from the vine down to the glass. It covers twenty-five rooms, each with its own exhibition idea.

The third floor deals with the times of wine and takes the visitor back to the roots of the vine. The second floor turns to the long relationship between wine and the arts — visual art, literature, music, cinema and cooking. The piano nobile, the floor the Falletti actually lived on, is given to the history of the castle and to the two people most associated with it: the marchesa Giulia di Barolo and the patriot Silvio Pellico. There is a library on the history of Barolo wine on this floor.

The route ends underground, in the cellars, where the grand cru of Barolo can be tasted. That is where the Enoteca Regionale del Barolo sits, in the restored vaults.

Two of the historic rooms are visitable in their own right: the Biblioteca Storica, the library Silvio Pellico kept in order, and the Museo delle Contadinerie.

The keep

The oldest thing here, and the only part of the first castle still standing. Everything around it is later. If the 10th-century date is right, this block of masonry predates the first written mention of the castle by some three hundred years.

The Salone delle quattro seasons

The first room at the top of the great staircase on the piano nobile: wide, bright, furnished in late Empire style. It takes its name from four paintings set above its four doors, one for each season of the year.

The Sala degli stemmi

Next door, and the room where the village council still meets. Its ceiling carries the arms of the Falletti and of every family they married into — a genealogy you read by looking up. There is a monumental fireplace with 16th-century stucco.

The Stanza della Marchesa

The marchesa's own room, kept for one object: an Empire-style bed, one of the few still to be seen in Italy.

Silvio Pellico's room

The walls look as though they are hung with fabric. They are not — they are painted to imitate it, closely enough that the eye has to be told.

The library

About three thousand volumes, from the 15th to the 19th century. Pellico administered it for the marchesa, and the arrangement is his.

The cellars

Vaulted, restored, and the end of the museum route. The Enoteca Regionale del Barolo is here, which means the building finishes with the thing it has been describing for three floors.