Discover Castello di Grinzane Cavour

The castello di Grinzane Cavour is a fortification in the village of the same name, in the province of Cuneo. Since 2014 it has been a UNESCO World Heritage site — one of the three Langhe components of the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont, and the only one of the three that is a building: the other two, the Langa of Barolo and the Hills of Barbaresco, are landscapes.

Its date is not settled. Historical notices of its origins are extremely scarce and there are real doubts about when it was built: some place it in the 13th century, while others hold that the tower dates to 1350 and the rest to a later period. The likeliest reading is that the great tower was the original nucleus and the later bodies completed it.

Around the 15th century the castle and its lands belonged to the marchese di Busca — and we know because his coats of arms were found under the plaster of some of the rooms.

It then passed through many owners of whom little survives, until in the 19th century it housed, for nearly twenty years, Camillo Benso, count of Cavour.

Today it holds the Langhe Museum, the Enoteca Regionale Piemontese Cavour, and an open-air museum in the vines.

This is a medieval fortification that has been lived in rather than ruined, and its plan is legible in one walk round it.

The keep occupies a whole wing and is almost certainly the primitive nucleus: the rest is a U-shaped range built out from it. That is the reconciliation the record offers for its own dating dispute — a 14th-century tower with later bodies, rather than one campaign.

Four turrets ornament the range: two square, two round. The round pair are external and pensili — hanging, carried out on corbels instead of founded on the ground, which is a decorative-defensive form rather than a structural necessity.

The fenestration is the most informative thing on the building. The main east and west facades are generously windowed; the north has only two openings; and the south has many, regularly aligned over three floors. The castle shows a blank face one way and a palace face the other.

The modern intervention is deliberately invisible. Giorgio Teggi's 2010 wing is inside the hill, so a congress hall for 250 people has been added without touching the outline of the manor.

The building sequence can only be given as the record gives it, which is with an open disagreement.

The tower first. Whether that is 13th-century or around 1350 is exactly what is disputed. What the record treats as probable is the order: the great tower was the primitive nucleus.

Then the rest, later. The successive bodies completed it, producing the rectangular plan and the U-shaped range with its four turrets.

Then centuries of ownership — the marchese di Busca around the 15th century, then many hands — during which the interiors were plastered, burying the Busca arms that later came back out of the walls.

Then an agricultural estate. Under Cavour from 1830, the work was done on the land rather than the building: canals traced, two hundred thousand vines planted, rational cultivation introduced, beetroot attempted.

Then excavation. In 2010 the newest construction went into the hill beneath and behind the castle rather than onto it — the one modern building campaign here, and the one you cannot see.

How old is the castle? Nobody is sure, and the record says so. Notices of its origins are extremely scarce: some put it in the 13th century, others date the tower to 1350 with the rest later. The tower is probably the original nucleus.

Why is it a UNESCO site? It was inscribed in 2014 as one of the three Langhe components of the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont. It is the only one of the three that is a building — the Langa of Barolo and the Hills of Barbaresco are landscapes.

What is the connection with Cavour? Camillo Benso, count of Cavour, lived here for almost twenty years from 1830, as a guest of his uncles the De Tonnerre. He administered the estate, planted two hundred thousand vines, traced canals and tried beetroot, and was mayor of the comune from May 1832 — aged twenty-two — until February 1849.

When is it closed? Every Tuesday, with one named exception, Tuesday 2 June. Hours are 10:00–19:00 from 1 April to 31 October (last entry 18:00) and 10:00–18:00 otherwise (last entry 17:00).

What does admission cost? €8 full; €6 for groups of more than 25, over-65s and students; €4 schools; €3 children 6–14; audio-guide €3 extra. Free for under-6s, disabled visitors with a carer, museum subscription and Torino+Piemonte Card holders.

Can I just book a guided tour? Only with at least a week's notice, and they need a minimum of 15 people. The cost is per group: €50 in Italian, €60 in English or French.

What is inside? The Langhe Museum — rural civilisation, ethnographic trails and the Cavour relics, in rooms with painted ceilings and frescoes — and the Enoteca Regionale Piemontese Cavour, open since 1967.

Is there anything to see outside? The Museo In Vigna, opened 19 June 2021, a route on the history of wine and the vine around the castle, described as always open.