Grinzane Cavour Culture

Cavour

Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, described by the castle itself as uno dei principali artefici del Risorgimento, was mayor of Grinzane from 1832 to 1849. Seventeen years, in his younger life, before the national career that assembled Italy.

What makes this more than a plaque is what he did with the job. He was an able administrator, and he used the post to push improvements in agriculture and in the production of quality wine. The transformation of these hills from subsistence farming into one of the world's great wine regions is usually told as a 20th-century story, and mostly it is — but part of the groundwork was laid by a young mayor in this village who went on to found a country. The commune, previously just Grinzane, took his name afterwards.

The Enoteca Regionale Piemontese Cavour

Inside the castle since 1967, and it describes itself precisely: the first in Piedmont and the second in Italy. That is a real cultural claim. The idea that a region should have an institution presenting its wines collectively, rather than leaving each producer to sell alone, was tried here before almost anywhere else in the country.

It stocks Piedmontese wines and grappe alongside the food of the territory. It also holds the selection of the Ordine dei Cavalieri del Tartufo e dei Vini di Alba, and the mechanism is worth knowing: since 1975 the Order has chosen some of the best lots of Piedmontese wine each year; since 2015 only wineries affiliated to the Enoteca are eligible; and only bottles scoring at least 90 out of 100 carry the Order's label — which can then be bought exclusively here.

The world white truffle auction

Every autumn the castle hosts the Asta Mondiale del Tartufo Bianco d'Alba, at which the finest specimens of the season are auctioned internationally for charitable purposes. It is the event that puts this village of 1,987 people into the world's newspapers, and the structure of it is worth noticing: the most expensive ingredient in Europe sold at the top of its market, with the proceeds given away.

The castle as culture

UNESCO inscribed the castle on 22 June 2014 as one of three Langhe components of the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont — and it is the only individual building among them, the other two being whole landscapes. The listing recognises the building as part of the cultural landscape of wine rather than as military architecture, which is exactly right: for sixty years its principal function has been to present and sell the wine of the hills around it.

The table

Barolo-zone cooking: tajarin, brasato al Barolo, vitello tonnato, the mountain cheeses, and in the autumn whatever the truffle is shaved over.