Piemonte: A Hot Destination for 2016

Food tourism in Italy is hot because there is nothing "elitist" about it. In Italy, a "chef" doesn't arrange your food on the plate like it's a medieval tower topped with chervil "trees" and then challenge you to try to eat it. Kitchen slaves don't micro-chop your garlic. Instead, the woman in the kitchen cranks out irregular chunks of garlic, cutting against the thumb just like her mother who is likely to be in the kitchen rolling out the restaurant's pasta using an ancient rolling pin almost as old as she is.

Food tourism includes drinking, of course. Good, cheap wine or great wine with a pedigree and a guarantee. You have a choice. In Piemonte--or more properly a section of the Piemonte called the Langhe--the choice is made more maddening because the wines are so darned good, so good they don't have to be over-oaked to cover the taste. Wine is so important here that the regional enoteca in the town of Barbaresco is inside a (former) church.

Just start on the Barolo and when your wallet starts to squeal switch to the people's wine, Barbera.

It's no secret any more. People have started to come in droves to Piemonte:

"There was a dramatic increase in tourism to the area in 2015 which, whilst providing a welcome boost to local businesses, also had its negative effects on those of us who live here. Some of my favourite wines sold out quickly and I now have to consider making reservations in restaurants where I used to just turn up." Darryl Baldwin of Piemontemio

Remember that little chunk of northwestern Italy, Piemonte. My opinion: Italy's best wines. Top scenery. Best food. And--you can go in November, truffle season. And the eye candy, the sea of vines, the hilltop castles, the ring of the Alps that surrounds it all, it's still stunning. Bring a jacket against the night-time chill, that's all. But come. Bring your camera and your appetite.

Let's look at what the Langhe looks like in mid-November. You know, when the plants go all bare and the earth becomes ugly as all get out. (All these shots were made on the same weekend)

Yes, there's a restaurant. Don't tell anyone about this place. I need to find a room there every November for a Truffle fix.