Vinum Alba: the wine tourism event in Italy
or at minimum, a lovely daytrip
We usually dislike articles like 10 Things to Do In ____ , and most send you out on daytrips, but yesterday we enjoyed a great wine-soaked daytrip from Asti, and wanted to share!
Vinum Alba is an annual spring open air wine festival in Alba Italy and 2024 marks its 46th edition. For 2024, this happened to coincide with the 25 Aprile / Liberation Day national holiday.
Thousands of wine tourists, from the curious to serious oenophiles (we know, we met some) travel to Alba each spring to enjoy hundreds of Piedmont (Piemonte) wines while strolling through a quaint Italian town surrounded by rolling hills and vineyards. It really does fit the dreamy image one has (and often paints!) of Italy.
An intro to Alba
Alba, Italy as a settlement dates from pre(!)-Roman times, but was officially recognized by Rome in 89BC. It sits kind of in the southwest corner of the Piemonte region of Italy – known worldwide for its excellent wines, most famous of which are probably Barolo and Barbaresco.
Piemonte wine region map from winefolly.com
We trained in from our base in Asti (itself known for its sparkling Asti Spumante wines) a little earlier than necessary, as the fast/commuter trains tend to leave around 7am; they’re cheaper, faster, and direct.
Being a holiday weekend, Alba started to wake up around 9:30am – cafes, bakeries and shops slowly opened their doors, while tourists and locals alike started filtering into the picturesque “centro storico”. We spent these quiet morning hours walking the streets window shopping, admiring architecture, discovering small alleyways and peeking into the unique cathedrals (of course checking out the great art inside!), and checking out a small farmers market.
The town is geared for both tourists and locals – there is a long main street with shopping for fashion, local foods and wine. Besides wine, Alba’s specialties are truffles (especially white) and torrone – a crunchy nougat treat loved throughout Italy, but here loaded with hazelnuts (nocciole) from Piemonte.
Our festival experience
We were winging it on this trip, and we were pretty unprepared (which is why we’re writing – to help you!). It’s pretty organized.
We found clear signage directing us from the main piazza to the festival check-in, (complete with Bacchus wine fountain), where we received our ticket booklets and a map, showing us the tasting sites. There were four areas/piazzas around town – each only around 10-15 minutes walk from the other – set up for tasting by region. Each site had “street food” tents and a few nearby restaurants to accompany the wine. We didn’t try any, but there were certainly some interesting and delicious-looking choices, for between 5-10EUR.
The tasting tents in each piazza are further organized by region and sub region: Langhe, Monferrato, Roero, Terre Alfieri, Asti, etc., most of which have several varietals. Dolcetto & Barbera were dominant, but we enjoyed some others which were new to us like Freisa, Arneis, and others. Barbaresco, Nebbiolo and Barolo each had their own counters, as well.
Being fairly early morning, we of course decided to start with whites, and in particular the sparkling wines for which Asti is so rightly famous. Loved this little number: DuchessaLia Asti Secco!
We were surprised (overwhelmed) by the diversity – some of the tents featured 50 or more bottles of wine to choose from, so decision-making can be a bit daunting. Fortunately, all the tents are staffed by sommeliers (most of whom spoke at least some English), who are happy to discuss your preferences, the typical characteristics of the grape or region, and help you find a delicious wine! If they’re not too busy, they may let you try half pours (mezzo bicchiere) so you can learn more and compare.
Is enough ever too much ?
We were lucky: we purchased the 15 Degustazioni (tastings), but by splitting glasses, ended up tasting over 35 wines over our 8-hour visit. Maybe because an overcast / drizzly day kept the heaviest crowds at bay, and maybe some of the sommeliers were bored, so they bent the rules and let us taste, and taste, and….
In a pro-tip / genius move, we brought our own grissini (small thin breadsticks) to help cleanse our palate between tastes, though clearly, somewhere around 15-20, it got hard to really describe subtle differences.
In all, we spent a lovely day strolling & tasting to complete the full circuit. We would have loved to take advantage of the discount museum coupons in our ticket booklet but we didn’t have time.
Most of the wines offered were either DOC or DOCG, which are the highest forms of recognition. In addition to the delicious Barberas and sparkling wines from Asti, we enjoyed several great DOCG reds from Langhe, and Ruche may have become a new favorite for us. We even tasted a couple grappas, and were delighted to learn they don’t all taste like kerosene!
We asked about the various wines’ pricing, and heard a range from 5 to 50EUR per bottle. Surprisingly though, none of the tents offered any of the wines for purchase, We visited many of the wine shops in town to find our favorites to take home, but came away empty-handed. We did find a couple of them in local supermarkets, but we’re really not sure how to buy the others.
Practical Info: Times & Tickets
Vinum Alba runs two extended weekends stretching from end of April to beginning of May, and is open from 10:30am to 8pm daily. You can choose to purchase tickets for 8 (20EUR) or 15 (35EUR) tastings, which are flexible to use any days of the event. You can also purchase cooking classes and wine dinners with celebrity chefs, blind tasting classes and more for additional fees; sign up early, they fill up quickly, and most were sold out only 2 days into the fest.
The Vinum Alba festival is a perfect way to get familiar with the Italian wines of the Piemonte region, as well as the town of Alba. Through our day of tasting we learned a lot about varietals and wines of the Piedmont region, but there is SOOO much more… with vineyard tours, you could easily book a full week here. It’s easily doable by train as a daytrip from Turin, Genoa, Asti or even Milan. If wine tourism is your thing, travel to Piemonte should be on your list, and the Vinum Alba festival is a great introduction!
