Truffle Hunting & Barolo - amazing!

Day two of our wine & food odyssey saw us heading to the beautiful area of Langhe where the amazing hills are covered in vines and for us today "Nebbia" or fog.  The grape vines are Nebbiolo and the thought is that the "Nebbia" is the reason for the name of the grape - makes perfect sense if you ask me!
Our first stop was in the lovely town of Alba, a wealthy area of the Italy as the very famous Ferraro company is based here....I reckon the town would occassionaly smell like Nutella as the factory is so humungous!! Many people are employed by the company and the area abounds with hazelnut trees.  We picked up our guide Allessandra and headed to the winery where our truffle hunting expedition had been organised.  On arrival, we all marveled at the incredible beauty of the area - simply stunning.We wandered through some Nebbiolo vines that were being harvested (the last day) and headed to a forest where our truffle hunter Renato and his dog Gigi were waiting.
Renato, was fabulous, a 74 year old marathon runner who hunted truffles when he was not running around at the worlds most famous marathons.  With Gigi, he explained the age of the trees, the value of the truffles, the condition of the harvest this year and other most interesting points about the amazing little nuggets under the earth, and then, it was Gigi's time to shine.
Off the leash, he ran to a tree, began digging and within seconds had retrieved a truffle...just like that!  He proudly brought the truffle back to Renato who gave it a sniff and declared that it was good, but not of the best quality.  We handed the truffle around and the pungent bouquet, so typical of truffle flooded the air...delizioso!

Gigi continued hunting (even though there was some distractions from a passing group of hunting dogs and one one heat!!) and eventually retrieved about 6 truffles including a prized white truffle.
It was such a special treat to be out with Renato as he does not often host groups, so thank you Julia for organising such a special morning.

We then headed back the winery for wine and truffle tasting where we indulged in truffle treats such as truffle salami, truffle infused cheese and a gorgeous truffle butter.  After making some purchases (no, we did not go crazy!!) we headed to a castle for some more fantastic views and then headed to the beautiful town of Barolo for lunch.
Barolo is a magical and small town on a hill, of course, and is the home of the very famous Barolo wines. We indulged in some Barbaresco for lunch at our guides suggestion and it was wonderful.
After leisurely indulging in lunch our next stop was a winery called Fratelli Serio & Batista Borgogno where we were treated to a tour and wine tasting by the 5th generation of the family, Frederica and Emanuela (does that sound familiar?.. you go girls) and enjoyed tasting their range of Barolo and Nebbiolo.
After a long and wonderful day, it was time to head back to Turino with Ivano for passegiatta, and gelato for dinner...perfetto!