Cooking & Wine Lovers' Adventure Tour
in Piedmont's Barolo Wine Country in Italy

• Tour Itinerary
• Cooking Tour Dates & Prices
• To Reserve
• Terms & Conditions
• Detailed Cooking Tour Description--You'll feel you're in Italy!
• Cooking Tour Members' Comments
• Accommodations
• More pictures of Piedmont

Tour at a Glance: Brief Description

The Magnificent Barolo & Barbaresco Wine Country: beauty, great cuisine, wines & people

Renowned for some of Italy's best red wines, Barolo and Barbaresco, and for its outstanding gastronomy, this small area is about 70 km. or 30 miles in hills south of Turin in the Piedmont region.

In your minivan and on your strolls and optional hikes with your local Italian guides, you'll explore nine hilltowns, many crowned with castles, and enjoy the beauty and peace of paths in vineyards.

You'll feel the tranquillity seep into you in this peaceful countryside. You'll stand in awe admiring panoramas in a poetic landscape of series of gentle, green quilted hills and valleys covered with vineyards, fields and forests. On a clear day you can see all the way to the Italian Alps.

Italian Cooking Lessons and Cuisine: a wonderful variety of people, places and tastes to experience!

During your six day cooking and wine adventure in Piedmont, Italy, you'll cook with local chefs in their kitchens in four top restaurants in different towns in the Barolo and Barbaresco wine country. You'll savour an amazing array of regional dishes in fine Italian restaurants and at winery lunches paired with a variety of wines: Barbera, Barbaresco, Barolo and more. Italian dishes like: a red pepper flan with fonduta sauce risotto pink with Barolo wine thin delicate yellow tajarin pasta covered with truffle shavings baked guinea hen with rosemary a hazelnut and chocolate cake with Moscato wine zabaglione semi-freddo of hazelnut torrone candy.

Chef Franco in appetizer cooking lesson in Piedmont

Lots of Barolo & Barbaresco Wineries to Discover Big and Small: meet some of the owners

You'll enjoy exclusive tours of the Ratti family historic wine museum and Barolo and Barbaresco wineries often with the owners, from historic to modern, from big to small, from famous to undiscovered, from traditional style to international style wines. A wide range of wineries for you to experience! You'll love all the banter with our warm and friendly cast of characters! You get to know a vast array of local characters you'd never meet otherwise: small family restaurant owners to a chef presiding over many kitchens, local Barolo wine celebrities to philosophical father winery owners, a self sufficient farm family with 6 children, and my dear friend and local colleague, Elio, born in the area. You'll feel Italian for a week!

Brezza family winery owners in their wine cellars in Barolo in Piedmont

 

Accommodation: A Hotel With a Royal Past

You may stay at the historic Hotel Real Castello in Verduno where you feel you're going back in time to a slower, country way of life, or in another historic hotel. The Real Castello was the summer home of Italian King Carlo Alberto in the 1850's, and has country style rooms with traditional looking decor (no phone, no TV), frescoed dining rooms, quiet garden, a down to earth feel and views of the Italian Alps on a clear day. A wonderful refuge for you and very friendly service from the family owners. Pictures of accommodation. Cooking Tour Itinerary Detailed Cooking Tour Description--You'll feel you're in Italy!

Historic Hotel Real Castello in Verduno in Barolo wine country

2008 Cooking Tour Dates:

Any time on request for two people or more--ask us for dates you like.

2008 Cooking Tour Prices:

Prices are in Euros and are subject to currency exchange fluctuation.

For group of 2-7 people: 2595 Euros. (approx $3815 US or $3840 CAD)
Single supplement: 300 Euros

Included:

• hotel with private bath and continental breakfast
• cooking lessons
• all meals
• excursions listed in the itinerary
• private transport in minivan
• local guides.

Not included:

• wines with your meals so you can choose which wines you want to drink.

Cooking Tour Members' Comments
Sample Tour Recipe
Why Travel in Italy With Us

To Reserve: Contact Margaret Cowan at margaret@italycookingschools.com or call 1-800-557-0370 or 604-681-4074 or fax 604-681-4909 (Pacific time).

One stop shopping for your whole Italy vacation

Our travel agent colleagues at Aquarius Travel Inc. are experts on Italy, and can assist you with any arrangements you require to make your Italy vacation a memorable experience.

Ask her about villa, apartment or B & B accommodation throughout Italy--3000 in Tuscany alone! She can also arrange your car rentals, sightseeing tours, Italian language classes, and airfare. It's one stop shopping with an Italy expert, so it's easy for you!

VISA and Mastercard accepted.