Today vineyard and more vineyards tomorrow, the groaning words from my cousin that I heard almost every day when we had to join our parents wine trip in France, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from Champagne to Barolo, the ultimate trip for wine lovers! I have to admit that in that time I was not happy, but at the end at least two vineyards from that trip have become World Heritage Sites and many still waiting to be listed, and that make me quite happy at least I don’t have to revisit those vineyards again.

As I mentioned Barolo was one of our destinations, after long trip in French vineyards, I entered Italy with high expectation for some change to cure my overdose on French wine. The hilly vineyard landscape of Piedmont is really beautiful and so contrast with much lower hill of Burgundy and Champagne. The villages are really pretty and there even having castles on the top of the hill, a beautiful place indeed. Apart from geography and architectures, I could not see much difference from other famous vineyard in France. And I have to admit that I did not have time to appreciate the place, most of the time was spent on wine testing and wine shopping. Apart from the vineyard, we went to Barolo castle, to see old wine and olive oil pressing machine and other many small villages including the famous and beautiful La Morra and Barbaresco. Strangely I don’t know why we skipped Asti, another famous area for Italian sparkling wine and Monferrato for Ruche. Anyway, the Barolo and Barbaresco wines are unquestionably good and pair perfectly with northern Italian cuisine.

We continued our wine trip to Lavaux, another wine region in Switzerland and World Heritage Site via beautiful alpine vineyard of Morgex in Valle d’Aosta. One of the things I tried to tell myself during that trip was that each vineyard is different; there is no similarity in the landscape, the soil, the grapes, the winemaking process, the products, and the wine price. The differences that need time and love to understand the uniqueness of each vineyard, but for me, after Champagne, Burgundy, Arbois and Rhone, vineyards finally become just another vineyard, and amazing that eight years after, I still suffer from that trip and don’t want to visit anymore vineyard.