Having arrived in Nizza Monferrato by bus from Alessandria I made my way into the old town to the central square. I had expected yet another of the pretty old towns that you find all over Italy, this one with a bit of wine focus. Instead I found a fairly mundane modern town with some old buildings in between and I was left wondering: Why is this on the list?

Ahead of my visit I had studied the reviews on this site and wasn't expecting much. If even Els can't find many - let alone nice - things to say you know this probably isn't one of the greats. But still, I had expected something and the "old" town of Nizza Monferrato just had very little of anything to show. If this is WHS material, every second town in Italy would deserve the honors.

To get a bit deeper into the vineyards, I decided to hike North West into the hills. As soon as I climbed the hills I got some nice views of the vineyards. The Bricco de Monferrato (picture) itself is a nice photo opportunity. As a practical recommendation, it's worthwhile to take a proper look at the 60MB large site map before visiting. It kind of messes up your data plan when you do that in the hills of Nizza Monferrato looking frantically for OUV and those fabled vineyards.

Frankly, I am hard pressed to make out anything resembling OUV. In a site like St Emilion you have a rock hewn church and a nice old town as a highlight. Also Burgundy has Dijon and Beaune to show. For this site it's really down to the vineyards that look more or less like vineyards look everywhere. The German vineyards along the Moselle and the Rhine are more impressive than what I got to see in Piedmont. As a consequence I awarded the lowest rating (0.5).

Getting There

If you are visiting by public transport your options are limited. The area is fairly rural and access by public transport not very frequent. The next largest towns are Alessandria and Asti.

My recommendation would be to hike between Nizza Monferrato and Castelnuovo Calcea. Castalnuovo Calcea is on the west end of the Nizza Monferrato vineyards location and is served by a few busses a day running between Asti and Nizza Monferrato. Nizza Monferrato meanwhile is on the South Eastern tip of the core zone, so you can traverse the full core zone in a 2h walk taking in the scenery. In Nizza Monferrato you can connect by more frequent busses with Alessandria from where you can connect easily by regular train to Turin and Milan.

In my case I started and returned to Alessandria in an afternoon. I stayed a few hours in Nizza Monferrato from where I ventured into the vineyards to the North West. Follow the Strada Bricco de Monferrato up into the hills and you will have nice views of the Piedmont vineyards plus the fairly picturesque Bricco chapel.

While Google maps has the proper schedules, it does not have the correct bus stop for Alessandria. If you are exiting the train station go the road, do not cross the road, turn right and follow the main road, till the parking lot in front of the train station ends. There you should find the post office The (blue) bus should start from there, but better ask the bus drivers of the blue (regional) busses. The bus stop in Nizza Monferrato is infront of the train station bar. In each case tickets are sold on the bus.